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Nailers plan to stay in W. Va.
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Bruce Zoldan
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Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams
The Wheeling hockey team’s owners say they will not move their squad to Youngstown.
YOUNGSTOWN — The city’s best option to bring minor league hockey back to the Chevrolet Centre next season is gone.
The ECHL’s Wheeling [W.Va.] Nailers won’t be coming here.
The disclosure of the confidential discussions is probably why they ended, said Bruce Zoldan, who was talking with the Nailers’ owners about the relocation of the team to Youngstown.
Zoldan is the owner of the Mahoning Valley Phantoms, a junior hockey team that currently plays at the Chevrolet Centre, and is interested in bringing a minor league hockey team to the facility.
Zoldan said Jim and Rob Brooks, the Nailers’ co-owners, sent an e-mail to him Thursday stating they have no intention of relocating their team to Youngstown.
That is the same day The Vindicator published an article about discussions to bring the Nailers to Youngstown.
Attempts by The Vindicator to reach the Brooks brothers Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were unsuccessful.
The brothers told various Wheeling media, including The Intelligencer newspaper, they have no plans to relocate the team, and never discussed a move to Youngstown.
Zoldan and Mayor Jay Williams said that’s not the case.
The discussions of moving to Youngstown were serious, though there wasn’t a deal in place, Zoldan said.
Zoldan said because questions asked by a Vindicator reporter were “pretty detailed” about the talks, there was no reason to keep the information secret.
“They’re embarrassed in front of their Wheeling fans and Wheeling facility and being questioned by the Wheeling media,” Zoldan said about the Brooks brothers’ denials. “If security or confidentiality was breached, it wasn’t done intentionally.”
The Nailers’ owners visited the center to watch the Phantoms as well as to tour the arena, Zoldan said.
“I’m a little taken aback by this news,” Williams said. “We didn’t do anything to dissuade them from coming here. I would hope they wouldn’t allow well-intentioned media coverage to stop them from making a decision.”
The Brooks brothers told The Intelligencer last month that the team was “losing big time at the box office” and “if that trend continues, the team’s future in Wheeling could be in doubt.”
On Thursday, Rob Brooks told the newspaper that the team is “planning full bore for next year in Wheeling.”
But the team’s basic problems — losing money and poor attendance — continue.
“If those fundamental issues can be removed by coming to Youngstown, you shouldn’t allow business decisions to be driven by the media,” Williams said.
Zoldan and Williams said there are other hockey options out there and they’ll explore all of them.
“This was one that seemed to have a lot of promise,” Williams said of the Nailers.
Brian McKenna, ECHL commissioner, said the deadline for Youngstown to join the league for the 2009-10 season is Jan. 21 when the league convenes its midseason meeting at Reading, Pa.
It’s going to be a real challenge to get a deal in place by then, Williams said.
“I don’t want to give up hope,” Zoldan said of a higher level of hockey at the center next season.
Another possibility, he said, is to keep the Phantoms at the center for another year while working to bring in another team from the ECHL, considered among the top minor hockey leagues.
When asked about waiting another year, Williams said: “It remains to be seen. It will be based on what will be done” in the very near future.
Meanwhile, the city is holding discussions with four companies about naming rights for the center.
Zoldan, who owns the B.J. Alan fireworks company, confirmed to The Vindicator that he’s offering $140,000 annually for five years for the center’s naming rights.
Zoldan offered to provide about $40,000 worth of fireworks to the city for the Fourth of July and First Night events in exchange for reducing the annual naming rights fee by $20,000.
If the city chooses Zoldan, it would take the extra cash over the discounted fireworks deal, Williams said.
Williams declined to discuss the names of the three other companies and the details of those proposals. A decision is expected no later than March, he said.
The mayor declined to say if Zoldan’s offer was the largest in money and years.
“His proposal is in the mix,” Williams said. “It’s not just about the money. It’s not just the bottom-line dollar. It’s the ability to best promote the facility.”
The three other companies are “local with national presence,” he said.
Because of declining revenue and a struggling economy, General Motors didn’t renew its contract for the naming rights when it expired Sept. 30.
GM paid $175,000 in cash annually for three years and provided four vehicles a year to the city.