Part one of three
ORLANDO, Fla. – One year ago, the founders of the Federal Hockey League were answering questions from skeptics who outwardly wondered if the new circuit would do well enough to see a second season. It wasn’t easy but when the FHL recently held its first annual meeting, it signaled that not only had the league survived, it was ready to take the next step forward.
Despite the loss of one team, the abrupt movement of another, numerous reconfigurations of the schedule and eventually the truncation of the regular season, 
FHL Commissioner and owner Don Kirnan is looking at a league that is adding three new cities for the coming season. He is also looking at a league that is not afraid to make changes, all of which are expected to keep the fan interest high.
For Kirnan, whose background in junior hockey in the Northeast is extensive, the FHL‘s inaugural season became the most pleasant of surprises for a man who knows what success is.
“We finished the season which was great but the level of play and the attendance for the playoffs was just very remarkable for the first year,” Kirnan said. “I don’t know how many years it has been – it has probably been 15 to 20 years – since someone in the Northeast actually completed the first year and went into the second year so it hasn’t been really easy. It’s been great and I think the second year is going to be really good.”
Kirnan admitted that from the beginning, the FHL had an uphill battle to fight against a public perception that low level pro hockey would not or could not work in the hockey-rich Northeast region.
“A lot of the places we went had teams that didn’t last more than a month or two. The natural tendencies from everybody, from the fan base, first of all when they saw the first game, they were just mystified (by) how good the level was. That was a shocker to them but then the fact that we were around after a month or two was another shock,” he said. “We really had to wrestle the first three or four months with the fact that no one really expected that we would be around. We were held back a little bit by everybody just thinking that it wasn’t going to last more than a month or two.”
The strides the FHL took in its first year are not lost on its vice-commissioner. Andrew “Sarge” Richards has seen first hand what a successful league can do. His son Mark is general manager of the SPHL’s Augusta RiverHawks, who in their first year in the league went to the championship series. Mark Richards also played a big part in the FHL’s success as general manager of the New York Aviators before heading back south to reunite with his old boss, RiverHawks’ owner Bob Kerzner.
Richards, who lives in the middle of SPHL country, said that he thinks the FHL is ahead of the evolutionary curve established by its older southern relative.
“I told Don I thought we were starting out where the SPHL ended year two or maybe at the beginning of year three or somewhere in between. Year one (for the SPHL) was not anything to really say we’re terrific but just like us you had to get started some way. Year two they got better but I think year three was when they started kicking it in gear and started to upgrade and was accepted by the players and the other (hockey) community people,” he said. “I thought we had a head start on that mainly because of some rule differences and some other things. Being in the northeast, it’s easier to get some guys that may become part-time players at this stage because they really actually have another job but they’re available for a lot of the time. We had a lot of things that worked out well for us and some that didn’t work out so well for us. Every day is a struggle. We struggle every day to get better. We’re getting better on a daily and weekly basis but we have a long way to go.”
Surviving to play a second season is one thing, learning from experience and using the knowledge to improve is what makes a league into a success. Richards said that everyone involved – league personnel, owners, coaches, players – needs to play a part in understanding what is necessary to make the FHL run smoothly.
“We learned certain things and they’re learning too. They learned in the early going that we were all rookies – rookie owners, rookie coaches, rookie administrators – at this level. We all made rookie mistakes,” he said. “We’re not rookies any more so we’re not making those mistakes. We’re sticking to our guns more than we were able to in year one trying to get off the ground.”
Every aspect of year one’s operation was looked at to see what could be improved. Nothing was left unexamined, even the process of haggling over ice time for home games.
“I think the biggest thing the owners learned, and I would say that some of us had different viewpoints on this last July, is how important the schedule is in determining whether you succeed or fail. Last year we got bamboozled into a corner and some members had to take far more less desirable dates than should have been reasonably expected of anybody and it showed on their balance sheets,” Richards said. “They learned that lesson real quick. Now we’re taking our time and we’re not going to cave in to any one or any two people saying they can’t do something. We’re keeping a strict two-to-one ratio of weekend dates versus weekday dates. We’re trying to piece that together now by getting additional times and coming out with a schedule that will allow everybody to be successful.”
Of course, the best teachers of all might just be the fans themselves. They will let you know quickly whether you are doing things well enough to earn their trust (and money) or poorly enough to drive them away.
“We realized that it took a while in areas that didn’t have professional hockey in the past on a gate-driven situation to build up a fan base. I’m a Montreal Canadiens fans and a New York Yankees fan and they’re not 90 days old, they’re 90 years old. It took a while basically to build up
FHL Commissioner Don Kirnan (photo courtesy of FHL)
As he traveled around to the league cities, Kirnan took the time to reach out to the fans and listened to what they had to say. What he heard made him realize that the FHL was on the right track.
“They (the fans) were just mystified. They expected to see an inferior product with people who couldn’t play. We had a situation where some of the teams had four former Division 1 captains on the team so they weren’t expecting any of that. They expected to see fights all the time and that wasn’t the case. As a matter of fact, if anything we probably had less physicality than some of the people wanted to see. They were actually playing hockey,” he said. “It turned out to be a pleasant surprise for a lot of the fans because it was really good hockey. As I traveled around from city to city, rink to rink, that’s all I heard.”
He recalled one conversation that took place during the playoffs in Danbury, CT., a city that has a long and somewhat sordid history of pro hockey, with a group of long time fans.
“I remember talking to a bunch of fans during the playoffs in Danbury. They had a great run with the UHL a few years back. The fans basically told me that it was what they wanted and that’s why it didn’t succeed the last two or three times,” Kirnan said. “The quality of the subsequent leagues (after the UHL) didn’t meet their needs and expectations and this did. As a matter of fact, there were some former players that played for them in the UHL that were playing against them and they were recognizable people. That’s what they wanted to see. They wanted a certain quality and that’s what we actually gave them. That’s why I think it was successful the first year.”
Next: Changes to keep the interest level high
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
