Columnist Dean Juipe: Wranglers put on a good show

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2003 | 10:25 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

The advance word was very specific. It said the speed of play, the ability of the skaters, was glacier-like and much too plodding.

Images were provided and keyed on a solitary notion, that the players went about their business on the ice as if carrying assorted appliances on their backs. You know, as if each and every player was duty bound to cart a refrigerator or haul a dishwasher as he skated his wing or filled his role in a minor-league hockey game.

The impression was that the East Coast Hockey League was tediously inferior and that the Las Vegas Wranglers would survive only by the good graces of the community and the crowd-pleasing amenities of their home facility. Yes, it's the Orleans Arena that initially draws your attention, but as shown by Tuesday night's game between the Wranglers and visiting San Diego Gulls, there's some quality to be had for those who judge such things by performance as much as comfort.

The game -- this particular game, at least -- was far better than what I had anticipated. That the Wranglers won it 3-2 in overtime was a bonus.

"San Diego's bigger, better," the guy behind me said to his friend during a first period in which the Gulls peppered Wranglers goalie Marc Magliarditi with a variety of dangerous shots, the fan making the point that San Diego wasn't Bakersfield or Idaho, which had been in the building for earlier games.

And the Gulls kept that pressure on Magliarditi throughout the evening and he remained equal to the task, backstopping the team's fourth victory in six outings. It was a significant win, coming as it did against an established franchise and a team that generally is one of the finest in the league.

The crowd count was down a bit and maybe it's asking a lot to try and average 4,500 over such a long season, but the Wranglers are almost certain to succeed.

The building, of course, is as key an element as any.

The Orleans Arena is aesthetically pleasing and well-staffed, with loads of parking and a major casino attached. As has been said before, it's a great place to see a hockey game, concert or fight.

A couple of other guys sitting nearby must have missed Ricardo Mayorga and Vernon Forrest when they were here during the summer.

"I wanna see a fight," one said, prompting the other to say, "It'll happen, it'll happen."

But while the Wranglers and Gulls had the usual chippiness that hockey invites, there weren't any spectacular fisticuffs. And that was fine with me, being something of a purist and being a person who has already objected to the Wranglers' marketing strategy of emphasizing fights and violence in their billboards and in-house ads.

This was a hockey game and a pretty good one, almost as good as any I saw when the Thunder was here. Plays were sometimes a little slow in developing and passes didn't always find their targets, but the players were competent, they made their line changes without bumping into each other and they pushed the puck with an ease and familiarity that reflected coaching and experience.

These guys aren't just "pond skaters," which is how I regarded my own self at the tail end of my hockey career. Having grown up in a small town and been limited to playing on makeshift rinks, I thought I was pretty good until I started playing intramural college hockey against competitors who grew up skating fast and free on the indoor rinks in and around Detroit.

I quickly discovered that the game had passed me by, even if I was only 18.

And I think I came to this Wranglers game expecting to see a bunch of pond skaters. The league, after all, has a ridiculously low salary cap and it isn't about to send too many players to the NHL. The Wranglers, for instance, have four players (of their 20) with NHL experience, but those four have totaled only 87 games and not one of them ever scored a goal.

But on a cozy ice surface and against like-minded competition, they looked just fine. They weren't lugging stoves and water coolers around.

They were playing with a passion and having a good time.

No way that won't work, even in a tough market like Las Vegas.