Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 18, 1993 TAG: 9303180548
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PRO HOCKEY PUT ON ICE IN THE VALLEY
THE BLIZZARD of '93 caves in the roof on the Roanoke Valley Rampage during its last home game. Fitting, somehow.The final game of the final season in one of the founding cities of the East Coast Hockey League ends with a drama that the team itself couldn't generate on the ice, a disaster that mirrored the season.
Roof supports at the LancerLot started to buckle under the weight of snow and the stress of high winds Saturday, forcing the evacuation of the Vinton sports complex. Play was called and the Rampage, losing at the time 6-2, had only one out-of-town game to play to bring an end to the worst season ever for an ECHL team.
And an end to professional hockey in the Roanoke Valley, LancerLot owner Henry Brabham declared. He wants to reopen the pool, health club and restaurant at the complex; he won't rebuild the hockey arena.
Oh, well. Rampage owner Larry Revo already had made it pretty clear he'd be moving the franchise, anyway.
A worse consequence of Brabham's decision, in some respects, is that there's now no place in the valley for the Youth Hockey program or for community skating.
For the roof was only the last thing to collapse around one of the valley's two professional sports teams. Before that, the team's won-loss record collapsed, fan support collapsed, fans' faith in the team's owner collapsed, and the owner's faith in the community collapsed.
Not that any of these were particularly strong to start with.
Bearing such burdens, what franchise wouldn't have buckled?
A professional sports team with broad support is an asset to an entire community, fans and non-fans alike. It provides entertainment to many, can become a rallying point, draws crowds that generate revenue for merchants, and is one more plus when business prospects are looking for a new home. The Lancers/Rebels/Rampage, as the team has been known in its various lives, never has been strong enough on the ice or in the heart of the community to be this kind of an asset.
That doesn't mean it could not have been. A better, more central facility - say, the Roanoke Civic Center - might have helped. And cleaner play.
Some rowdy Roanoke fans demanded "physical" hockey (read that, lots of fights), and got it - until this season, when Revo made it clear he preferred finesse to fisticuffs.
The fans howled, but Revo's brand of the game may well have found a wider audience in family-oriented Roanoke. A wider audience might have saved it.
Brabham, the founding father of the ECHL, has pronounced professional hockey dead in Roanoke. It certainly appears so. But in sports there is reincarnation.
A promoter could bring hockey back to the valley - perhaps even at the civic center, if that could be proved cost-effective. Hockey just might need greater capacity than the LancerLot housed if businesses throughout the valley would buy up season tickets and ensure a crowd. And many businesses just might do that if the game cleaned itself up.
Meanwhile, the city is trying to figure out if it can afford to put down ice at the civic center to give the Youth League a place to play. The valley needs such a place, somewhere, as well as a site for community skating.
These would be assured if, sometime in the future, a professional team took to the ice in the Roanoke Valley again. Hockey could come back, better than ever, especially if the right lessons were learned from its sorry history in the valley.