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Movin’ On Down The Road
Continued from page one...
Back in Birmingham?
The Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex [BJCC] has told MLN that there have been inquires regarding the Slammers moving into their building for the 2004-05 season, according to its executive director, Frank Poe.
These inquiries were initiated by David Waronker, the EHL founder, and not by Taylor Hall, the President of Alabama Professional Hockey, owner of the Slammers.
According to Poe, the BJCC is currently performing due diligence checks on the league and the team to determine if they will be eligible to lease the arena for 2004-2005.
Serious questions arise over the move to Birmingham, a city where hockey has struggled for almost thirty years.
Taking the BJCC Challenge
Hockey has been a part of the history of the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex and the city of Birmingham since the days of the upstart World Hockey Association (WHA) major league club in the 1970’s.
The most recent puck-related tenants were the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) Birmingham Bulls whose last year of operation was 2002.
The BJCC is a 17,000-seat arena, fine for events from Circus to ice shows. To a minor league hockey team in a town with a limited puck passion, it is a cavernous empty space that presents Everest-like challenges.
The best attendance number for a regular hockey game in the building was a WHA meet at the BJCC with attendance in the neighborhood of 8,000. Most major league games generously hovered around 3,000 paid and comp seats.
The average ECHL games also drew humble numbers, a primary reason that the Bulls could not continue operation. Fans have said that the arena seemed downright empty.
If messages on the Slammers’ fan message board this week were any indication, many suburban area hockey fans don’t like the idea of driving into Birmingham to the BJCC to watch hockey. That might further depress potential attendance.
Last year, the team’s principal in the ownership group, Taylor Hall, told MLN that he had chosen the Pelham Civic Center because he was realistic about the number of hockey fans in the area, and about where they wanted to watch the sport.
He also remarked on the synergies of nearby concert facilities that drew large numbers of people from the metro Birmingham area and surrounding counties.
Hall said that a smaller arena with a maximum capacity of around 4,000 that was crowded worked better than a big arena like the BJCC that was largely empty with the same crowd. He made the remarks in an interview for a story about the team's development in 2003, in response to the question of what might happen if a team from the rival Southeast Hockey League (SEHL) tried to set up shop at the BJCC and compete with his team.
Hall said that his model for the Slammers’ operation in Pelham was viable and could make a profit.
If Waronker’s statements about the team’s debt being in the neighborhood of $300,000 from last season at the PCC are true, it begs the question: If a team can’t make a profit in a facility designed to cater to the ownership’s realistic attendance numbers, what will happen in a building with a capacity more than four times bigger than Pelham?
Of course, Alabama Professional Hockey may not share all of Waronker’s ideas on location. They spent a great deal of time and effort building up the space around the ice in the PCC.
Mayor Hayes says that he was “generally pleased with the product that [the Slammers] put on the ice.”
It seems clear that, if the Slammers can clean up their past due bills and provide a reasonable roadmap into the future, the door remains open to continued operation in Pelham, at least from the public pronouncements of city and center officials.
What is also clear is that moving is not going to make the Slammers’ money problems go away, or open the doors to the ice at the BJCC.
“We don’t want any financial baggage to be brought over. If there are obligations, those obligations need to be satisfied,” said Poe.
If the financial obligations have to be met in either event, why move?
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