ORLANDO, FLA – During its seven years of play, the Southern Professional Hockey League has always considered itself to be a “fan friendly” choice for winter entertainment. From the time the doors open to when the last player autograph is signed after the game, it’s always been about the paying customers.
As the eighth season of action is getting set to begin, the SPHL will get some marketing and public relations help from its loyal fans and employees. Beginning Wednesday, October 5, the SPHL Weekly Show will start its season-long run 
on Blogtalkradio on the internet. Produced by Robert Berglof from Knoxville and hosted by Dana Barker out of Columbus and financially supported by the readers of Berglof‘s SPHL Forums message board, the show will bring SPHL news and information to everyone who follows the league on a weekly basis.
“I want the fans to enjoy the show and every week look forward to the next one. I want the show to help promote the SPHL and every team in it. I truly believe the more information you get out to fans the more they crave and hopefully that will help the league grow and all the teams prosper,” Berglof said via email. “I do that through sphlforums.com where every team has their own message forum and now through SPHL Weekly where every fan can listen to coverage about the league and their team.”
Berglof, who handles the Pointstreak scoring system for the Knoxville Ice Bears, has been around the SPHL since its inception. He has been a passionate supporter of the Ice Bears and the league from day one, co-founding first the KIB message board and later SPHLForums.com so that the league’s fans could have a place to get information and chat with folks in other cities.
This past summer, Berglof added the audio player for Denis J. Puska’s “Puska On Pucks” internet hockey show to SPHL Forums. He liked how Puska’s mix of news and interviews sounded and thought that the SPHL could use a show like that to keep its fans informed and entertained. It had been tried a few years back by Columbus broadcaster Mike Vee, who produced and hosted the program with Huntsville’s Mike Brown, with some success but it lasted just one season.
Berglof contacted Blogtalkradio and got the specifics, including cost, on making the show happen. Berglof then set out to raise the necessary funding to purchase the bandwidth for the program, find the right person to host the show and get the league to approve of the project.
Getting the funding turned out to be fairly easy. Berglof went to the fans at SPHLForums.com and asked them to help out with paying for the program and they responded. Fans from around the league sent in donations to help defray the cost. They also donated money for gift cards that will be given to the SPHL Player of the Week each Wednesday.
Berglof said that he wasn’t surprised at the response from the fans.
“I told the league president (Jim Combs) back in July [that] I knew the fans would step up and they did,” he said. “The fans of the SPHL are passionate about hockey and I am lucky enough to have most of them on the SPHL forums.”
Next was finding the right man to be the host. Berglof immediately thought of Barker, who he has listened to and worked with in the past.
“To me, Dana is one of the best in the business in what he does. That’s saying a lot because there are certainly lots of good ones that I have listened to,” Berglof said. “I have always been impressed with the amount of pride and detail Dana puts into his work. He’s the kind of guy I can trust and that’s the kind of guy I want representing me and my forum.”
Barker, an admitted New Jersey Devils fan by birth, is well versed in the history of hockey in Columbus and the SPHL. He caught the hockey bug in Columbus in 1996 when the Cottonmouths of the pre-WPHL merger CHL came to be. He covered the Snakes for Just Hockey magazine starting in 1998 and by 2002 was hired by Cottonmouths’ general manager Phil Roberto hired him to work on game notes and press releases. When Columbus joined the SPHL in 2004, Barker became the radio voice of the team, a job he held until 2006.
He still works with the Cottonmouths on game nights but on occasion helps out by doing spot radio and public address work in Huntsville and Knoxville. His willingness to help where needed led to one of the strangest days the SPHL may have ever seen.
“I think I’m the only guy in SPHL history to call two games in one day. A couple of years ago, Huntsville rescheduled their game to an afternoon game because of Alabama playing in a bowl game that night. Mike Brown couldn’t do it so I went up and did it,” Barker said. “Columbus was playing in Knoxville that night. I made it there by the beginning of the second period and the Ice Bears guy at the time graciously let me call the last part of the game. I think when I told Jerome (Bechard, Columbus coach and general manager) about it, he just shook his head and laughed.”
Barker said that from the minute Berglof pitched the idea of the SPHL Weekly Show to him, he was hooked.
“I was instantly sold on the idea. I’ve always had the itch to become more involved again while maintaining that balance with my 9-to-5 job and this provides the perfect opportunity for that,” he said. “I hosted the Snakes’ coach’s show with Jerome Bechard the two years I was the play-by-play voice in Columbus so I feel this show can be like nine different coach’s shows rolled up into one.”
The final piece of the puzzle was getting the SPHL to support the show both at the league office and team levels. Berglof contacted league President Jim Combs who enthusiastically endorsed the idea.
“Both of those guys (Berglof and Barker) have the passion to get this done and they want to bring a good quality show to the fans. The fans responded by saying they were going to support it and be part of it,” Combs said. “We want to have active listeners. We want to make it an active show for the fans. I know that Dana and Robert want to make it as exciting as possible and make it as informative from the players perspective and the fans and make sure they have a good time.”
Both Berglof and Barker said that making the show interactive for the fans and giving it a structure will make it enjoyable and informative. Each week they will have the Player of the Week on the program. They are taking suggestions from the fans for questions to go into a “Hot Seat” segment for the coaches. Combs will be a regular guest and will answer questions from the fans. Even the teams themselves have been asked to submit ideas.
“ I’ve asked the teams to help us help them by giving us ideas and such. I have a segment planned called ‘What’s Up in the SP’ to talk about promotions each of the nine teams are doing from week to week and maybe have a team PR contact come on the show to discuss it,” Barker said. “We also want to do more human interest stories with the players. We want to put a face on these guys off the ice, what their hobbies are, what they enjoy away from the rink, things like that.”
Another added feature will be that Blogtalkradio has an archive system so that even if fans can’t tune in on Wednesdays at 8 p.m., they can still hear the show days or months later.
“With each show being archived so that fans can listen on their own schedule, I think it will allow every fan of the SPHL to be able to listen,” Berglof said.
Keeping the focus on the fans is something that both men said will be paramount with every show they do.
“This will be like nothing the league has seen or heard before. I feel like Robert and I are going about it the right way in asking for fan input and asking for league and team approval and ideas before this thing takes flight,” Barker said. “The fans have not only given support verbally but in some cases monetarily and we vow never to lose sight of that. I think with our involvement and the support we’ve already gotten from the league, this will be something that can only succeed and grow from here on out. I’m excited for Wednesday to get here.”
Contact the author at don.money@prohockeynews.com
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