THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 2, 1996 TAG: 9605020580
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
They'll still put six men on the ice. They'll still chase a puck and throw elbows around the rink. A few thousand fans will still turn up to cheer, screech and pound the glass and the beer a couple nights a week. As usual.
So Admirals hockey will remain Admirals hockey, even after Blake Cullen, as expected, hands over the keys to Mark Garcea and Page Johnson later this month.
Which is not to say it won't be a strange day when Cullen's name leaves the masthead. The ripple will be large. Because Cullen, the low-key stranger who rolled the dice on hockey and downtown Norfolk in 1989, will depart as the father of whatever professional sports success lies ahead for Norfolk or South Hampton Roads.
Recall, if you will, the popular attitude about local pro sports before Cullen's Admirals hit town. Is pessimistic the right word? Dreary?
There was no Harbor Park, just the Tides attracting a couple thousand a night out by the airport. Attendance at Old Dominion basketball games at Scope was dismal, and the woods were full of otherwise level-headed people who believed they wouldn't get out of downtown Norfolk alive, or at least with their cars, if they ventured in at night.
The area was fixated on its lousy pro-sports history, hockey included, and largely convinced that South Hampton Roads was a franchise graveyard.
In the face of all this, Cullen, a longtime baseball executive, arrived with a $25,000 franchise fee and a weird idea to install at Scope an expansion team in some rag-tag hockey league nobody had ever heard of.
Almost nobody, I mean. John Brophy, a former brawler who had recently been fired as coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, knew enough about the East Coast Hockey League to approach Cullen about coaching his new team.
Brophy was hired and the match was struck, starting a blaze that is still felt. Out of nowhere, the Admirals were the ECHL's best draw that first year, averaging about 6,000 people at each of their 30 games. It proved people would come downtown for sports, and those who wanted Harbor Park built on the waterfront rallied around those figures.
Then the Admirals won back-to-back titles in their second and third seasons. In so doing, they established winter Fridays as hockey night in Norfolk, regularly drawing sell-out crowds filled with young professionals who for some reason made Admirals games the place to be.
``Blake had great promotions, he kept the ticket prices down, he always went above and beyond what he had to do,'' says Bill Luther, Norfolk's director of civic facilities. ``He'll be a hard act to follow.''
Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim says Cullen should be thanked for jolting awake the area's movers and shakers to the power of sports.
``He made the decision-makers more aware of the value of well-run professional franchises in your community,'' Fraim says. ``If in fact the deal goes through, I hope he'll continue to be part of our community and help bring the next level of sports here.''
Cullen has been silent, not even publicly acknowledging that he's agreed to sell to Garcea-Johnson. Selling comes as no surprise, though, based on how discouraged and distant Cullen appeared this season.
He could see the Admirals' bloom has faded. Attendance slipped this season, the Admirals made a fourth consecutive hasty playoff exit and Cullen suffered the repeated headaches of dealing with Brophy's bad-boy behavior and the always aggravating ECHL office.
And on a business level, the club's market value probably has peaked, given the political fervor that exists for a big-time arena and major league sports.
For Cullen, it's the right time to get out. The transfusion should do the Admirals good. And players and fans should benefit from a new enthusiasm in the front office.
The way the ``new'' Admirals will be run is anybody's guess. What is certain is the far-reaching impact the Blake Cullen era has had on South Hampton Roads sports. ILLUSTRATION: Blake Cullen, the low-key stranger who rolled the dice on hockey
and downtown Norfolk in 1989, will depart as the father of whatever
professional sports success lies ahead for Norfolk or South Hampton
Roads.
by CNB