Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 31, 1993 TAG: 9308310023
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RANDY KING STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If the Express is to be a box-office success in its first East Coast Hockey League season, it will be imperative that area fans find the Roanoke Civic Center on Tuesday nights this winter.
Fourteen Tuesday dates dominate the Express' 34-game regular-season home schedule, announced Monday in a news conference at the civic center.
"Obviously, Tuesdays are going to be big for us," said Joe Steffen, Express marketing director. "We knew going into this thing that we would have to play a lot of games on weekday nights due to all the civic center's prior weekend bookings. Ideally, of course, we'd rather be playing every home game on the weekends, but that wasn't possible."
In the past at the Vinton LancerLot, the local ECHL entry has drawn abysmal numbers on weekday nights. Last season, the Roanoke Valley Rampage drew only one crowd of more than 1,000 fans - on Thanksgiving Day - in seven Thursday dates.
Steffen said the Express is banking on Tuesday becoming "hockey night in Roanoke."
"Monday is NFL football night and Wednesday is church night around here," Steffen said. "We're Schedule in Scoreboard. B4 hoping people will reserve their Tuesdays for hockey."
Steffen said the Express will market the Tuesday games as "Family Nights." All Tuesday and Thursday games will start at 7 p.m.; all Friday and Saturday games will start at 7:30.
"By starting at 7, people can bring the kids and be home by 9:30 or so," Steffen said.
The Express' home schedule also includes five games on Thursday, seven on Friday and eight on Saturday.
"We could have played more Thursday games but we didn't want to bunch it up where we would be playing three games in three nights at home. Therefore, we went with Tuesdays."
Steffen said he was aware the Express would be going head-to-head against high school basketball by playing on Tuesdays.
"We don't really go up against [high school basketball] until late December and January," Steffen said. "We're hopeful by then we'll have established ourselves as an entertainment entity for families."
The Express opens the 1993-94 season on Tuesday, Oct. 19 when it plays host to the expansion South Carolina Stingrays.
Roanoke, which will be a member of the seven-team East Division, will play an unbalanced schedule against fellow East clubs, with eight games (four home, four away) against Hampton Roads, Richmond and Greensboro, and six games (three home, three away) against South Carolina, Charlotte and Raleigh.
Roanoke will face each team of the ECHL's six-member North and West divisions twice (one home, one away).
The Express will play three preseason games, including home dates on Tuesday, Oct. 12 vs. Raleigh and Saturday, Oct. 16 vs. Knoxville. Roanoke will play Greensboro in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Thursday, Oct. 14.
\ RADIO EXPRESS: All of the Express' games - home and away - will be broadcast. Approximately 60 games will be carried live by either WROV (1240 AM) or WRIS (1410 AM). WROV tentatively is scheduled to carry 50 games, and WRIS will carry the remaining 18.
"We think this is an important factor in our marketing scheme of being a first-class hockey team . . . and will help us build an ever-expanding fan base in the area," said Pierre Paiement, Express general manager.
\ ICE CHIPS: The Express unveiled its uniforms Monday. The home jerseys are predominantly white, with black shoulders and red and dark green trim. The road jerseys are predominantly dark green, with black shoulders and red and white trim. . . . Steffen said the club expects to surpass 1,000 season tickets sold by the end of next week. . . . Two of Roanoke's top four picks in the June ECHL expansion draft have been invited to NHL training camps. Forward Dave "Moose" Morrissette, the club's No. 1 selection, is going to Hartford's camp and goalie Pat McGarry is heading to Ottawa's camp. Defenseman Will Averill has been invited to Portland's IHL camp. Three veterans chosen in the draft - goalie Mike Millham, right wing Peter Buckeridge and left wing Kevin Alexander - have decided to retire from hockey, Express coach Frank Anzalone said.
by CNB