THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 19, 1996 TAG: 9610190503
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 70 lines
Let's see, what's new? Well, they play loud music now at Hampton Roads Admirals hockey games. Really loud. Earplug loud sometimes. Snippets of all the classics - ``Can't Touch This,'' ``Twist,'' ``Wipeout,'' ``I Love Rock 'n' Roll,'' ``Macarena'' - every second the puck is not in play.
Clowns paint faces in the Scope corridor. Pretty popular, it looked like. I saw one go to her knees to put just the right detail on a little girl's cheek. The clown seemed to care.
One guy in a tuxedo was walking around holding three brightly colored balls. I'm guessing he was a juggler. Or maybe he just lost a frat-house bet.
A blimp floats around, benignly. And there is some ugly sponsor's patch sewn onto the right front of the Admirals' sweaters now. A mercenary, bad move. Sponsor's patches work in kiddie baseball and pro soccer. Defiling a classy hockey uniform like that just looks bush.
Oh, and there's this doggie mascot now. Name is Salty. Salty skated around and pumped his/her paws after the first period, then walked through the packed arena patting kids on the head.
Didn't bite, nor did a rabid Ads fan bite him/her, to my knowledge. Harmless as mascots go, though somewhere former Admirals owner Blake Cullen is suffering a telekinetic heartburn.
Have I mentioned there was an actual hockey game Friday night at Scope? That the Admirals were throttled by Charlotte 6-1 in their debut under new management?
It wasn't pretty - newly arrived goalie Marc Seliger was particularly shaky - but it probably would've been surprising if it was. The Admirals were playing together for the first time, having been unable to schedule any exhibition games.
They'll be good. Everybody says so. Word is they are talent-rich, and the club's working agreements with the Washington Capitals and the American Hockey League's Portland Pirates are stronger than they've been.
In theory, that means any of the nine Admirals under higher-level contracts who move up or get hurt will be replaced by similar talent. (The jury's already out on that. Goalie Darryl Paquette was called to Portland on Friday, replaced by Seliger.) That wasn't necessarily the case last year when, under agreements that weren't so committed, a promising season went into the tank via injuries and promotions.
``You can't control it,'' Admirals general manager and assistant coach Al MacIsaac said before the game. ``You just hope you stay healthy and your best players aren't called up. As long as Portland is healthy, we're healthy. It's a chain reaction.''
Good health, oddly enough, is the contagious concern throughout the Admirals organization. It's why so many ancillary changes have been engineered by the new owners. The Ads lost money last year for the first time, stunning considering they averaged nearly 7,000 fans a game.
Things had to be done to engage and even enlarge the patronage. Adding layers of noise and carnival acts seems to be the way to go these days, though that is open to interpretation as well.
``We don't want to be like Richmond,'' one woman said to owner Mark Garcea before the game, fearing an infiltration of the rabble-rousing atmosphere at Renegades games.
Garcea thanked her for her interest.
``We're trying to appeal to everybody,'' he said when she left. ``Like the music. So many people told us the music was putting them to sleep. They didn't want to hear `Anchors Aweigh' this year.
``Most arenas in the country play this music now. It's what you'd call contemporary; it's not hard rock. Hockey's a traditional sport; we're just trying to liven it up a little bit.''
In the end, happily, that's the best thing that isn't new at Admirals games. It's still hockey, one of the greatest games to watch live. And if you can watch it now with a beer in your hand and a rainbow drawn on your face, well, what's a little hearing loss? by CNB