Friday, Dec. 21, 2001 | 9:43 a.m.
ATLANTIC CITY -- Minor league basketball flopped here. Minor league baseball is struggling. Now, a minor league hockey team is rolling the dice.
The Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies, an East Coast Hockey League team owned by Charlotte Hornets owner George Shinn, is gambling that a renovated Boardwalk Hall and an aggressive marketing campaign will put fans in the seats.
So far, the results have been mediocre.
Following Wednesday night's victory over the Dayton Bombers, the team is 14-8-6 overall, 9-3-2 in its home games and in third place out of seven teams in the ECHL's Northeast Division.
The team gets an average home crowd of 2,970, nearly 1,000 below the league average of 3,822 per game.
The Bullies are playing a 72-game schedule against the likes of the Cincinnati Cyclones, the Johnstown Chiefs, the Trenton Titans and the Peoria Rivermen.
Home games are being played in Boardwalk Hall, the Depression-era landmark that is home to the Miss America Pageant and recently underwent $90 million in renovations.
General manager Matt Loughran said 1,000 season tickets have been sold and the team has verbal commitments for 1,000 more. The rest of the 10,500-seat arena will have to be filled by walk-up customers buying tickets, which are priced from $9 to $20.
"I'm very optimistic," Loughran said before the start of the season. "If we are to expect a commitment from the community, we have to make that commitment back to the community, and Mr. Shinn is willing to do that. We have 14 people on staff and he's made a sizable investment to make this a professionally run franchise."
Loughran, a native of Ridgewood, and coach Mike Haviland, a native of Middletown, believe the team will draw from all over the Jersey shore.
Loughran said three or four casino companies, including Park Place Entertainment Corp., have committed to buying tickets, but he would not say how many.
That's one step in the right direction, anyway.
The 12 casinos have done little to support the Atlantic City Surf minor league baseball team, beyond helping to underwrite its $14.5 million stadium with casino tax revenues.
"They're paying a ton of money to get people to stay in their casinos, between the advertising, the bus packages and the promotions," said Dr. Ira Trocki, the former owner of the Atlantic City Seagulls basketball team. "They don't even want them on the Boardwalk, let alone at the Convention Center, where they might go to another casino."
The Surf's sparkling 5,900-seat stadium, named The Sandcastle, drew an average of only 2,262 per game last season, despite $6 tickets, a plethora of gimmicky between-innings promotions and a panoramic view of the casino skyline.
The Seagulls of the United States Basketball League have fared even worse.
The team's attendance, which barely reaches 100 people at some games, exasperated Trocki so badly he ended up giving the franchise away after two seasons. Last June the team finished its season 0-28, worst in league history.
But Trocki believes hockey is different. The popularity of the NHL's Philadelphia Flyers and the AHL's Philadelphia Phantoms in southern New Jersey bodes well for the Atlantic City hockey team, he said.
"We want to put out a product that will keep people coming back again and again," Loughran said.
archive
