Winter is my discontent

ORLANDO, Fla. – Here it is, January 5, 2009 and I’m sitting at my laptop writing a story on the demise of the Detroit Dragons of the AAHA. As the sun sets and I hit save to upload the breaking news, it dawns on me. I hate the month of January. Exactly two years ago to the date, I was burning up serious cell phone minutes trying to track down information on a major breaking story. On that day, after Osceola Heritage Park had locked the doors to the Silver Spurs Arena on the Florida Seals for failure to meet financial obligations, the SPHL shut down the franchise. That evening, players and fans gathered to drown their sorrows and say their goodbyes. For me, it was a complex and conflicted time. I was doing “volunteer” public relations work for the team – essentially filling the role of media person by doing web site stories – along with writing for ProHockeyNews. I had access to the team but wasn’t in the “inner circle” of staff. In retrospect, being on the outside may have been a saving grace although I seemed to be the closest thing to a staff member that the fans could find. At the same time, I was also a season ticket holder and a fan. I continually marveled at the talent of the players, both on the ice and with the fans, especially the kids. I had never been one to give in to hero worship but seeing how these young men playing a kid’s game treated the littlest one like they were the heroes, I could understand it. In retrospect, the demise of the Florida Seals seemed to be a train wreck waiting to happen. The short version involved a new owner who knew real estate but not how to run a hockey team. Naturally, the long version has more twists and turns than an Olympic giant slalom ski course. William Lucia was an unknown commodity when he came on the scene to make a deal with former owner David Waronker for the franchise. (Waronker was the person who had asked me to do work for the team’s web site.) Well, not exactly unknown to some because of his dealings with the attempted reincarnation of the WHA as a junior league and its team in Daytona Beach, Florida. Needless to say, it was not a pretty picture. By his own admission after the team went down for the count, Lucia was leveraging his real estate projects against the hockey team. In other words, he was paying hockey bills with money from real estate with the idea of flipping the cash back once the hockey money came in. Thing is, the hockey money never arrived. The staff that came on in August of 2006 after the remaining staff from the previous season resigned as a group was not in tune with running a sports franchise. Advertising was almost non existent. Communication with the season ticket holders was a major issue – which is why the people in the seats looked for me. Problem was, I didn’t know much more than they did. Lucia and his people took care of the players until late December of 2006. That was when the paychecks began to bounce and overdue apartment bills became eviction notices. The issues, however, began well before that. The Ice Girls promotions and dance teams stopped coming when their already minimalist checks came to a halt. By the last home game on December 23 of 2006, only Ice Girls coordinator Kristin DeCubellis and dance coordinator Jenna Straub remained. DeCubellis at the time was also doing community relations work as a paid staffer. She and I would talk on a weekly basis in between games so that if there were events that needed press, I could get the work done. By December 23, she had gone multiple pay cycles without getting a dime. She was still doing her job, wearing a smile that hid the stress of the situation. The whole thing was maddening because the team was going to keep her from having a Christmas where she could give gifts to her family, especially her parents who spent time and money helping their daughter get things done with the Ice Girls (which many people noticed and appreciated). I helped her with that Christmas and other fans told her that if she needed more, they were more than willing to help out. In the weeks following the death of the team, fans (myself included) and the booster club pitched in with money, food and more. The amount of caring that came about was enough to melt even Ebenezer Scrooge’s ice cold heart. Fast forward to 2008. December had already been a bad month as for the first time, the ECHL had two teams – Augusta and Fresno – take the “dirt nap” and cease operations. Never in the league’s 20-plus year history had any team gone down in the middle of the season, let alone two in a period of three weeks. In the end, it was the financials that forced the teams out of business. Meanwhile, up in the brand new AAHA, things were getting a little hairy. The team in Battle Creek, Michigan (yes, the “cereal capital of the world”) was struggling as its owner, Andrew Miller, hadn’t anticipated that the expenses of operating a team would be beyond his means. He went to the association and asked for help. Help did come in the form of team doctor Dr. Joseph Burkhardt along with financial broker Richard Williams, whose son Nick plays for the Revolution. According to the Battle Creek Enquirer, Joe Kolodziej, president of Hockey Talent Management, was also part of the newly configured ownership group (although AAHA officials deny that Kolodziej has anything to do with the operations). Miller was reduced to a minority role in the ownership. The move seemed to stabilize the franchise. Across the state in Fraser, just outside of Detroit, things were much worse. Tim and Matt Mitchell, the owners of the Dragons, were also new to the ownership game. Although early on everything seemed to be in order, it turned out to be a front. The Mitchells were, in a nutshell, undercapitalized and cut corners everywhere, most notably in marketing and transportation. Crowds were sparse because no one knew there were games being played. The rink (Great Lakes Sports City) was not being paid. Worst of all, the players’ checks began bouncing almost immediately as the season started. I was introduced to Rick Bohlinger, the father of one of the Detroit players, by a mutual friend. From the first time I talked to him, I could tell that Bohlinger knew the game and knew that the team was in trouble. He relayed to me his personal observations of the situation and with every successive notation, I could feel the same ominous echo in my stomach that I had felt with the Seals. Once again, I became the “go-to” person for fans. After my initial story on the situation, I began to get emails from people in the Detroit area asking me what I knew and if I could get any answers to their questions. Once again, I knew little more than the fans did. Beyond that, what could I tell them? AAHA representatives said that they did all they could but in the end, the accrued debt was just too much of a stumbling block to finding a new owner. The Detroit players were put into a dispersal draft and a traveling team, the Chicago Blaze (an expansion team for next season that was asked to ramp up early) will fill the Dragons’ road game commitments. There is still plenty of talk about things happening “behind the scenes” in the AAHA so the stories of doom and gloom may not be quite over. For the sake of the players and the fans in Michigan and Indiana, I hope that the talk is just that because the ice the teams are skating on is thin enough now. As for me, I’d like to just avoid the rest of January and move on to February. Oh, wait, the one year anniversary of the MAHL dying is just before Valentine’s Day…can I just hate winter? Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com