Columnist Ron Kantowski: AHL group skates in too late

Thursday, March 6, 2003 | 9:49 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.

In hockey, too many men on the ice is usually a minor penalty, punishable by two minutes in the penalty box.

In Las Vegas, those words have a different connotation. They can only mean that no matter how many times it has been said or written that this city will be hard-pressed to support one minor-league hockey team, somebody gets the bright idea that we're ready for two.

This fall, the expansion Las Vegas Wranglers of the expanded East Coast Hockey League will drop the puck at the new Orleans Arena, as pro hockey -- after months of tedious negotiations that made the Louisiana Purchase seem like a swap meet transaction -- returns to Las Vegas.

But now the Sun has learned that a new group of investors would like to place an American Hockey League franchise in Las Vegas -- at a downtown arena that doesn't exist -- that would serve as the top farm club for the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes.

Their timing couldn't be worse if they tossed a wristwatch purchased on a Tijuana street corner under the rear wheels of a Zamboni. On the very day a representative for the hockey investors confirmed interest in Las Vegas, Mayor Oscar Goodman was in Cleveland Wednesday, trying to lure the Cleveland Clinic to town.

The Cleveland Clinic is not an expansion team in the Federal League. It's a medical facility that is bigger than General Hospital, Chicago Hope and E.R. all put together. Unfortunately for the hockey guys, it would be built between the blue lines of the since scuttled hockey arena, as per the mayor's wishes.

"For lack of a better word, call me a broker," said Cary Kaplan, a former executive with the AHL's Hamilton Bulldogs, who is representing this new group of investors.

For lack of a better word, I'll call him a dreamer instead.

It's not that putting an AHL team is Las Vegas is such a bad idea. It's just a bad idea now. Six months ago, if Kaplan could have put all his pucks in a row, he probably could have worked a long-term lease with the Orleans.

The Wranglers, thinking the downtown arena would evolve into something more than a figment of the mayor's imagination, were reluctant to turn their back on him, even long after the Orleans broke ground on its state-of-the-art hockey palace.

Kaplan said he hasn't spoken to the mayor, but others within the city infrastructure have told him the arena could still be built, given the right circumstances.

"I'm here to see if that is possible," said Kaplan, who is working on a tight 90-day timeline to pull the deal together. "No, I haven't talked to the people relative to the downtown project. But the concept makes a lot of sense. It would be great for business (downtown). A hockey franchise would be the ideal anchor tenant and I have had a lot of people from a lot of different groups tell me they think this would work."

Well, here's a person not affiliated with any group who says it won't, principally because there are too many obstacles to overcome in such a short period of time.

Considering myself something of a hockey purist, I'd rather watch future Phoenix Coyotes polish their skills rather than past Charlestown Chiefs polish their brass knuckles.

But there's already a man in our crease, and the Wranglers are it.