Texas Brahmas fans hope long off-season nightmare is nearly over

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS, Texas – Imagine going through the entire off-season without a word from your favorite team, with only rumors and the occasional bit of info from “insiders” to sustain you. That’s what fans of the Central Hockey League’s Texas Brahmas have endured over the course of the past four months and yet they’re still as excited as ever, albeit nervously, for the possibilities of the coming season.
The silence began on May 24th after the last update on the team’s official website. Of course, it’s normal for there to be a period of dead air during the summer months – until the announcement of the first signing for the upcoming campaign. But this year was different. First the month of June drifted by and then July, and still no announcements of any kind from the Brahmas organization.
Then on August 7th, Pro Hockey News broke the news that the Brahmas organization had in fact, negotiating a sale to a local ownership group, which signalled the end of an era of sorts- the Stuart Fraser era.
Fraser, the vice-chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald LP and the executive managing director of Cantor Fitzgerald Securities , has been involved in the Brahmas ownership group since joining forces with former NHL goaltender Andy Moog in 1998, when the then Fort Worth Brahmas were a part of the Western Professional Hockey League. He has been the majority owner of the team since the 1999-00 season.
Fraser kept the team going, through good times and bad, over the course of eight seasons in Fort Worth before suspending operations for the 2006-07 season after failing to come to a lease agreement with the City of Fort Worth to continue play at the Fort Worth Convention Center.
The team returned the following season with a new name and a new home – the result of an agreement reached between the Brahmas and NYTEX Sports to play at the newly-renovated NYTEX Sports Centre, a 140,000 square foot sports and entertainment facility with a 2400-seat main ice rink located in the Fort Worth suburb of North Richland Hills.
The agreement allowed for a return to action for the Brahmas, who in October of 2007 began a run of success unparalleled in the franchise’s history. That success came under the tutelage of Dan Wildfong, a former winger for the now defunct Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs who came in as a freshman head coach and led the underdog team to a successful regular season run and a remarkable post-season effort which included a four-game sweep of his former team, the league’s regular season champions.
The win earned the Brahmas a trip to the Northern Conference Finals where the team fought their way to a heartbreaking Game 7 loss to the defending champion Colorado Eagles. The following season, Wildfong’s Brahmas re-grouped and seemed unstoppable as they cruised into the playoffs and ultimately won the 2009 Ray Miron President’s Cup Championship, defeating the Eagles four games to one.

The Brahmas made their fifth consecutive trip to the playoffs earlier this year and their third Conference Finals under Wildfong. Though they lost the series to the Wichita Thunder in a Game 6 battle that could have gone either way, Brahmas fans came away confident in the team which had a rollercoaster season, but managed to eliminate their arch-rivals, the Allen Americans earlier in the post-season – anything after that, as many fans would say, was bonus hockey.
When news of the alleged sale broke, there was an obvious sense of uncertainty for the fans, especially with the lack of any confirmation, officially or otherwise from the current ownership. In fact the Brahmas organization was loathe to admit to anything, which angered many fans who had already put down money for season tickets.
Then, rumours that the sale had apparently fallen through spread quickly, fuelling further uncertainty. Then word began to spread that a new deal was in the works, with an impressive group of new investors, but there was no guarantee that anything would be finalized in time for the upcoming season.  
When the league announced the 2012-13 schedule on the afternoon of August 30th, Brahmas fans breathed a sigh of relief when the team was listed among the ten who would compete in the upcoming campaign, advising that the CHL had been assured that the team would be playing this season. Home game locations however, were listed as “TBD”,  indicating that an agreement to resume play at the NYTEX Sports Centre had not yet been reached.
It’s unconfirmed at this point, but the team is expected to play at least a handful of games at the Fort Worth Convention Center this season and next, with an eventual relocation to either the Convention Center or the Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum by 2014.
Throughout the process of the pending sale, Dan Wildfong continued to work hard to build his roster for the upcoming season, his sixth as the Brahmas’ bench boss. There’s little doubt this has been a trying endeavour for the 36-year-old coach, who has perhaps done more with less, than any other coach in the league over the course of his tenure. There’s also little doubt that the team Wildfong takes to the ice next month – whether he’s been able to find all the pieces or not – will be amongst the most competitive in the league.
Today marks 12 days before Central Hockey League training camps open and 16 days before the Brahmas’ first pre-season tilt against the Allen Americans, set for October 12th. TBD is still the official location of the team’s home ice and not a single player has been announced – and fans continue to patiently wait for an official announcement that the sale of the team has in fact been completed.
In the meantime, as one fan wrote on the team’s unofficial message board: “I hope we are all looking back and laughing at this off-season soon!”
Contact the writer/photographer at robert.keith@prohockeynews.com
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