THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 17, 1995 TAG: 9505170191
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY HARRY MINIUM, STAFF WRITER ECHL NOTES
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Greensboro is out and Greenville, S.C., is in.
East Coast Hockey League owners stripped the Greensboro Monarchs of their franchise at the spring meetings, which ended last weekend in New Orleans. Greensboro has applied to join the American Hockey League, which is expected to make an announcement on further expansion in early June.
ECHL officials gave the Monarchs a deadline of May 9 to make a commitment to the league. Greensboro did not respond, said ECHL media relations director Jana Spaulding, and thus was booted out of the league.
Greenville, meanwhile, was admitted to begin play in the fall of 1996. Carl Scheer, part owner of the Charlotte Checkers, will own the Greenville franchise, which will play in the $51 million, 17,000-seat Upstate Arena, under construction in downtown Greenville.
Greenville's metropolitan-area population of 900,000 is only slightly smaller than Greensboro's.
``Greenville will be a solid addition to the league,'' president Blake Cullen said.
In other developments, the owners:
Added South Carolina to the East Division as part of a shuffle caused by four expansion teams. The Stingrays join Hampton Roads, Richmond, Roanoke, Raleigh and Charlotte. Greenville will join the East in 1996. Louisville was sent to the North Division with Erie, Toledo, Columbus, Dayton, Johnstown, Wheeling and Huntington. Louisiana, Mobile and Jacksonville were sent to the South with Nashville, Knoxville, Birmingham and Tallahassee.
Reverted to the playoff format of two years ago, with five teams from each division and one wildcard making the first round. First-round pairings will be held primarily within the divisions, then teams will be seeded into brackets for the final three rounds.
Adopted a more wide-open scheduling policy, in which the Admirals will play their division foes eight times each. The Admirals will play 30 games outside the division. Last season they played just 13 games outside the East.
AROUND THE ECHL: Two coaches have been fired in recent weeks - Jonhstown's Eddie Johnstone and Raleigh's Rick Barkovich. Barkovich's firing wasn't unexpected; the IceCaps were last in the East. Johnstown, however, made the playoffs, and the Chiefs were a respectable 31-32-5. ... Richmond owner Harry Feuerstein has been named to head the team that will negotiate a contract with the fledgling players' union. Negotiations will begin later this month. ... Scheer has been elected ECHL chairman of the board for the ECHL, arguably the league's most powerful position. ... Cullen has been added to the five-man executive committee, the league's most powerful committee.
MacISAAC NAMED COACH: Admirals assistant coach Al MacIsaac has been named head coach of the Philadelphia Bulldogs of the Roller Hockey International League.
MacIsaac, an Admirals assistant the past two seasons, plans to return to the Admirals following the completion of the three-month summer roller hockey season.
The Bulldogs, who play at the Spectrum, will have an Admirals' flavor. Rod Taylor, the Admirals' four-year veteran and the team's most valuable player last season, former Admirals goaltender Mark Bernard, Admirals goaltender Shamus Gregga, and Rob MacInnis, the Admirals' veteran defenseman, will join MacIsaac in Philadelphia.
BRIEFLY: Defenseman Ron Pascucci, called up to Kansas City from Hampton Roads just prior to the ECHL playoffs, made the Blades' playoff roster. Pascucci got considerable ice time early on because of injuries to other defensemen. He's played only twice in the playoffs but had the assist on a game-winning goal by Jan Caloun that ended the longest 1-0 playoff game in IHL history at 92 minutes and 50 seconds. by CNB