Time to dust off the Zamboni

By John Boyanoski  

FEBRUARY 15, 2010 4:03 p.m. (1)

After a four-year absence, professional ice hockey will be back in the Upstate for the 2010 season under a five-year deal.

The Greenville Arena District Board voted 7-0 Monday night to enter a memorandum of understanding to bring the famed Johnstown Chiefs, which are located close to 600 miles away in Pennsylvania, to the Bi-Lo Center for next season.

The arena has been without a hockey team since its main tenant, the Greenville Grrrowl, folded following the 2005-06 season. The Grrrowl, whose purple, black and gold jerseys were popular sights on game nights downtown in the early 2000s, were one the main reasons the 16,000-seat arena was built in 1998.

The Drive’s original ownership led by developer and long-time national sports figure Carl Scheer decided to fold the team following the 2004-05 season citing poor attendance, lackluster revenues and rising costs. But a local group led by advertising and political leader Joe Erwin and Bi-Lo Center manager Ed Rubinstein purchased the team.

However, they ceased operations following the 2005-06 season.

Erwin said his group was trying to keep the team afloat for the sake of the community, and thinks Greenville can be a strong hockey town again because of the fans and arena.

However, he stressed the new ownership will have to make advertising a priority all-year round. That has been one of the secrets to the success of the minor-league baseball Greenville Drive, Erwin said.

One major problem for Grrrowl ownership was getting no money from concessions and luxury boxes, and Erwin said that will be a must revenue source for the new team.

The Grrrowl played in the East Coast Hockey League, which is the same league Johnstown plays in and will play in if they come to Greenville. The ECHL board of governors is expected to give final permission later this week.

The Chiefs are the last original ECHL team to never have moved from its city or gone out of business since the league was founded in 1988. The team is the descendent of the famed Johnstown Jets, who were immortalized as the Charlestown Chiefs, in the 1976 movie “Slap Shot.”

The movie featured a team of hockey misfits and miscreants, who come together to win a league title while facing the potential sale of the club and leaving the city. The Jets did fold following the 1977 season. The team’s last owner would not relinquish the Jets name when the ECHL added a Johnstown franchise in 1988 so a public fan vote chose “Chiefs” in honor of the movie.

The Chiefs’ are owned by former New York Rangers general manager Neil Smith, who oversaw the team’s 1993-94 Stanley Cup championship that broke the team’s famed 54-year hockey championship draught.

Smith, the team’s majority owner since 2002 and current coach, had made no secret this year of his efforts to find a local owner.

A steady decline in attendance, coupled with rising costs and the fact the organization’s lease is up on the historic 3,745 seat Cambria County War Memorial Arena in Johnstown left him with no other options.

This season, the Chiefs, who have been affiliates of the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche, the Boston Bruins and the Columbus Blue Jackets, are the secondary affiliate of the Minnesota Wild in the NHL and the Houston Aeros in the AHL.

They head to a region with a checkered minor-league sports history. Baseball teams more or less were ever present during the 20^th Century, but the AA Greenville Braves left town when a new stadium deal could not be reached in 2004.

Various arena football teams, basketball teams including one with the NBA Development League and soccer clubs have come and gone. The hockey team will join the Drive and the arena football Greenville Force as the city’s minor league teams.

The Grrrowl competed in the ECHL for eight seasons between 1998 and 2006, winning the coveted Kelly Cup in 2002 and posting some of the highest attendance numbers in the league during the organization’s first few seasons.

A familiar refrain at the Bi-Lo Center, which fans dubbed the Dawg Pound, was the announcer shouting, “He shoots,” and the crowd answering, “He scores,” for Grrrowl goals.

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Casey  - Greenville Hockey Back   |2010-03-11 17:10:34 Does anyone know if they will still be called the chiefs or will they go back to being the grrrowl Reply

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