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Minor league hockey unlikely at Centre
Although the SteelHounds or similar team probably won’t play downtown this season, a junior league may.
YOUNGSTOWN — It’s highly unlikely the Youngstown SteelHounds or similar minor league hockey team will play its home games at the Chevrolet Centre this season, Mayor Jay Williams said.
But it doesn’t mean there won’t be hockey at the city-owned facility, he said.
Nothing is close to being confirmed, but Williams said, “There is the chance of some sort of hockey at the Chevrolet Centre.”
An official announcement on hockey at the center will be made in a few weeks, he said.
“It’s remote,” Williams said when asked if the SteelHounds, which have called the center home for the past three seasons, would play at the facility this fall.
“It’s going to be a challenge” to field a team this season, said Herb Washington, owner of Blue Line Hockey LLC, the SteelHounds’ parent company.
Without the SteelHounds, the center would have 32 open dates. Eric Ryan, the facility’s executive director, has said he’s confident 20 of those 32 dates could be filled by other events.
“Hockey as part of a package to fill those dates remains a distinct possibility,” Williams said.
The mayor didn’t provide details about “some sort of hockey” at the center this season. But when asked about junior league hockey, he said it was a possibility.
Bruce Zoldan, owner of the Mahoning Valley Phantoms, a team in the junior “A” North American Hockey League, said he’s had “a couple of very, very surface conversations” about hockey at the Chevrolet Centre with Ryan.
“They were what-if conversations,” Zoldan said. “What if Herb and I put a team together ... There’s no need to not have hockey this season. It could be worked out. There is opportunity to work something out.”
But first, Zoldan said he would need to meet with Washington and city officials.
The Phantoms, a junior hockey team with players ranging in age from 16 to 20, play at the Ice Zone, which Zoldan owns, in Boardman.
“People will come see them play,” Zoldan said of his team. “If asked, we’d consider playing games downtown.”
Officials with the city and Blue Line will meet through September to evaluate the options for a hockey team at the center beginning with the 2009-10 season, Williams said.
Also, city officials will meet shortly with owners of luxury suites, club suites and major sponsors at the center to discuss the future of hockey at the facility, he said.
The Central Hockey League kicked the SteelHounds out June 2 over a financial dispute.
One option for the team was to play in the International Hockey League. But Paul Pickard, that league’s president, said earlier this month that Washington took too long to make a decision about playing this season and the IHL was moving on without him.
Other leagues have schedules in place for the upcoming season, which begins in about three months.
skolnick@vindy.com