Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 20, 1993 TAG: 9310200179
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Ah, the memories.
The sound of the puck being slapped around the rink brought them back Tuesday night.
More important, it brought the fans back, too.
Tuesday night may have marked the regular season debut of the new Roanoke Express hockey team, but it was more like a family reunion for the Roanoke Valley's long-lost hockey fans.
Fans who first fell in love with hockey during Roanoke's glorious Ice Age in the 1970s, then somehow fell back out again.
Fans now willing to give hockey in Roanoke another chance.
Fans such as Fred and Susan Webb of Salem. "Back in the '70s, I came for three years and didn't miss a game," Fred Webb recalled. "I remember in '73, when they played Syracuse in the playoffs and it was standing room only."
Those were the glory days of hockey in Roanoke, and Webb remembers being such a fan that he even kept his ear peeled to the away games on the radio. But then, well, who knows really what happened?
"You get disinvolved and find yourself involved in other things," Webb said, shrugging off all the years he didn't go to games.
Now, he's back - at Tuesday night's home opener, and perhaps another 15 or 20 games this year, "depending on what kind of show they put on."
"It's just something new," Webb said.
Well, not really.
Hockey has been in the Roanoke Valley all along - the past six years in Vinton at oilman Henry Brabham's private rink, the LancerLot. Or "Henry's Barn," as fan Hilda Suit of Vinton affectionately put it.
But somehow, the sport has seen attendance melt away in Vinton, so the marketing hoopla surrounding hockey's return to the Roanoke Civic Center just makes it seem like something new.
What is new, though, is the return of families to Roanoke Valley hockey games - or at least to Tuesday's, which drew a crowd of 3,576, dominated by fathers with sons, mothers with daughters, whole families together.
Curiously, it was hard to find folks in Tuesday night's crowd who were watching their first faceoff.
Instead, the crowd was chock-full of what might be called the Roanoke Valley's hockey alumni, fans who had been to hockey games before but were left, well, cold for one reason or another.
"I think probably at least 50 percent of the people here have been to hockey games before but were turned off," said souvenir salesman Tad Durham, "either because the team was losing, or the people were rowdy, and the other place encouraged them instead of discouraged them."
He should know. "Last year, my son and I got mooned," Durham said. "I wouldn't take him back. I know they've already taken some people out tonight for swearing. Before, Henry [Brabham] encouraged it. Now, they're discouraging it."
That was enough Tuesday to bring out folks such as Jeff Stritesky of Daleville.
If hockey in Roanoke is to be more than just a curiosity, its fate rests squarely on his shoulders - and those of other parents like him.
He went to one game at the LancerLot last year and found the building "too cold" - a common complaint - and never went back.
This time, he tried out the Roanoke Civic Center with his kids, 5-year-old Jeffrey and 3-year-old Ashley. He pronounced himself pleased by the "family-style atmosphere."
"There are some fellows drinking beer behind me, but they're well-behaved," Stritesky said.
Jeffrey pronounced himself pleased, too.
"He went and hugged the mascot," his dad said.
by CNB