Post by DanCan on Mar 27, 2004 10:24:33 GMT -5
Read this! Hilarious!
The Last Word
While it waits for its parent hockey league to finally take shape, the WHA2 is fighting for survival ... literally.
By MIKE ULMER -- Toronto Sun, 26 March 2004
One of the charter members of the WHA2 league is the former Macon (Georgia) Whoopee now the Macon Tracks which sort of fits since, in some circumstances, one can certainly lead to the other.
The Alabama Slammers are in the loop as are four Florida-based entries: The Jacksonville Barracudas, the Lakeland Loggerheads, the Miami Manatees and the Orlando Seals.
There are a few names you might recognize. Former Pittsburgh Penguin Jim Paek coaches the Seals, of whom we will speak of later. Ron Duguay coaches the Barracudas. As usual he has the best hair in the league, even with Gary Unger behind the bench for Alabama.
The WHA2 is the brainchild of a man named David Waronker who, only a year ago, owned four teams in the Atlantic Coast Hockey League which, while still light years from the show, was at least a name recognizable to a few people who don't work at The Hockey News.
But a political schism prompted Waronker to take his teams and go home. He talked a few more owners into coming aboard and voila, the WHA2 was ready to hit the ice.
The WHA2 was set up to be a feeder system for the new WHA which, at last word, is a one-team loop waiting for an NHL lockout for its lifebreath.
It requires a certain genius to name a development league after one league that is long dead and another that hasn't started yet.
There have been some bumps. The Miami franchise, unable to make their rent at the Miami Arena, recently cancelled its remaining home games. When it was learned they would have no health care insurance for a game in Macon, they sat that one out too.
Now, as bizarre as it sounds to Canadians who see NHL fighting only, say, seven or eight times a night on the highlight shows, the lure of fisticuffs is part of what is known as "the entertainment package" in the minors.
Slap Shot it isn't, but one or two fights a night isn't uncommon in the WHA2, a league that provides a home for such notorious desperados as the Seals' Black Eyein' Ryan Anderson and Macon's Andrew (The Animal) Katzberg.
Guaranteed Fight Night, said Steve McCall, the play-by-play/director of media/sales guy for the Seals, was not a local invention.
"Nah, that promotion has been around the minor leagues a while," he said. "I heard about it years ago when I was working in Memphis. "
The premise of Guaranteed Fight Night is simple enough. If there was no fight for the Feb. 19 game between the Seals and Slammers, everyone in the house could redeem their ticket for the March 9 game against Lakeland.
I called Orlando to garner more data on this latest blight on the game and got McCall, a hard-working guy from St. Louis who has loved the game since, as a nine-year-old, he heard Dan Kelly's play-by-play.
Just over 3,000 fans filtered into the lower bowl at Orlando's TD Waterhouse Centre, the home of the Orlando Magic, for Guaranteed Fight Night.
In the first period, Garrett Dionne, son of Marcel, fought Tomas Jelinek, in a sort of smurf-off and about the time the gloves were being returned to the combatants, the PA announcer leaned into his mike.
"Because there was a fight," he said, "each and every one of you will receive a ticket to the Seals March 9 game against Lakeland."
Steve McCall heard the announcement from the commentating booth. "That doesn't sound right," he said.
"People kept coming up to me, asking me how this worked. Finally, we recognized the mistake but by then we knew we had to honour the tickets."
In all, 2,846 fans took in the Lakeland game. It was one of the better Tuesday night crowds of the year for the Seals.
The moral of the story: Say what you want about our friends to the south, they sure know how to market the game.
The Last Word
While it waits for its parent hockey league to finally take shape, the WHA2 is fighting for survival ... literally.
By MIKE ULMER -- Toronto Sun, 26 March 2004
One of the charter members of the WHA2 league is the former Macon (Georgia) Whoopee now the Macon Tracks which sort of fits since, in some circumstances, one can certainly lead to the other.
The Alabama Slammers are in the loop as are four Florida-based entries: The Jacksonville Barracudas, the Lakeland Loggerheads, the Miami Manatees and the Orlando Seals.
There are a few names you might recognize. Former Pittsburgh Penguin Jim Paek coaches the Seals, of whom we will speak of later. Ron Duguay coaches the Barracudas. As usual he has the best hair in the league, even with Gary Unger behind the bench for Alabama.
The WHA2 is the brainchild of a man named David Waronker who, only a year ago, owned four teams in the Atlantic Coast Hockey League which, while still light years from the show, was at least a name recognizable to a few people who don't work at The Hockey News.
But a political schism prompted Waronker to take his teams and go home. He talked a few more owners into coming aboard and voila, the WHA2 was ready to hit the ice.
The WHA2 was set up to be a feeder system for the new WHA which, at last word, is a one-team loop waiting for an NHL lockout for its lifebreath.
It requires a certain genius to name a development league after one league that is long dead and another that hasn't started yet.
There have been some bumps. The Miami franchise, unable to make their rent at the Miami Arena, recently cancelled its remaining home games. When it was learned they would have no health care insurance for a game in Macon, they sat that one out too.
Now, as bizarre as it sounds to Canadians who see NHL fighting only, say, seven or eight times a night on the highlight shows, the lure of fisticuffs is part of what is known as "the entertainment package" in the minors.
Slap Shot it isn't, but one or two fights a night isn't uncommon in the WHA2, a league that provides a home for such notorious desperados as the Seals' Black Eyein' Ryan Anderson and Macon's Andrew (The Animal) Katzberg.
Guaranteed Fight Night, said Steve McCall, the play-by-play/director of media/sales guy for the Seals, was not a local invention.
"Nah, that promotion has been around the minor leagues a while," he said. "I heard about it years ago when I was working in Memphis. "
The premise of Guaranteed Fight Night is simple enough. If there was no fight for the Feb. 19 game between the Seals and Slammers, everyone in the house could redeem their ticket for the March 9 game against Lakeland.
I called Orlando to garner more data on this latest blight on the game and got McCall, a hard-working guy from St. Louis who has loved the game since, as a nine-year-old, he heard Dan Kelly's play-by-play.
Just over 3,000 fans filtered into the lower bowl at Orlando's TD Waterhouse Centre, the home of the Orlando Magic, for Guaranteed Fight Night.
In the first period, Garrett Dionne, son of Marcel, fought Tomas Jelinek, in a sort of smurf-off and about the time the gloves were being returned to the combatants, the PA announcer leaned into his mike.
"Because there was a fight," he said, "each and every one of you will receive a ticket to the Seals March 9 game against Lakeland."
Steve McCall heard the announcement from the commentating booth. "That doesn't sound right," he said.
"People kept coming up to me, asking me how this worked. Finally, we recognized the mistake but by then we knew we had to honour the tickets."
In all, 2,846 fans took in the Lakeland game. It was one of the better Tuesday night crowds of the year for the Seals.
The moral of the story: Say what you want about our friends to the south, they sure know how to market the game.