DATE: Tuesday, April 22, 1997               TAG: 9704220260

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C6   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY HARRY MINIUM,STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  105 lines

ADMIRALS' BEST EFFORTS CAN'T REVERSE ATTENDANCE SLIDE TV APPEARANCES AND LONGER PLAYOFF RUNS ARE KEYS TO WIDENING THE FRANCHISE'S FAN BASE, OFFICIALS SAY.

Whether the glass was half-full or half-empty at the turnstile for the Hampton Roads Admirals this season depends on your point of view.

``We stopped the bleeding,'' said Admirals business manager Brian Kelley, who is of the half-full philosophy. ``We made progress.''

By that he means a long-term attendance slide was nearly halted.

But the bottom line for the Admirals was that for the third time in four seasons, regular-season attendance fell.

It didn't fall as much as a year ago, when it dropped 609 admissions per game to a five-year low of 6,924. That resulted in more than a $100,000 loss, the only red ink in the franchise's first seven seasons.

This season, the Admirals drew an average of 6,895, down 29 per game. While the decline was minuscule, the team distributed about 400 more ``comp'' tickets per game - free tickets provided to fans - than a year ago, meaning paid attendance was down significantly.

Overall attendance was down more than 1,000 per game from 1992-93, when the Admirals led minor league hockey with a per-game average of 7,904.

This season's dip occurred despite high-profile efforts by new owners Mark Garcea and Page Johnson to bring people back to Scope, including a $23,000 glitzy pregame light show, juiced-up music, a fuzzy-faced dog mascot and increased advertising budgets.

The games were noisier, with radio disc jockey Peter Tripp circling the ice between periods on a golf cart, screaming into a microphone and catapulting T-shirts into the stands. There's even a blimp that floats over fans, dropping coupons.

``It's busy,'' coach John Brophy said with a smile. ``We needed that. It's better for the fans.''

The Admirals also put one of their best teams on the ice, with popular stars such as Victor Gervais and Randy Pearce leading them to 46 regular-season victories.

With more Friday night dates than ever, the Admirals figured attendance would surely increase. But it didn't.

````We learned a lot,'' Johnson said. ``We did some things well and we made some mistakes. We are a little disappointed in the attendance, but we understand the reasons why it happened.''

Johnson says these are some of the key reasons for the drop:

Media attention was diverted from the Admirals from early November through late February when Charlotte businessman George Shinn tried to bring an NHL expansion team to Hampton Roads.

The demolition of hundreds of parking spaces for the MacArthur Center left the Admirals without adequate parking adjacent to Scope. The Admirals say they lost thousands of admissions from fans unable to find parking who turned around and went home.

The Old Dominion women's basketball team's run to the Final Four in February and March again diverted media attention from the Admirals during the stretch run of the ECHL season.

``Between ODU and (Shinn's expansion drive), we didn't get as much media coverage as we'd gotten in the past,'' Johnson said.

The team retained the basic promotional scheme used by previous owner Blake Cullen, but it's still uncertain whether the changes made by the Admirals helped or hurt attendance.

They produced a younger crowd, with more children and 20-something adults, but fewer older fans. Some longtime fans complained that the between-periods show was so loud they could no longer carry on conversations.

Kelley said management has struggled with how to attract younger fans without turning off the gray-haired set. Asked if he worries about losing older fans, Kelley replied: ``Every day. Even when I'm not hearing things, and I haven't heard a lot about it, I'm worried.

``I think the focus has to be hockey. When you intrude on the hockey, you've gone too far. Mr. Cullen knew how to put on a great hockey game. . . . We've kept most of what he did, but we've taken the times when the game isn't actually going on and we've tried to entertain in those time periods.''

Renee Jalbert is a longtime Admirals' follower who says she liked some of the changes and disliked others.

But she said they neither kept her from or prodded her to attend more games.

``I go to watch good hockey,'' she said.

Kelley said that's one area where the Admirals scored points.

``If we did nothing else, we showed the fans that the emphasis on putting a great team on the ice hasn't changed,'' he said. ``I don't think fans question our commitment to winning.''

Johnson said prior to the playoffs that there are two keys to turning attendance around next season.

First, the Admirals need to do well in the playoffs. They have been knocked out in either the first or second round in the last four seasons, and not coincidentally, team officials say, there has been a corresponding attendance decline.

``We have to have a good playoff run to get healthy,'' Kelley said.

It didn't happen. The Admirals routed Roanoke three games to one in the first round but fell to South Carolina in the second round.

The other key is television, Johnson said. The Admirals have to be on TV next season. They have not been on local television since '94-95, when Home Team Sports broadcast a game from Greensboro.

``As popular as the Admirals are, we don't have a large fan base,'' he said. ``We've got a dedicated 4,000 fans who will be out here every night. The rest of our fans are just spectators. Television is the way to create new fans.''

Johnson wouldn't comment on whether the Admirals showed a profit, though sources indicate the team will end up in the black. An increase in corporate sponsorships helped the bottom line.

``Overall I'm satisfied,'' Johnson said. ``We bought the team last June and basically had only a few months to prepare for the season. There wasn't enough time to do everything we wanted to do. . . . We're going to have a better presence in the offseason than we've had before.

``With more time we'll do a better job.''

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