NO DEAL YET ON REBELS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 5, 1992                   TAG: 9202050260
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RANDY KING SPORTSWRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
NO DEAL YET ON REBELS
Professional hockey in the Roanoke Valley is not history yet.
Roanoke Valley Rebels owner Henry Brabham, who left Sunday for the East Coast Hockey League winter meetings in Charlotte, N.C., with two bids to buy the club, returned home Tuesday night without a deal, said one league source who spoke only if his name were not used.
Brabham had checked out of his Charlotte motel Tuesday night and was unavailable for comment. He told the Roanoke Times & World-News on Monday night that he would not discuss any further proceedings about the possible sale of the club.
The ECHL's board of governors, consisting of the league's 15 club owners, voted down both offers to buy the Roanoke Valley franchise, the source confirmed Tuesday night. Both bidders had expressed interest in moving the club to Birmingham, Ala.
"Henry didn't put up much of a fight about it today," the source said. "Apparently, there was some confusion present. He seemed to be backpedaling. I guess he has some second thoughts about selling the club. All I can say further is that nothing has been approved."
The source said the attitude among those at the meeting was that Brabham wanted to and eventually would sell the club. Reports that the Knoxville franchise also wants to move to Birmingham could be holding up the sale of the Roanoke Valley franchise, the source added.
\ In other developments Tuesday:
The league voted to stage its first All-Star game next season in Cincinnati on the Monday night after the NFL's Super Bowl. Each division will have a 20-member team consisting of at least one player from every team in the league.
The league decided to waive a pair of $5,000 fines imposed against the Hampton Roads and Winston-Salem franchises for use of illegal players.
Both clubs had appealed the fines levied by Commissioner Pat Kelly in early December for using three players with more than three years' professional experience on their roster. League rules state that only two such players may be on a team's roster at any time.
The league's board of governors voted to extend Kelly's contract through the 1992-93 season. Kelly's current three-year contract expires at the end of this season.
The board tabled discussion on a pair of much-challenged rules concerning roster makeup. Included were the two-veteran rule and the Canadian-American rule, which stipulates a team may not carry more than eight Canadian-born players unless it has two contracted players off NHL 50-man rosters. In that case, it may carry 10 Canadians.
The league voted to uphold the season-long suspension of Columbus player Jason Taylor, who received an injunction from an Ohio federal court judge to rejoin the Chill last Friday. The league will hire an attorney in an attempt to have the injunction removed. Taylor was suspended by Kelly for the rest of the season after hitting Hampton Roads' Harry Mews with a stick in late October.
Some information for this story was provided by Landmark News Service.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB