A Pro Sports Team in Mohave County??

Last week a friend of mine in the media, Dave Hawkins, told me that there is some news making the rounds that somewhere in Mohave County (likely Bullhead City) the CHL (a minor league ice hockey league) is considering setting up a franchise.

Dave was kind enough to email me his article that I'll share here.

HOCKEY LEAGUE EYES BULLHEAD CITY

BY DAVE HAWKINS

THE STANDARD

A professional hockey team could be playing in a new multi-purpose event center in Bullhead City in 2 ½ years. The Phoenix-based Central Hockey League (CHL) is expanding into Yuma and is also interested in placing a team in the Colorado River community.

Rick Kozuback, president and CEO of Global Entertainment, the parent corporation of the CHL, said the CHL is to the NHL what the AA level is to major league baseball. He said about 75-100 CHL players each year are called up to play in the American Hockey League, with about five of them getting some ice time in the NHL.

Kozuback said there are 18 CHL teams scattered from Arizona to Texas and from Colorado to Ohio. He said the newest franchise was established in November in Prescott Valley and that northwest Arizona could host a hockey team too.

``Bullhead, Lake Havasu, Kingman and Laughlin. When you add that area in it fits our demographic profile and our geographic profile and it has the population base that we need to maintain a building and obviously a franchise,” Kozuback said. He said they carefully select communities that have no professional sports franchises and towns that also need an events center.

``We look at those markets that have little or no competition for what we offer,” Kozuback said. ``What we offer is a building that can do multiple events—concerts, family shows, trade shows and hockey, of course.”

Kozuback said the parent company’s design-build International Coliseums firm constructs multi-purpose event centers that can accommodate between 5,000 to 6,500 spectators. From monster trucks to motocross, from rodeo to figure skating, he said the goal is to schedule 130 event days a year, 40 of those being hockey games.

Kozuback said he’s had several discussions with officials in Bullhead City. He said he hopes those continue, progressing to development of site plans, a building model and a financial package.

Kozuback said the Yuma project and another in Texas are tracking toward completion in 2008.

``We would project that Bullhead and a couple of others we have in our pipeline would be 2009 openings, which would technically mean that by April of 2008 we’d need to be pretty much completed with all of our documents, our development agreements and our preliminary design to probably start construction in the summer of 2008 to be open for October of 2009 for the hockey season.”

This is exciting news for me because I'm a huge fan of the sport of hockey. Would a pro hockey team work in this part of the country?? Well I see enough 'Winged-Wheel' decals on cars and trucks all the time here in Kingman. Any hockey fan can tell you the 'Winged-Wheel' is the symbol of the Detroit Red Wings team of the NHL. I've come to know many 'closet' hockey fans in this area over the time I've lived here. I've run into locals when I've attended Phoenix Coyote NHL games.

Minor league hockey is a great bang for the buck. The players are still incredibly talented (more than I can imagine and I've played the game for many years), young, and most think they still have a chance to make it in the NHL someday. I've found that minor league games are even more exciting than NHL games and the price is certainly a lot more reasonable.

Having some sort of professional team in the area I think could help generate more community pride. Rooting for the home team is important, even for not normally traditional sports fans. It gives a little more commonality among all the neighbors.

"Did you catch the game last night??" -- That is an easy ice breaker to start a conversation.

It is not difficult to fall in love with the game of hockey and it is even easier to become a raging fan of the team you root for, even if you've never experienced the game of hockey before. I've noticed that a large portion of the most fervent fans of the game are women, and they often show the most loyalty to the team and the players. The people watching experience alone, in many cases, is worth the price of admission. Even I can be entertaining to watch as I yell at the ref's or the opposing players.

Maybe I'll even try out for the team?? Hopefully the chances that a franchise is set up here in Mohave County are a lot better than my chances would be to earn a roster spot.