Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 13, 1993 TAG: 9303130167
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY KING STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
NO MIRACLES LEFT ON THIS ICE
MINOR-LEAGUE hockey and the Roanoke Valley, a marriage seemingly on the rocks for many years, may have held hands for the final time.\ Barring a last-second save, the puck will stop at the Vinton LancerLot tonight when the Roanoke Valley Rampage plays its final home game of the 1992-93 East Coast Hockey League season against the Richmond Renegades.
Hockey's divorce proceedings with the Roanoke Valley are being handled by Rampage owner Larry Revo, who, as of Friday, still was searching for a partner city to unite for the '93-94 ECHL season.
There appears to be only two long-shot scenarios that could prevent a split. The first is Revo pulling an unlikely turn and striking a deal to play next season in the Roanoke Civic Center. The second is Revo selling the Rampage to another party, who may or may not elect to keep the franchise in the valley.
Both are unlikely. Revo's Roanoke Civic Center commitment deadline is Sunday, and he's given no indication of going that route. And as of Friday, Revo said no local party has showed up at his door with the $450,000-$500,000 it would take to buy the team.
If Revo doesn't soon find a new city, his most viable alternative may be to pay the league $5,000 and place the franchise in a suspended state for next season, giving him another year's time to uncover a suitable moving site.
"Unless [Revo] makes a deal with the Roanoke Civic Center at the last minute, I think for the very near future Roanoke is gone as far as hockey is concerned," said Henry Brabham, who sold the Roanoke Valley franchise to Revo for $250,000 last summer.
"I just can't see him playing in Roanoke next year. I think he would sit out before he plays here."
Brabham, who single-handedly has kept the sport on ice in the valley the past 12 years, said anyone counting on him stepping in and making another save is mistaken.
"That's not an option, period," Brabham said. "The chance of me buying the club back from Larry Revo is absolutely zero."
Brabham dispelled speculation around the LancerLot that he may be willing to spearhead organization of a new smaller, lower-budgeted league that would include a team in Vinton.
"I don't see another league as a possibility until maybe a couple years down the road," he said. "Right now, I'd say no to it. The way it stands now, this league [the ECHL] is really solid.
"Now, down the road, I could see some of the smaller cities in the league now - the Eries, Johnstowns, and so forth - looking at something else simply because the ECHL had gotten too big for them. If that happens, we would probably have a hockey team back in this building."
Brabham said losing hockey might be the wake-up call the Roanoke Valley needs.
"I think local hockey fans here feel like it's going to be here, no matter what. Now they're going to wake up and realize it's gone. And what are they going to do for entertainment next winter? Roanoke is going to be one dead town next winter."
The Rampage, which hasn't helped its cause by losing 48 of 62 games, enters its home finale averaging an all-time ECHL-low 1,483 fans. Take away the crowd figures from the two games Revo moved from Vinton to Winston-Salem, N.C., and the club is averaging 1,419 for its 29 LancerLot dates.
As if the club's record and attendance numbers weren't bad enough, Revo's relationship with the Roanoke Valley businesses and fans has been shaky since Day One. His bottom-line decision to move the two games to Winston-Salem enraged the club's 200-or-so season ticket-holders and sponsoring advertisers.
"I think many people feel like Larry Revo used them," Brabham said. "From what I hear, he was already talking with Syracuse about moving before this season even started. That hacked people off. Then he made the Youth Hockey people mad."
Revo, who used to roam the LancerLot during games, has retreated to the safety of his office recently as some fans have grown increasingly hostile. Revo has watched the past several home games from his second-floor office window, away from the verbal taunts.
Thursday, there was a sign taped to a LancerLot walkway, saying: "Revo Is Over."
The big losers will be the few die-hard area fans who have hung with the local team since the sport surfaced at the Salem Civic Center in 1967.
Paul Rice, who estimated he has seen 95 percent of the games played in Vinton, Roanoke or Salem since 1980, said it will be "a sad feeling" tonight at the LancerLot.
"We may be looking at the last game ever played in the Roanoke Valley," Rice said. "To give it up cold turkey is going to be tough. It sort of gets in your blood like drinking does. I'm going to miss it. It's a real shame it has to go."
"We really hate it," said Bill and Cathy Shannon, an elderly Roanoke County couple who can count the home games they've missed since '67 on their fingers.
"When we first started going," said Bill Shannon, "we didn't know a thing about it. We didn't even know what icing was. But we caught onto it and fell in love with the sport." The Shannons knew and still recall all the great names and characters, whose pursuit of a hockey career brought them through this outpost in Southwest Virginia.
They said they never will forget left winger Dave "The Hammer" Schultz, whose iron fists ruled the old Eastern Hockey League; zany goalie Jim Letcher, who entertained fans by bouncing a rubber ball in net; forward August "Big Chief" George, a full-blooded Indian who used to fire arrows into the sides of occupied trailers at the old Salem Trailer Park; scoring machine Claude St. Sauveur and his elegant moves; wild child Dave Parenteau, who charged into the stands in Salem in 1972 in pursuit of a taunting fan; or big Serge Beaudoin, whose mere presence on the ice used to make opposing players quake in their skates.
"We used to put a lot of the players up in our house," Cathy Shannon said. "We always looked at them like they were our boys."
And now, barring something just short of a minor miracle, their boys are all leaving.
"When we get in the car to drive home after the game it will hit us," Bill Shannon said. "It's going to be sad, that's for sure."