Wranglers owner knows the game

Rob Miech, Las Vegas Sun

Friday, Nov. 3, 2006 | 7:24 a.m.

Tickets: $12.50-$36.50; lasvegaswranglers.com

When: 7:05 tonight Where: Orleans Arena

What: Las Vegas Wranglers vs. Victoria Salmon Kings

When the Las Vegas Wranglers were knocked out of the Kelly Cup playoffs, Charles Davenport IV suffered - for five months. Only the start of training camp began to exorcise the demons.

"It's emotional. It takes a whole summer," he says. "Over the last couple of weeks, I finally stopped thinking about the Alaska series."

Davenport isn't a young defenseman, veteran equipment manager or rabid season-ticket holder.

The 38-year-old San Diego businessman is the founder and majority owner of the Las Vegas hockey franchise. He attended all but two of the Wranglers' 13 playoff games in April and May. Davenport has continued to follow the Wranglers on the road this season, and he'll watch them open their home schedule tonight at the Orleans Arena against the Victoria Salmon Kings.

In its fourth season, the team is on the cusp of turning its first significant profit, Davenport says, and he's committed to bringing a championship to Las Vegas.

"I never could have envisioned that people would embrace it this much and this passionately," he says.

When he was 19, Davenport learned about passion and priorities from a drum teacher. If you don't really love playing the drums, if you're just looking at the bottom line, the instructor told him, you shouldn't be doing it. Davenport dreamed of banking a million dollars as part of a rock 'n' roll band. Instead, he usually pocketed 25 bucks after a night's gig.

During the day, he studied at San Diego State, planning on becoming an English teacher. Then the family's wind-energy business beckoned.

His father, Charles Davenport III, started SeaWest Holdings Inc. in 1982, and molded it into one of the world's largest private developers of wind-energy plants. Those big propellers near Palm Springs were SeaWest property. The younger Davenport engineered a $60 million sale of SeaWest to AES Corp. in March 2005.

"The business was rewarding and exciting," he says. "We got out because the big boys, the multinational energy corporations, were getting into that business. We were still a mom-and-pop (operation) in the business, so it was time for us to be on our way."

Like many others, Davenport became intrigued by hockey in 1980 when the U.S. Olympic team pulled off its "Miracle on Ice" victory against the Soviet Union. The puck bug bit him big-time in 1987, when the Los Angeles Kings obtained Wayne Gretzky.

"And it just kept going," Davenport said.

Reared on roller hockey, he explored building a roller-hockey rink somewhere in San Diego County. Hockey contacts told him that the Las Vegas Thunder and the International Hockey League were failing.

Davenport paid $750,000 to the rival ECHL for the expansion rights to Las Vegas in 1998. Then he waited. The Thunder folded in 1999, the International Hockey League followed suit in 2001 and Davenport didn't believe in the West Coast Hockey League, which disbanded in 2003.

"I have to give myself a pat on the back for that one," Davenport says. "I knew the ECHL had some good markets."

He believed in the league enough to rescue the foundering Fresno Falcons in 2000; he sold the franchise in February.

Davenport hired Glen Gulutzan to coach and manage the Wranglers, and enlisted Billy Johnson to run the front office. Gulutzan's blue-collar blueprint has guided the team to the playoffs in two of its first three seasons, and its 53-13-6 record last season was the third-best mark in the 18-year history of the ECHL. Davenport inked Gulutzan to a two-year extension near the end of last season.

Davenport visits frequently and can often be found in Gulutzan's office after games.

"The beauty with him is he knows the game," Gulutzan says. "I talk with him after games, and he has some insight. But he never imposes (ideas or strategy) on you."

Johnson's no-nonsense style is responsible for the bright financial outlook this season. His staff sold all of the three dozen or so rink-side advertising panels for the first time . In addition, the 1,800 lower-level season-ticket holders represent the 5 to 8 percent annual increase Davenport and Johnson have sought. Entertainment and promotions like Chuck-a-Puck for an autographed jersey have helped push ticket sales.

Although he sold 49 percent of the Wranglers last year to John Fleisig, a member of the New York Mercantile Exchange Trade who spends most of his time on the East Coast, Davenport remains the face of the franchise.

"If I have a passion for it," Davenport says, "then everyone else in the organization ... they know I'm not just flying in from San Diego once a week to come yell at people and say how great I am."