Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 21, 1993 TAG: 9302220290
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY KING STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
WHY WON'T PLAYERS COME TO VINTON? REASONS MANY
It is 90 minutes before the opening faceoff of the East Coast Hockey League game at the Vinton LancerLot.At the east end of the dark, dank, deserted arena, two half-dressed Hampton Roads players are playfully poking their heads outside the door of the visitors' locker room.
"Hey, it's so cold in this place that I can see my breath," one player says. "Did you see that? Can't do a smoke ring, though. Damn!"
A short time later, the two players have moved outside the dressing room. They begin the process of honing their sticks with a blow torch, in hopes of gaining optimum curvature and feel for this night's battle.
Meanwhile, light has appeared. A few stragglers have begun to meander among the LancerLot's 3,216 seats. The slight commotion seems to startle the twosome. In unison, the players begin to laugh.
"If you don't get your act together and start scoring some goals," teased one to the other, "you're going to wind up here playing for these guys in this place."
That thought suddenly was not so humorous.
\ No-show count high
\ The exchange between the two players goes a long way in telling why the Roanoke Valley Rampage is on pace to become the worst club in the ECHL's five-year history.
Like predecessors Claude Noel and Roy Sommer, Rampage coach Steve Gatzos has discovered that luring good hockey players to Vinton is about as simple as getting the team bus started in one crank on a minus-10-degree night in Erie, Pa.
"I knew this wasn't going to be easy, but I never thought it was going to be this difficult," Gatzos said. "Of all of the tough parts to the job here, getting players - I mean good players - to come here has been the most difficult. For some reason or another, they just don't want to come here.
"Trying to better the club, I have tried to make trade after trade. But a lot of the trades won't go through simply because the guy from the other team won't report here.
"They'll tell me on the phone they're coming. Then, I'll never see 'em. Hell, we've sent paid-for plane tickets to guys, and yet, we never see the whites of their eyes. It's unbelievable."
After unsuccessfully trying to acquire four players to help his slump-ridden club during a four-day span in mid-January, a frustrated Gatzos confessed he may have to use new bait. In a funny, yet sad monologue, Gatzos said:
"I guess I'm going to have to hop in my car in the morning, drive to every city in the league, and kidnap some guys to bring in here.
"I'm going to blindfold 'em, put a bag over their heads, gag 'em, tie their hands behind their backs and throw them in the trunk of my car. Then, when I get back here, I'm going to stash them in our locker room and padlock the door so they can't leave before the next game. That ought to do it."
\ A losing battle
\ Why have so many ECHL players regarded coming to play in Vinton about as appealing as a one-way ticket to Siberia?
Of coaches and players interviewed, the No. 1 answer was the franchise's lengthy history of losing.
Aside from the 1989-90 Virginia Lancers, who finished third in the eight-team ECHL with a 36-18-6 record, the Vinton-based franchise has been a perennial whipping boy. Counting this season's 12-39-1 record, the local ECHL entry has finished last in its division three times, next-to-last one other time. Its all-time ECHL record of 117-153-29 is the worst in the league's five years.
"No one really wants to come and play for a last-place team," said Wayne Muir, who played two seasons in Vinton before being traded to Greensboro at the start of this season.
"You want to go to a team that's going to make the playoffs. The season is short enough as it is. So if you're with a team that makes the playoffs, that's more money you make; plus, it's a better chance to get noticed [by a higher league].
"Hey, I could still be in Roanoke right now. I'm glad they traded me."
Craig Endean, who was cut by the Rampage in mid-January, added: "Let's face it, Roanoke is the worst team in the league. It has been that way for a long time. No one wants to play for a loser. Guys on waivers would rather say `no' to coming to Roanoke and, two weeks later, go somewhere else."
Noel, who left the Roanoke Valley for his current job in Dayton after a 26-31-7 season in '90-91, said the loser's tag is difficult to shed.
"Losing, after awhile, gets everybody down . . . players, coaches, fans," Noel said. "The situation here in Roanoke is a troubled one. I could see it coming a couple years ago, and it was a big factor in me moving on."
\ Big buildings better
In '88-89, the LancerLot appeared to be a perfect place to play hockey in the fledgling, low-budget ECHL.
However, as the ECHL quickly grew, the small Vinton building soon became no match for larger, splashier civic arenas in league cities such as Norfolk, Richmond, Cincinnati, Nashville, Tenn., and Greensboro, N.C.
Because of the Lot's small seating capacity, a Vinton-based franchise has no chance at being among the ECHL's attendance leaders. But who needs more seats when you're drawing league-low averages of 2,053 in 1991-92 and 1,580 this season?
"A lot of players want to play in front of big crowds," Endean said. "You get jacked up playing in front of 8,000 or 9,000 folks. It gets you down mentally when you come out of the locker room and there's a few hundred people in the seats. You begin to wonder if anybody cares."
One Eastern Division coach, who didn't want to be identified, said that over the past couple of seasons he had used his club's big-city coliseum as the main attraction to recruit several players also being sought by Roanoke Valley.
Sommer, who coached in Vinton last season before going to Richmond, said the Lot was cozy, perhaps too cozy when he hit the recruiting trail.
"Against the bigger cities, it was hard to recruit," Sommer said. "Guys want to go where the bigger buildings are. I lost a few guys and that was tough. The thing there was you had to stick with pretty much what you had at the start of the season unless you're just . . . awful and you have to make changes. That's when it seems like it's hard to get players in.
"Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed it there," Sommer added. "I liked Roanoke because it was country and I had chances to go hunting. The hunting there was great."
Unless, that is, good hockey players are your game.
\ Price is not right
Constant organizational upheaval is another reason some players just say no when it comes to playing in Vinton.
During its five ECHL seasons, the Vinton club has gone through five coaches, three owners and three name changes.
"The biggest thing to me was all the question marks surrounding this place," said Greensboro goaltender Bill Horn, who played in Vinton in '90-91.
"There's no stability. You never knew if the team was going to be here from one year to the next. They change coaches every year; they change names every year.
"There's just so many question marks and I think that's what happens with a lot of the players. That was one of the reasons I know that Claude [Noel] left. I didn't know what was going to happen, either, so I went somewhere else where I knew what was going on."
All people interviewed questioned how the club's organization has been run over the years by its three owners - Henry Brabham, Richard Geery and Larry Revo.
"There's absolutely no continuity here," said a rival coach who did not want to be identified. "They don't particularly look after their players. We get housing, I mean nice places, for our players to live. Here, they don't do anything."
Before this season started, ECHL owners passed a rule that allows clubs to furnish housing for the players. With the club taking care of the rent, most ECHL players suddenly found their $275 per-week paychecks went a lot further. Unless, of course, they played in Vinton.
"We tried to get some families to take some players in at the start of the season but didn't have a lot of success," Revo said. "The other clubs have the financial wherewithal to put players up for nothing or simply give them extra cash that goes toward their housing.
"That's a nice thing to be able to do, and it definitely helps attract players. I simply can't afford that luxury. I'm not making money like other clubs are."
Muir said in Greensboro, unlike Vinton, the organization pays for his room and board.
"I live by myself in a nice house [the Monarchs] found me," he said. "A lot of our guys live with families in real nice neighborhoods. It makes a huge difference. Go play in a place like Greensboro and you'll probably make an extra 50 bucks a week.
"You've got to do what you've got to do to get guys to come in. Roanoke, if it wants to keep . . . a team in the league, is going to have to do what they can . . . like free board, pay the guys an extra 50 bucks a week, or something."
There lies the catch in the Roanoke Valley. Because it doesn't have any National Hockey League contract players, whose salaries are picked up by the parent club, the Rampage can't pay $50 more to one player unless it wants to short another $50. The ECHL's weekly salary cap is $4,650. Divided 17 ways, that's $273.52 per player.
But, for instance, if the Rampage had five players on its roster under contract to a team from a higher league, that $4,650 would have to be divided only 12 ways, making the salary $387.50 per player not tied to an NHL team.
"That's the biggest reason you need an NHL affiliation," Gatzos said. "With no contracted players, I don't have the extra money to pay the salary that some of the better players command. We decided to go one player short for a while just so we could pay a little more money to the guys here."
This season, Roanoke Valley and Knoxville are the only clubs in the 15-team league without an NHL tie. It is no coincidence that both are in last place in their divisions.
"It's hard to compete here when other teams are getting seven or eight contracted players," said Devin Derksen, who was waived by the Rampage in mid-January. "It all comes from within the organization. If you want to win, you've got to be able to dish out a little to get a little. This organization is not willing to pay the price it takes to win."
\ 'Almost impossible'
Noel, now enjoying success in Dayton, said the package being offered in Vinton makes it an "almost impossible situation" for a coach.
"You've got to have an affiliation, you've got to get housing for the players, you've got to build a situation that's conducive to winning, a situation that enables the players a chance to succeed," Noel said.
"I know what Steve Gatzos is going through. I went through it.
"The god of hockey couldn't get players to come here. So I came, and I left."
Which is much more than many do.
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