Part 2 in a series CANTON, Ohio – When the Mid Atlantic Hockey League closed its season early back in February, many thought it signaled the end for yet another of the myriad of leagues and franchises that have gone to the “hockey graveyard”. With the number of coaches, players and vendors who vocally expressed their displeasure at missed payments, it would have been easy for MAHL founder/president Andrew Haines to let the league die. Thing is, he doesn’t like to use the words “can’t” or “won’t” when it comes to seeing a project through. “I figure that there are people who are angry that we’re bringing the league back,” Haines said. “My thing (statement) to them is if you want to sit there and criticize that the league owes money and the league did this or that but if the league doesn’t come back then nobody is going to get paid. I’m trying to do this to pay off our debts and make things right. That’s all, that’s all it comes down to.” After the shutdown, Haines began the road to reconstructing the MAHL from the ground up. Some of the first changes he made were to parts of the business model that had been established as a blueprint of how the teams should be operated. “Our league dues that the teams pay were reduced to $2,000 per month. That’s pretty much about as low as I’ve seen in professional hockey,” he said. “We’ve also gotten more creative with the way we are paying our players. Last year we started out with a $5,000 per week salary cap which was more than we can deal with, just more than our model will allow us to do. We revised that. Last year we weren’t allow to pay the players for appearances and helping sell tickets and things like that. We’ve eliminated all that stuff so the players can get paid like anybody else.” Haines indicated that another major component is equalizing the compensation for non-playing staff. “We’re trying to get more structure on our pay around the board. All of our coaches are making about the same amount of money, they are making the same amount of money,” he said. “We’re focused on putting staffs in place that are qualified.” The thought process on the game schedule was changed as well. In order to optimize prime weekend dates and avoid the sparsely-attended weeknight contests, the league is taking a “less is more” attitude, chopping the number of games from 50 to 40. “Last year we were shooting for a 50-game schedule. That was aggressive. I think a 40-game schedule is perfect for us. I think it’s a perfect number for this level,” Haines said. “Not to say that it won’t ever go up or down but for this year I think 40 is good. We’ll accomplish that in about a 15 or 16 week period so teams will play about 2 ½ games per week. It will allow us to have 90 per cent of our games on weekends.” One thing that Haines is trying very hard to avoid is having ownership of multiple teams. It was a major issue last season and Haines is making every effort to find local ownership in every city before the season begins. “You’re dealing with five coaches, five teams’ sponsorships, all that stuff. Some of these people come to you for guidance, personal stuff too so you’re almost like a counselor for some of them. It’s emotionally draining when you have that much,” he said. “We do not want to own any teams at the beginning of the season. My goal is to have the teams wrapped up shortly with ownership and give them the support that they need.” Before he set out to find new ownership, Haines had a decision to make about the locations the MAHL had been in last season and where he would look for new cities. Two of the established cities (Jamestown, NY and Wooster, OH) were quickly identified as sites the league did not want to go back to. Two other franchises, Mon Valley and Valley Forge, were slated to return but chose to fold, leaving the Ice Miners in Indiana, PA as the sole original location. Haines took a look at the map and using the Ice Miners as a pivot point, swung the league toward the states of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. He relocated the Jamestown team to Auburn Township, Ohio (just outside of Cleveland) to become the Lake Erie Vikings and sent the Wooster team north to Trenton, Michigan where they became the Trenton Warriors. Along the way, Haines added expansion franchises in Dyer, Indiana (South Shore Shooters); Fraser, Michigan (Detroit Dragons); Chelsea, Michigan (Chelsea Tornadoes) and Battle Creek, Michigan (Battle Creek Revolution). “We wanted to get out of the facilities that we didn’t feel were working with us well. In my opinion, it needs to be a partnership between the facility and the team – not on paper but we‘ve got to work together, we‘ve got to support each other and be helpful,” Haines said. “If you don’t have that, it’s just not worth going through all of the agony.” Not content to go with the standard fare, Haines has also been hard at work on additional projects that will give the MAHL a higher profile. In early April, Haines announced an agreement with sports television network Fanz-TV to air a “game of the week” along with all post season and championship series games. Fanz-TV is also expected to produce a weekly “Inside the MAHL” program. Haines also said the league is looking into producing a weekly radio show. “We’re the first single-A league to have a (national) TV contract,” he said. “The contract guarantees us at least 15 million households and it’ll be broadcast in our local markets along with nationally. Then we’re going to do a weekly 30 minute show that will focus on the city that the game is in. We’ll go around to some of the sponsors, we’ll talk about the local community and recap the last week and preview the upcoming week. It’s a way to market the league. We’re trying to create a brand. It’s just a first step.” Another step is bringing in a league commissioner who has the perfect combination of business savvy, hockey knowledge and is a recognizable name and face around the game. Haines was able to score all three facets when he hired former NHL player and businessman Francois Leroux to be the “face” of the MAHL. Leroux played 249 games in the NHL and brings his experience as the president of a sporting goods manufacturer to the big chair. “Frankie is a really good guy and he’s played at the highest level,” Haines said. “He lives in Pittsburgh, which is in our footprint, and he sincerely wants to help guys develop. That’s going to be a big role of his – to really work the relations with other leagues to help our players move up.” In the end, Haines knows that there are going to always be detractors to what he and the MAHL are doing but that succeeding with the rebuilding of the league will be the ultimate satisfaction. “There are people out there who are going to try to make it difficult for us to be successful,” he said. “The people who know me on a personal level, they know my intentions. I think since the season ended, we’ve done what we said we were going to do. We’re achieving a lot of those things.” Next: The view from ice level. Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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