Loneys feel good about first season, say Phantoms can grow as organization

May 5, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

Tyler Sheehy spent the better part of two seasons over the last four years playing for the Waterloo Black Hawks in the United States Hockey League.

He made only one road trip to the Covelli Centre, home of the Youngstown Phantoms, and it came on a Friday night in January of 2014. The attendance in the building that night: 879.

So when Sheehy learned he had been traded from Waterloo to Youngstown in early March, while he was moving up in the standings, he wasn’t exactly giddy about the notion of playing in a notoriously lackluster atmosphere.

“Coming in, I kind of knew that the crowds here weren’t always that great, but I’ve said this to quite a few people now,” Sheehy explained. “Ever since I did get here, the crowds have been really good. It was a lot of fun going out and playing in front of a big crowd every night.”

Just goes to show how quickly things can change.

Sheehy made a seamless transition on the ice, stepping into the Phantoms’ top line with Kyle Connor and Ryan Lomberg. And while he was busy making a good impression with his teammates, the organization was having the same impact on the veteran forward. It should be noted he benefitted greatly from joining the team at just the right time.

The Phantoms were 10 wins in to a franchise-record 17-game win streak when they traded for Sheehy, and the turnouts for home games were proof that it’s easier to get behind a successful team. Covelli Centre attendance numbers increased each month of the season for the Phantoms and culminated with a record turnout of 4,017 in the final regular-season home game.

“As the season when on, we definitely felt that there were more and more fans in the building every night,” Lomberg said. “Obviously the more successful you are on the ice impacts that as well. People want to see a winning team and we were a winning team.”

Co-owners Troy and Aafke Loney set lofty goals for their first year on the job, especially considering the dismal season the organization experienced the year before. One thing Troy mentioned often in his introductory press conference was the process. After the season, he described year one as a “really good foundation-building year.”

“The community’s been really good,” Loney said. “Have we figured out the magic sauce to have 5,000 people in the building every night? No. Do we think we can and it’ll take some time? Absolutely. I think those things will happen. Are you gonna do it overnight? Absolutely not.

“I still think it’s a two- to three-year thing to get more excitement in the community. And we have to deliver as an organization,” Loney said. “We have to deliver something that somebody wants to come and watch and they’re going to have fun doing. So I think we’ve taken some positive steps in that direction.”

Admittedly, Loney said there’s still areas they can improve upon in both the business and management aspects of the job. He felt they became more in-tune with the community as the season went on and learned things they simply could not have known without on-the-job experience.

“On the business side, it’s much more planning than what I actually had thought,” Loney admitted. “So we’re planning now already for next year — scheduling, promotions, all that kind of stuff. You have to do that stuff now so you have time during the season and you’re not chasing that the whole time.

“And, honestly, I felt like we were chasing that a little bit this year.”

While the Loneys will have a year of experience under their belt when next season begins, what they wont have is an experienced leadership core among the players. What makes junior hockey like any other minor league sports system is the turnover. Players come and go at no fault of the organization. And this year, the Phantoms are losing more than just great players — they’re losing team ambassadors.

Replacing guys like Connor, Kiefer Sherwood and Josh Nenadal, to name a few, won’t be easy.

“I felt a difference, for me, for the first time in the community,” head coach Anthony Noreen said. “Going to lunch, going to dinner places or going wherever it was, more so than ever, people would come up and say ‘Hey, good luck tonight. Hey, great job. Hey, great to see you. We’ll be at the game on Friday night.’

“I just feel like this group, because of how they acted and they competed and they kind of bought into the fabric of this town, I feel like they won this town over. People rallied behind them and that, for me, was as rewarding as anything else that happened this year.”

The majority of players in the USHL are still in high school. They often leave their families and homes at a young age and are placed with billet families in whatever new town they end up in. So while the players getting comfortable in the town is important, it’s just as important that the town embraces the kids.

“Coming to Youngstown, yeah there may not be as many people [in the stands], but I mean the passion that those fans have for this team is just overwhelming,” Nenadal said. “One fan can make up for 20 who really don’t care. And that’s the thing about Youngstown fans. They really do care.

“They don’t care about the hockey, they care about the people and they care about the players.”

If this was a foundation-building year like Loney believes, they should be able to put up the framing of a more stable organization next season. There are no professional sports teams in the city of Youngstown. The Phantoms are hoping to finally corner the market with a more professionally run team.

“Hopefully the organization knows that we did a lot of stuff,” Loney said, “but we’re not satisfied.”