ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 6, 1997 TAG: 9703060071
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. THE ROANOKE TIMES
One of the Roanoke Express' founders is selling most of his stock to the team's other owners.
John Gagnon, who helped save professional hockey in the Roanoke Valley in 1993 when he led a group of investors that founded the Roanoke Express, will sell most of his stock to his co-owners and will no longer be the team's majority owner.
The East Coast Hockey League team scheduled a press conference for 7 p.m. today and issued a statement Wednesday that said ``a change in team ownership'' will be announced.
Joe Steffen, the club's vice president and director of communications, would not elaborate on the statement.
``I believe that's all we need to say for now,'' Steffen said.
Negotiations have gone on for several weeks between Gagnon, who owns 50 percent of the Express, and some of the club's minority owners. It is expected that Gagnon will retain some of his stock for the time being, but a controlling interest in the club will be held by the team's seven other co-owners: Steffen, Pierre Paiement, Richard Macher, Michael Stevens, Richard Yancey and Dickie and Sandy Bell.
The deal should bring to closure a contentious chapter of Express history that began April 19, 1996, when Gagnon was removed as the team's president by the board of directors due to his involvement with an ECHL expansion franchise in Biloxi, Miss.
Gagnon and Paiement, Roanoke's general manager, invested in the Mississippi Sea Wolves in January 1996, and were both voted out as club officers by Express minority owners. Paiement later pulled out of the Mississippi deal and retained his job as general manager.
Gagnon did not immediately return a telephone message Wednesday.
Gagnon, who owns an international trucking company, was the major player in keeping hockey in Roanoke following the demise of the ECHL's Vinton-based Roanoke Valley Rampage in March 1993. He and Paiement recruited their fellow investors and formed Roanoke Hockey Inc. in the spring of 1993. Their efforts were rewarded that June when the ECHL awarded the group an expansion franchise, although it came with the warning ``this is Roanoke's last chance.''
After years of poor teams and declining attendance in Vinton, the Roanoke group succeeded in getting hockey back in the Roanoke Civic Center, where the Express has posted three consecutive winning seasons (they are 32-21-4 this season, their fourth) and has set attendance records.
LENGTH: Medium: 53 linesby CNB