Hockey returning to LV

Ron Kantowski and Steve Guiremand

Thursday, Jan. 17, 2002 | 11:20 a.m.

Local hockey fans anticipating a fix with the arrival of the West Coast Hockey League in 2003 won't be seeing any Mario Lemieuxs or Patrick Roys.

If fact, they won't even be watching too many Jean-Marc Richards skate around the ice at the proposed downtown arena.

Richard was a stalwart defenseman for the Las Vegas Thunder of the now defunct International Hockey League, a franchise that lasted six seasons before folding in 1999 due to expensive salaries, an expensive lease at the Thomas & Mack Center and not enough paying customers to offset them.

Players such as Richard are a couple of strides above the talent level in the WCHL, according to Las Vegas hockey authority Tim Neverett, who compared the league to double-A baseball.

"It's a step below the IHL," said Neverett, the former play-by-play voice of the Thunder who now calls UNLV football and Las Vegas 51s baseball. "There are some former IHL players who play in it. It's guys who at one time thought they had an opportunity to play in the NHL but never made it. Some were too small and some just weren't good enough."

But Neverett said the WCHL isn't exactly pond hockey, either, perhaps because the league has a reputation for developing goaltenders.

"The goalies are usually young and the best prospects in the league," he said.

Idaho developer Larry Leasure and Joe Briglia of the SMG Corporation, which will build the 7,500-seat arena, were to announce at Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman's weekly news conference today that the WCHL would grant an expansion franchise to Las Vegas for the 2003-04 season.

According to a public letter-of-intent received by the mayor, the team will be known as the Las Vegas Rangers.

The WCHL currently features two four-team divisions.

The WCHL Northern Division includes the Boise-based Idaho Steelheads, the Colorado Gold Kings from Colorado Springs, the Anchorage Aces and the Tacoma Sabercats, who, ironically, used to be a minor league feeder for the Thunder. The Southern Division includes a couple of teams that Thunder fans might be familiar with, the Long Beach Ice Dogs and the San Diego Gulls. Both were once affiliated with the IHL. The other two teams in the division are the Bakersfield Condors and the Fresno Falcons.

Until recently, the Anchorage team was coached by former NHL star Butch Goring, who also was the Thunder's first coach. But Goring, who went on to serve as head coach of the NHL's New York Islanders before being fired, recently met the same fate in Anchorage.

He was replaced by another former NHL vet who also has Las Vegas ties. The Aces are 3-3-3 under former Toronto Maple Leaf Walt Poddubny, who also skated for the defunct Las Vegas Flash of the equally defunct Roller Hockey International circuit several summers ago.

Former Thunder goalie Clint Malarchuk, one of the most popular players to lace up the skates in Las Vegas, was the head coach in Idaho last year before being fired.