MAJOR BLOGS - www.majorblogs.net - AUSTIN, TX. - This month marks my 10th anniversary covering minor league and  indy pro sports. Thank you all for the tin cups.  So why, when I've seen more than a hundred professional clubs come and go, do I care one iota what happens with the Austin Ice Bats?  Because they do, owners, fans and players alike.  In the scene from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" where the son is throwing his old man  on the cart of Black Plague victims the old man complains "I'm not dead yet!"  In much the same way the Ice Bats are alive and well, even though many in the local media have officially written them off with an impending decision on bringing Triple-A American Hockey League (AHL) hockey to the market.

Lemon Leaves Sour Taste... 

Owners, fans and players alike are  peeved at Cedar Park, Texas and its mayor, who they believe lives up to his name: Mayor Lemon. Ice Bats staff and fans put in hundreds of hours of volunteer time to get a bond measure passed to build a new multi-purpose arena in Cedar Park, one of the many towns that make up the Austin Metroplex.  The Bats would be the anchor tenant of an arena to be used year-round and anchor shopping and housing around the facility.  The team raised millions from independent investors to get their part of the deal to happen.

Cedar Park got its bond, then changed its mind, and put the arena out to bid. Randy Sanders, the new owner of the Ice Bats, who acquired the rest of the club from his partners earlier this year, said 'fine' and played the game. Three companies put in bids for the project.

May the best group win.

Except that didn't happen. Hizzoner the mayor suspended the whole process, called the Dallas Stars, and set up a new plan to bring in a Triple-A American Hockey League (AHL) franchise to Cedar Park.  A very chilly how-do-you do to all of the people from the hockey community who put a lot of time and effort into making a home for their  club, which has been part of the Austin sports landscape for more than a decade.

Pro Hockey, Figure Skating, and Ballet?

Meanwhile the Ice Bats didn't renew their lease on the barn, the old Exposition building where they have played for most of their history, muddy mats and temporary trailers and all. They decided, rather than disappoint the fans and shut down while they sorted out the mess of finding a new home for the Bats, to take a loss on the team's operation and set up shop in a local hockey rink that the University of Texas and the local kids amateur club uses.

Instead of seeing this as a great move to support pro hockey in the community, many in the local media have taken it as some sort of death knell for the Ice Bats franchise.  Look at them... They play in an... ice skating rink! How amateur hour! Keep the fans happy and stay open? The nerve of those guys...

The Austin Statesman, the local paper, has even engaged in some very unstatesman-like behavior and has largely shut down game to game coverage of the Bats (See the following blog for my shiny two on that one.).  TV stations in town have likewise turned off the coverage until the whole future of hockey in the market shakes out.

It hasn't helped that the Ice Bats have struggled in the early-going of the season. While doing well in their conference, they are 6-15-1 and lag behind most clubs in STCs (Stats that Count). Still, I had to see for myself what had become of the once-proud Ice Bats franchise.

Next door to the I-HOP 

I went to the Chaparral Arena, which bears no banner, billboard, or anything announcing the presence of a professional or the UT college hockey program in the building, to the passers-by on I-35.

I expected to find the amateur hour, some demoralized group of misfits clinging on to a team that was one one of the crown jewels of the Austin sports scene and the Central Hockey League (CHL). The Ice Bats, over their 12 year history, have been touted by city developers across greater Austin as one of the reasons to relocate businesses and families to this part of Texas.

Bats Come Out At Night 

At first glance. when I saw the card tables and the temporary box office and the mini concession stand and the girls leaving from their figure skating lessons, I feared the worst.  As the sun set though, and the Ice Bats faithful came out, I was rewarded by a sight that few hockey clubs are lucky enough to see, particularly in Texas: Rabid bats... er, fans saying screw you to conventional wisdom.

The facility, which looks to seat about 1200, was a little more than three-quarters full and was hosting a kids'  birthday party in the loft that passes for a skybox. Not an AHL-sized crowd, but what a great crowd...  Loyal, loud and proud. Not what you would expect from a hockey club on its death bed.

Many of these people have held season tickets since day one, many with whom I spoke were ticket holders of four years or more. 

I found a professional staff that caters to fans in such personal ways that it would make the Yankees of Hockey, the AHL Chicago Wolves, blush.

I found a team that, while far from perfect, is full of talented Class-AA free agents who could have played in much nicer barns just by signing on the dotted line, but chose to play here because they like the management, which is decent to them, and the love their fans, who treat them like kings for still being here and playing through tough times.

I found defiance. I found resilience, and a Don't Tread on Me attitude about the way that the Austin media has been treating the club from every soul in the building.

I found the Ice Bats, and the character of great hockey, large or small. The soul of what great sport is all about, whether your team is on ESPN or not.

AHL Austin Stars or the Austin Ice Bats? And the Winner is... 

While I admit that A.C. Nielsen has nothing to fear from me on the score of a scientific viewer survey, my informal question to them was:

"If Cedar Park shuts out the Ice Bats, and they stay in operation in competition with an AHL Dallas Stars franchise somewhere here in Austin, would you watch the AHL club, or would you stay with the Ice Bats."

I figured, coming into this, that the temptation of Triple-A hockey, directly affiliated with the only major league NHL club in Texas, when the fans are watching indy Double-A hockey now, would probably split the loyalists in half. Many of the area residents are transplants, many of whom are used to much faster and a bit more skilled hockey.

I was wrong. Out of about 90 people with whom I spoke during the course of the evening, I only found three that said that they would go, and only two that said that they would buy a season ticket.

The most common quote: "Hell no, I'm not supporting Cedar Park after what they've done."

The Voice of Calm

A lot of the turmoil seems to stem from multiple failures to communicate by all of the parties trying to hawk hockey around Austin. 

Data from around the various leagues about multi-use arenas would tend to suggest that a 6,000 seat sweet-spot is ideal maximum for minor sports, and the kind of nostalgia concert groups like ZZ Top and Willie Nelson that find their way around the state. Lemon wanted a bigger arena, and figured that an AHL club would justify it.

Lemon reached out to the Stars, who have been having their own internal management issues. No one from the Stars seemed to recall or worry about the fact that the local hockey club has 12 years in the market, and has built up amateur hockey for kids who are now adults.

• No one from the Ice Bats has tried to reach out to the AHL or the Stars to see if they can find a fit in the picture and bring the community's core fans into the bigger picture that the NHL, AHL, and the Mayor envision; 

• No one from the Stars has had a discussion with the Bats about a win-win for all and elevating them up to AHL status to bring in their decade of hard work building hockey in the community.

• No one looked at how the San Antonio team struggles with a barn that is too big for them to play in.  Spurs may fill it up, but it is a ghost town for AHL hockey, and it depresses fans to sit in a half-full or quarter full arena. Don't believe me? Ask the Marlins fan about Dolphin Stadium. He's lonely. Very, very lonely.
  

• No one from the AHL, particularly president Dave Andrews, a very good guy whom we just featured at MLN Sports Zone last month, has taken much interest in getting involved.

The Ice Bats are a different animal than the San Antonio Iguanas, a two-year-old franchise that was executed by the AHL when the Spurs decided that an AHL club belonged in their crib.

The fans who make up the core of hockey here in Metro Austin, are the core of the AHL's future business as well. You do not make fans or friends by not dealing equitably with the hockey community in any market, and being the AHL does not insulate any of the AHL owners or clubs from showing props to the teams in the markets where they want to collect ticket and souvenir money. If you can't reach a deal, no one holds it against you when you try. You have to try, though, to make a deal, if for nothing more than perceptions of your organization in Austin.

Before the 15th of December rolls around, and wheels go into motion that will potentially damage or destroy two hockey markets, Austin, and Iowa where the Stars' current AHL club plays, how about Mayor Lemon showing some sports diplomacy and having a sit down with the parties from the NHL, the AHL, and the Bats and see if they can all do things to avoid burning the fans in the market?

To the Austin Metroplex, with Love: 

A note to the dozen communities of Austin in search of a city: If you want to keep Austin 'weird,' as you claim, then your general sense of anti-corporate indignation that ran Hard Rock Cafe off of 6th Street, and has created a very local, personal flavor to your town, needs to kick in here to keep your hockey team alive.  Either an AHL Ice Bats, or just the good ol' CHL Ice Bats, but you want to 'Keep Austin Bats!'  In a wonderful way, they fit the character of the town.

To All Hockey Fans, Across North America, A Call to Arms:

Folks in Buffalo, and in towns across Canada that lost their NHL clubs know what it means to have your home town team ripped out from under you, or just threatened with extinction.  You don't kick the Yankees out of New York, and you don't chuck the Ice Bats out of Austin. I want every last one of you who reads this to email Mayor Lemon and tell him, nicely please, why you don't raw deal your fans to get what you want. Tell Dave Andrews, the President of the AHL that their league is welcome in town if they negotiate fairly with the Bats first.  You can also pick on the local television stations and the newspaper, the Austin Statesman, while you're at it, too.  Bad things happen in sports when the fans are complacent, or wait for someone else to take care of it. Don't wait. Act.

To the Mayor, the AHL, and the Dallas Stars, A Challenge: 

If you build it, you will want them to come. If you burn them, you can build all of the seats you like, but that "Don't Mess With Texas" attitude is likely to have Ice Bats fans searching for their cave in another part of town. You have five days. Work something out to bring peace and stability to the market.

Fans who lose their long-held season seats and standing in the hockey fan world you do not get back so easily. They are the ambassadors of the game who bring in more fans to see the local product, more so than advertising.  Treat the decade with respect. 

I will personally post any other viewpoints from the primary parties on our VIP Room here at the MAJOR BLOGS if anyone feels that a public, rather than private, conversation is warranted.  I would personally be more than happy to mediate any solution that helps the fans of Austin, Texas achieve what they want: A new stadium and their Bats in one spot. 

They are, after all the bottom line.

Pro fans? GO BATS!