The Icemen cometh (again)

Victoria Sun

Friday, Jan. 18, 2002 | 9:42 a.m.

If everything falls into place, Las Vegas will have at least one new minor league hockey team for the 2003-04 season.

Mayor Oscar Goodman confirmed at his weekly news conference Thursday that the latest franchise to enter the fickle Las Vegas market will be the Las Vegas Wranglers of the West Coast Hockey League, who will be the primary tenant at the downtown sports and concert arena proposed for the northeast corner of Stewart Avenue and Main Street.

Meanwhile, a source at the Orleans hotel-casino said that property planned to unveil plans for its new arena on Jan. 29, and that professional hockey would be a big part of them.

The question is: Will a new team or teams be able to thrive and/or survive longer than the Las Vegas Thunder did?

Clint Malarchuk, a fixture with the Thunder on and off the ice during the team's six-year run in the International Hockey League from 1993-99, thinks hockey can make it in Las Vegas.

"I know for a fact there's a hard-core group of 3,000 hockey fans there," Malarchuk said by telephone from Boise, Idaho. "I think it will go good there, I really do."

Malarchuk, the former NHL goaltender who finished his playing career in Las Vegas, went on to become an assistant coach, head coach and general manager for the Thunder. Currently, he is a radio and TV analyst for the WCHL's Idaho Steelheads.

He also believes the talent in the WCHL is now comparable to that of the IHL, which folded last year.

"Since the folding of the IHL, you're seeing a lot of trickle-down effect, so this league has improved," Malarchuk said. "A lot of the guys that were playing in the IHL, they are now playing in leagues like the WCHL, so I think you're going to see a pretty good caliber of hockey.

"It might not be as good as the IHL right away, but in time it will be."

Of all the independent minor league teams that have come and gone, the Thunder came closest to being a success in Las Vegas. It attracted a sizeable following, especially in its infancy, while playing in the Thomas & Mack Center.

Although the Thunder never won the IHL championship, it finished with the best regular-season record twice.

The eight-team WCHL, divided into Northern and Southern divisions, was formed in 1995. The addition of Las Vegas is part of a long-term plan to eventually expand the league to 12 teams.

Adam Keller, vice president of hockey operations for the WCHL, said the league is successful because it has low operating expenses.

"Player salaries and travel expenses are much lower, which helps in terms of being a successful league and allowing ownership of our franchises to be successful," said Keller, the former general manager of the IHL's Phoenix Roadrunners.

Keller said that each team is allowed to pay a maximum $12,000 a week in salaries to be divided among 20 roster players as it sees fit.

Malarchuk said salaries in the IHL ranged from a minimum of $30,000 to more than $100,000 annually.

An even bigger problem was the Thunder's expensive lease with the Thomas & Mack Center. While the tenant-landlord arrangement at the new building has yet to be determined, the lower player salaries mean that WCHL teams don't have to draw huge crowds to be successful. The league average for 150 games this year is 4,370, with San Diego topping the WCHL with 6,521 paying spectators per night.

The Wranglers will play 36 home games at the proposed 7,500-seat Las Vegas Events Center being developed by Larry Leasure, who also spearheaded the the building of the Bank of America Centre in Boise, where the Steelheads play. Philadelphia-based SMG will manage the arena, which also will serve as home for the Community College of Southern Nevada's fledgling men's and women's basketball teams, concerts and trade shows, and other sporting events, such as boxing and wrestling.

Playing in a smaller arena should help the hockey franchise, Malarchuk said.

"The arena we have here in Boise, it's beautiful and it holds 5,200 fans," he said. "It makes for a good, intimate setting.

"Having about 7,000 seats in Las Vegas, I think it's a perfect amount."

The Wranglers will be owned by San Diego-based Chandar Sports, which also owns and operates the Fresno Falcons, another WCHL team.

"Our plans are the same for Las Vegas as they were in Fresno," Chandar Sports president Charles Davenport said. "We're going to have an aggressive marketing campaign.

"We're going to use all the media outlets, get out to local rinks and try to capture all of the core hockey fans that went to Thunder games. We provide an evening entertainment alternative for families, instead of movies, that's fun and affordable."

Tickets to Wranglers games will range from $5 to $20.

"I would hope we're going to fill the building every night and I don't think that's a far-fetched idea," Davenport said.