REBELS COUNTING ON NEW LEFT WING

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 31, 1992                   TAG: 9201310024
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RANDY KING SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long
REBELS COUNTING ON NEW LEFT WING
Contrary to popular belief, the Roanoke Valley Rebels do have an NHL working agreement.
With the 1991-92 East Coast Hockey League season two-thirds gone, the Rebels finally get much-needed help from the Calgary Flames today when left wing Corey Lyons reports.
Lyons, who comes to the ECHL from Salt Lake City of the International Hockey League, is the first contracted player to be sent to the Rebels through their Calgary connection.
The Rebels, last in the ECHL with a 14-25-3 record, are the last club in the 15-team ECHL to obtain the services of a contracted player from a higher league. Every other ECHL club is carrying at least two such players. Eleven teams have at least four.
"It's about time we got somebody," Roanoke Valley coach Roy Sommer said. "Obviously, it helps to have those players. Hey, they wouldn't have been signed to a contract if they couldn't play the game."
Sommer refused to blame Calgary for a lack of cooperation.
"Like everything else with this club this season, it's been a case of hard luck concerning Calgary," Sommer said. "It's just the way things go sometime. Calgary is a good organization to be tied with, but they simply haven't had the bodies available to send this way."
Injuries have played havoc with the rosters of Calgary and Salt Lake City, the Flames' top minor-league affiliate. Another contributing factor is that Calgary has historically signed fewer number of prospects to contracts than other NHL clubs.
"Detroit has 70-80 players under contract," Sommer said. "That's why you see so many contracted players in Toledo [which currently has the best record in the ECHL]."
Sommer hopes Lyons, the Flames' third pick in the 1989 NHL entry draft, will rediscover his scoring touch in the ECHL. The 21-year-old left wing struggled in the IHL, scoring only 18 goals in 77 games over the past 1 1/2 seasons.
Lyons, who is 5 feet 10 and 185 pounds, was a big scorer in junior hockey, recording 116 goals and 254 points in his final two seasons in the Western Hockey League.
Forward Dana Janis, who had three goals and six assists in 24 games, was waived to make roster room for Lyons.

Along with Lyons, the Rebels will welcome center Peter Kasowski and defenseman Mike Barlage back to the lineup tonight when they play host to the Raleigh IceCaps at the LancerLot in Vinton.
Defenseman Al Novakowski (strained right knee ligaments) and forward Graham Garden (strained lower back) will be sidelined this weekend, Sommer said.

There will be no time for golf when the ECHL club owners meet next Monday and Tuesday in Charlotte, N.C.
Top items on the crammed agenda include the league's controversial Canadian-American rule, which has been called discriminatory by Richmond owner Allan Harvie and his lawyers; appeals of $5,000 fines by Hampton Roads and Winston-Salem for using illegal players earlier in the season; and commissioner Pat Kelly's contract, which ends after this season.
"We've got a lot to get done," Kelly said. "On the Canadian-American rule, we wanted to wait until we got all the owners together so it can be explained. As far as the rule being discriminatory, some say it is, some say it isn't.
"As far as my contract goes, I feel I've done a good job. I would like to think the owners will feel the same way. We've went from five teams to 16 [when Charlotte enters next season] and attendance is way up [4,490 per-game league average]."

It's certainly no party playing hockey for Hampton Roads Admirals coach John Brophy. After his club performed lackadaisically in a 6-3 home loss to Greensboro on Jan. 21, Brophy humbled his Admirals by making them skate wind sprints for 20 minutes in front of 1,000 or so disbelieving fans at Norfolk Scope.
Brophy needs to get his club's attention. Counting Wednesday's 6-1 home loss to Western Division-leading Toledo, the Admirals have lost six of eight games and fell 10 points behind the first-place Greensboro Monarchs in the Eastern Division.
\ ICE CHIPS: This week's league rosters showed 40 players under NHL contract, 23 under American Hockey League contract and five under IHL contract. Toledo and Richmond led the way with eight such players, followed by Knoxville, Louisville and Erie, all with six apiece. . . . Mike Chighisola, the all-time leading scorer for Roanoke's ECHL entry, became the latest victim of the league's "veteran" rule when he was dealt by Hampton Roads to Raleigh on Thursday. Hampton Roads had no choice but move Chighisola when forward Brian Martin was reassigned from Maine of the AHL, putting the Admirals over the limit of two players with three or more years pro experience. . . . ECHL turnstiles continue to spin at record pace. The Richmond Renegades drew a franchise-record crowd of 9,857 for a win over archrival Hampton Roads last Friday. One night later, the Winston-Salem Thunderbirds attracted a sellout crowd of 3,776 against Greensboro. Through 311 games, the league average is 4,490, which ranks ahead of the more established AHL and IHL.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB