DATE: Friday, October 3, 1997               TAG: 9710030870

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C4   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY HARRY MINIUM, STAFF WRITER  

                                            LENGTH:  102 lines

ARE HURRICANES SKATING ON THIN ICE? PREDICTIONS MIXED AS N.C.'S NEW NHL TEAM PLAYS ITS HOME OPENER TONIGHT.

Raleigh businessman Miles Wolff will be in the stands tonight when the Carolina Hurricanes host the Pittsburgh Penguins in their first NHL game at the Greensboro Coliseum.

A Greensboro native who publishes Baseball America magazine, Wolff says he's rooting for major league hockey to succeed in North Carolina.

``Could it work here? Yeah, I think so,'' said Wolff, who formerly owned minor league baseball and hockey teams in Raleigh. ``But will it? No, I don't think it will. They don't understand the market. I'm not impressed at all from what I've seen of their marketing.''

Neither are North Carolina's sports-conscious fans, who embraced the state's first two major professional teams passionately. The NBA's Charlotte Hornets and NFL's Carolina Panthers have drawn sellout crowds from the start, but the Hurricanes expect to draw about 18,000 tonight, 3,000 short of capacity.

In the five months since the former Hartford Whalers moved to North Carolina, they've sold barely 3,000 season tickets, one-fourth of their goal. Exhibition games have been sparsely attended.

Whatever the reason for the lack of sales, it hasn't been for a lack of trying. The Hurricanes have spent more than $1 million on radio, TV and newspaper ads.

Players and coaches have held promotional events over much of the state. The Hurricanes have even hired NASCAR driver Jeff Burton to hawk tickets. He will drop the first puck tonight.

Rick Francis, son of former New York Rangers coach Emile Francis and the team's director of promotions, said Burton is the perfect spokesman for the team.

``This market has such a passion for NASCAR,'' he said. ``There are similarities between the sports.''

Wolff doesn't agree. With an average ticket price of $38 and season tickets priced from $850 to $4,525, racing fans are not the people the Hurricanes need to reach, he said.

``That's not your market,'' he said. ``You've got to appeal to the upper-middle class.''

Wolff says the team made another critical mistake by not making Greensboro residents feel that the Hurricanes are their team; Greensboro Coliseum is a temporary home until a new arena opens in Raleigh in 1999.

The team is training in Raleigh, has its offices there and will bus players to Greensboro for games. The only office in Greensboro is a two-person ticket operation.

At the end of two seasons, the Hurricanes will put an AHL team in Greensboro and perhaps will play an exhibition there, but the NHL team is clearly Raleigh's property.

``I would have told the fans in Greensboro, if you support this team, we will play five or 10 games here every year when the new building is open,'' Wolff said.

``You're not going to get many people driving from Raleigh these next two years, so you want to make people in Greensboro feel like this is their team. That was a big mistake.''

If mistakes were made, Francis said people need to understand the circumstances. The Whalers didn't announce they were moving to North Carolina until May 6.

``We had six or seven of us responsible for moving the whole operation, for setting up offices, hiring a new staff, beginning an marketing campaign,'' he said. ``It was overwhelming initially.''

Hurricanes officials still profess confidence in the market and say whatever glitches have occurred will be smoothed over.

``It's going to work,'' said Lou Beer, the team's general counsel, who noted that there were 18 pro teams within a two-hour drive of Hartford. ``In Raleigh, there's no direct competition.''

Wolff says there is competition, that the Hurricanes don't understand the passion Triangle sports fans feel for ACC football and basketball. There are three ACC schools - North Carolina, North Carolina State and Duke - within a half-hour of the Raleigh arena site.

``Essentially, they're going to be competing against the colleges,'' he said.

And competing at a price disadvantage. ACC football tickets cost about half that of a hockey ticket. Hurricanes officials also may have erred when they declined to give season-ticket holders a discount, something nearly universal in the NHL. Many who placed deposits on season tickets balked at buying them when they discovered there was no discount.

Wolff says he's not sure Raleigh-Durham, the NHL's smallest U.S. market with 1.1 million residents, is a major league market.

``I'm not concerned from a population standpoint as much as a business standpoint,'' he said. ``The major businesses here are state government and universities. We have a lot of high-tech firms, but not many corporate headquarters. And it's corporations that buy a majority of major league season tickets.

``I know you have a similar situation in Tidewater, where your major employer is the Navy. The reality is that Charlotte is a good market because they have a lot of banks and other businesses with headquarters there.''

Hurricanes officials say the jury will be out on hockey in North Carolina until the team begins playing in Raleigh. Francis said the combination of a new arena, having two years to market hockey and moving into a new Southern Division with Washington, Nashville, Tampa Bay, Florida and Atlanta will bring out fans.

``That could happen,'' Wolff said. ``You never know until you open the gates. . . . But if I was a betting man, I'd bet no.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

JOSEPH RODRIGUEZ/Landmark News Service

Empty seats abounded in the Greensboro Coliseum for the Carolina

Hurricanes' preseason games.

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