Columnist Ron Kantowski: Downtown hockey plan still on ice

Thursday, May 23, 2002 | 9:17 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's insider notes column appears Tuesday and his Page One column appears Thursday. He can be reached at ron@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4088.

The minor league hockey team he owns plays in Fresno, yet Charles Davenport chooses to live in San Diego, which only proves that he's no dummy.

So why is he so wed to establishing a minor league hockey team in a downtown Las Vegas arena that thus far is only a figment of Mayor Goodman's imagination, when another new arena less than five miles away -- one still seeking a full-time minor league hockey tenant, mind you -- already has broken ground and at this rate will open ahead of schedule?

"Always when there's an announcement made like this about an arena, people expect progress to to be made," Davenport said Wednesday, upon returning from Fresno where the Falcons took a 3 games to 2 edge over the Idaho Steelheads in the finals of the West Coast Hockey League's Taylor Cup playoffs.

"Just because you cannot go down to the site and see it doesn't mean progress isn't being made."

Davenport said there are a myriad of details that must be discussed before an undertaking such as a sports arena can proceed. He is confident those discussions are taking place.

For his sake, I hope financing is one of them. Unless a money man steps forward soon, or alternate financing can be arranged, it would seem the downtown arena has about as much chance of being built as somebody from the Charlestown Chiefs being awarded the Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship.

"Honestly, we remain loyal to downtown," Davenport said. "They want a hockey team and we want to make sure that happens. I'm as confident as I ever was."

Perhaps Davenport should be penalized two minutes for wishful thinking.

But he said as long as ground on the downtown arena is broken by late summer or early fall, there should be enough time to complete the building by fall/winter 2003, when Davenport's WCHL Las Vegas expansion franchise -- to be known as the "Wranglers" -- drops the puck.

When asked if he had a Plan B in the event that the only ground that winds up being moved downtown is by the wind, he said there was no need to consider one yet.

But if/when that time comes ("when" is about a minus 360 favorite), the new 7,000-seat arena Michael Gaughan is putting up in the Orleans' parking lot would be a good one. In fact, it should have been Davenport's Plan A from the start.

Davenport said he had cursory discussions with Orleans officials about their hockey plans but eventually committed to downtown because -- how's this for irony? -- he wasn't totally sure the Orleans would go forward with its arena.

Steve Stallworth, the former UNLV quarterback who is barking signals for the Orleans Arena as its director, said the Orleans is still passionate about minor league hockey, maybe just not as passionate about owning a club itself, which was the original strategy.

"Still, at this point, yes, we will have a hockey team," Stallworth said. "We don't have anything booked, per se, but a lot of things are on hold."

So not much has changed. It's apparent from the photos on its website that the Orleans will have an arena, but for now, there's no team. And while downtown has a team, for now -- and maybe forever -- there's no building.

But it's still not too late to get the peanut butter together with the jelly.

"Maybe that's something we should be looking into," Davenport said.