ORLANDO, FLA – With five seasons in the books, the Southern Professional Hockey League is playing with house money as it heads toward a year six that will bring changes that fans have been waiting for.
Earlier this week, the league headed for the Isle Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi for its summer meetings amid a backdrop of excitement and anticipation for the season ahead.
“(Everyone was) very upbeat, very excited. New owners, old owners, everybody seems to have gotten off on the right foot,” Commissioner Jim Combs said following the meetings. “It was an extremely productive meeting, probably the most productive meeting we’ve had in three years.”
The most productive part of the meetings had to have been the news on the league membership front. The league officially acknowledged the loss of the Richmond Renegades and owner Robert Kerzner’s request to take a one-year suspension of operations in order to find a new home for his Twin City Cyclones.
In making his formal request for the suspension, Kerzner did give the league an “encouraging report” on his progress in his search for a new location for his team.
“We’re trying to find them the right opportunity in the right city,” Combs said. “We hope to have updates coming by the league meetings in the winter.”
Despite the situations with Richmond and Twin City, the overall news was good with the formal acceptance by the league of three new expansion cities along the Interstate 10 corridor. Lafayette, Louisiana, Biloxi and Pensacola, Florida – all former members of the ECHL – have come on board, boosting the league’s playing membership to seven and renewing some intense rivalries. The three new cities join Huntsville, Columbus, Fayetteville and 2009 champion Knoxville on the roster.
“With the addition of the likes of Tim Kerr (Pensacola owner), Brent Sapergia (Lafayette G.M.), Steffon Walby (Mississippi G.M./Coach) and Todd Gordon (Pensacola G.M./Coach), I see our league developing into a much higher standard of play,” new SPHL Chairman of the Board Mike Murray of Knoxville said. “All the returning teams will need to work harder and play stronger to compete with these seasoned veterans.”
According to Combs, the league is happy with seven teams at this point because they want to get on with setting the playing schedule for release by the end of July. He did acknowledge that he continues to speak with other interested cities with an eye toward continued expansion for the 2010-2011 season. He said that a particular point of interest will be cities on the eastern side of the footprint with a goal of picking up three to grow the league to 10 teams. Combs also admitted that a report from WLOX-TV in Biloxi was correct in reporting that he has spoken with people in Baton Rouge, Louisiana but he said that it is nothing more than talks at this juncture.
“As of right this minute, we’re going with seven teams. There aren’t any plans in the near future to change that,” he said. “I’ve talked to people in a lot of places. I don’t know if it is really news that I’ve had discussions with six or eight or ten cities in our footprint but that doesn’t mean anything is happening.”
He also added that in order to keep the SPHL at a manageable level, a cap on the number of teams allowed in might be necessary.
“There’s a possibility of capping the number of teams we have,” Combs said. “We’ll just have to take a look at our geographic location, look at our footprint again, the number of cities then find out what is reasonable and what the best number is.”
With Murray, who replaces outgoing chairman Jerome Bechard of Columbus, moving up from his vice-chairman seat, the members of the Board of Governors elected Kerr, a former NHL star and one-time Pensacola Ice Pilots owner, to be the number two man. Combs said he thinks that Kerr’s name recognition will be a plus.
“Just having him (Kerr) as a former ECHL owner, it certainly brings credibility in the minor league and hockey worlds,” Combs said.
The other big news coming out of the meetings was the announcement of the establishment of a competition committee, a first for the league. Combs said the committee comprised of himself, Director of Officials Scott Brand and “at least one general manager and at least two coaches” will deal with on-ice affairs rather than leaving them for discussion at the league meetings.
“We’re starting to get a little bit bigger and we need to keep our league meetings about business in the future and fans and marketing rather than hybrid icing and how many officials are on the ice,” he said. “I think it’ll get the coaches more involved.”
The league also announced that the playoffs will be comprised of six teams with the format being on the docket for January’s meetings. It was also announced that the four-man officiating crew experiment will continue as just that, an experiment, for the time being.
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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