Local owners consider pro hockey team - Casper non-profits would benefit
A
proposal to bring AAA professional hockey to Casper includes
retrofitting the Casper Events Center (CEC) with a 200'x85' ice rink.
Ice capability, a common feature in public events arenas, wouldn't
effect the CEC's ability to produce any other events. CEC building
manager Bud Davola said, marketed correctly, ice is a good idea for the
venue. In addition to 30 to 40 nights of hockey each year, ice would
open the center to events like the Ice Capades and Disney on Ice.
A group of Casper investors are on the stick ... the hockey
stick that is. And their goal is to provide AAA professional hockey in
Wyoming. They’re ready to go. But there is a problem … it’s the ice.
“If we could get that [ice in the Casper Events Center], this thing is done. I mean the ownership of the team will not be a problem,” said Craig Showalter, a hockey proponent and president of the Wyoming Community Foundation.
Ice in an events center-type building isn’t uncommon. Cost to retrofit the Events Center is about $2 million.
To install ice in the CEC, 17,000 square feet of the existing concrete floor would be cut out and hauled away with two to three feet of the underlying subsoil. Nearly 14 miles of pipe in a specially conditioned soil would be placed and connected to a refrigeration plant near the building and concrete would be replaced. It would look pretty much the same as before when completed.
Doug Frank, an experienced ranch pond hockey player and team owner (but not the new Wyoming team) who recently purchased the Higgins Hotel in Glenrock, said to look at the floor, you couldn’t tell the difference. “You couldn’t tell that one has ice, one that doesn’t,” Frank said.
When it’s time to make ice, 15- to 17-degree refrigerated brine is pumped through the pipes to lower the temperature of the slab. The temperature of the concrete slab is gradually lowered below 32 degrees.
When the slab is cooled to the mid-20s, someone with a garden-type hose starts sprinkling the concrete. A few heavy layers of water later and the ice is ready for a Zamboni, an ice finishing machine, to level and smooth the surface. The finished product is no more than one-half to three quarters of an inch thick because of the energy it would take to freeze a thicker product.
“It’s relatively simple to understand. It’s not expensive and complicated,” said Rick Kozuback, president and CEO of the Central Hockey League, who was in Casper to discuss a Wyoming team.
Kozuback said in an active facility when there are back-to-back events that require different surfaces, like a basketball court or dirt arena, boards are placed over the ice before various other surfaces are placed on top. He said it’s common to have Disney on Ice one night, basketball the next and hockey the next. Kozuback said ice is normally removed in late spring, so ice wouldn’t be a factor in hosting the College National Finals Rodeo in June.
According to Frank and Kozuback, if a Wyoming hockey team would call the CEC home, they’d pay daily rent on the facility from mid-October through mid-March. AAA hockey teams play about 33 regular season games plus any post-season playoffs, for as many as 45 to 50 games in a season. “The building gets the rent, the food and beer,” Kozuback said. He said the city could also rent the facility to other user groups and ice events. “That’s a lot of events,” Kozuback said.
Typical for this league are five-year contracts
Kozuback said in markets like Rapid City, “From October to March is pretty intense. That’s usually hockey time, when high school football is winding down … winter season. So what are you doing Friday and Saturday nights? You go up there [to the Casper Events Center] and hockey provides something for the community to rally around and support.”
An unusual twist to this proposal relates to the charitable dollars the team generates that would be distributed by the Casper affiliate of the Wyoming Community Foundation. A good example of this model is in Rapid City. Rapid City’s population is comparable to that of Natrona County.
“The Rapid City Rush have about 200,000 people a year that interact with them on some level,” Showalter said, “and the hockey team generates $200,000 to $250,000 each year for philanthropy to the community.” Showalter said youth hockey could use the ice to alleviate the hardship of Casper kids who currently get up at 4 a.m. to get ice time because another sheet of ice would be available.
“So we think there are all kinds of positive opportunities for a program like this,” Showalter said. “Besides that, it’s not just the ice time for today, but you’re building that sense of community for those youth for years and years and years,” he said, “and I think that positive potential is here for Casper.”
“But,” Frank said, “make no mistake. This is true professional hockey. You think about these kids at the AAA pro level. You got one league between that and the National Hockey League. That’s not very many players. So these are big kids. These are professional players though they’re young and have aspirations; the quality of the hockey is very, very good.” Frank said most people going to a hockey game, even those with hockey experience, would look at this level of play and have a hard time detecting huge differences between AAA play and the NHL.
Kozuback said he expects ticket prices in Casper would range from $12 to $24.
There are currently 11 teams in the Central Hockey League, with 19 players on each roster. Just two steps away from NHL, there’s a maximum salary cap of $11,000 per week per player.
Kozuback said the success of his league’s teams is one-third, one-third, and one-third. “They really don’t differentiate very much from other pro sports. You have one crust of about a third of the teams make a lot of money. One-third struggles to make money or lose a little bit, and then the group at the bottom. It doesn’t matter; football or hockey are pretty much similar,” he said.
Showalter said they think there would be a lot of interest in hockey in Casper. A small group of successful investors, including John Wold, have come forward to form an ownership group. And when there was a small article in the Casper Star-Tribune, the city had people call for season tickets. “So we know there’s some interest,” Showalter said. The question Showalter is struggling with is the ice. “How do we make it [ice] a reality?” he asked. “It makes all the sense in the world ... a partnership in the whole community with local nonprofits.” He thinks it’s worth the investment of his time and energy to follow this through. Showalter said his goal is simple: make it happen.
(Full disclosure: The author is a member of the Casper affiliate board of the Wyoming Community Foundation.)
“If we could get that [ice in the Casper Events Center], this thing is done. I mean the ownership of the team will not be a problem,” said Craig Showalter, a hockey proponent and president of the Wyoming Community Foundation.
Ice in an events center-type building isn’t uncommon. Cost to retrofit the Events Center is about $2 million.
To install ice in the CEC, 17,000 square feet of the existing concrete floor would be cut out and hauled away with two to three feet of the underlying subsoil. Nearly 14 miles of pipe in a specially conditioned soil would be placed and connected to a refrigeration plant near the building and concrete would be replaced. It would look pretty much the same as before when completed.
Doug Frank, an experienced ranch pond hockey player and team owner (but not the new Wyoming team) who recently purchased the Higgins Hotel in Glenrock, said to look at the floor, you couldn’t tell the difference. “You couldn’t tell that one has ice, one that doesn’t,” Frank said.
When it’s time to make ice, 15- to 17-degree refrigerated brine is pumped through the pipes to lower the temperature of the slab. The temperature of the concrete slab is gradually lowered below 32 degrees.
When the slab is cooled to the mid-20s, someone with a garden-type hose starts sprinkling the concrete. A few heavy layers of water later and the ice is ready for a Zamboni, an ice finishing machine, to level and smooth the surface. The finished product is no more than one-half to three quarters of an inch thick because of the energy it would take to freeze a thicker product.
“It’s relatively simple to understand. It’s not expensive and complicated,” said Rick Kozuback, president and CEO of the Central Hockey League, who was in Casper to discuss a Wyoming team.
Kozuback said in an active facility when there are back-to-back events that require different surfaces, like a basketball court or dirt arena, boards are placed over the ice before various other surfaces are placed on top. He said it’s common to have Disney on Ice one night, basketball the next and hockey the next. Kozuback said ice is normally removed in late spring, so ice wouldn’t be a factor in hosting the College National Finals Rodeo in June.
According to Frank and Kozuback, if a Wyoming hockey team would call the CEC home, they’d pay daily rent on the facility from mid-October through mid-March. AAA hockey teams play about 33 regular season games plus any post-season playoffs, for as many as 45 to 50 games in a season. “The building gets the rent, the food and beer,” Kozuback said. He said the city could also rent the facility to other user groups and ice events. “That’s a lot of events,” Kozuback said.
Typical for this league are five-year contracts
Kozuback said in markets like Rapid City, “From October to March is pretty intense. That’s usually hockey time, when high school football is winding down … winter season. So what are you doing Friday and Saturday nights? You go up there [to the Casper Events Center] and hockey provides something for the community to rally around and support.”
An unusual twist to this proposal relates to the charitable dollars the team generates that would be distributed by the Casper affiliate of the Wyoming Community Foundation. A good example of this model is in Rapid City. Rapid City’s population is comparable to that of Natrona County.
“The Rapid City Rush have about 200,000 people a year that interact with them on some level,” Showalter said, “and the hockey team generates $200,000 to $250,000 each year for philanthropy to the community.” Showalter said youth hockey could use the ice to alleviate the hardship of Casper kids who currently get up at 4 a.m. to get ice time because another sheet of ice would be available.
“So we think there are all kinds of positive opportunities for a program like this,” Showalter said. “Besides that, it’s not just the ice time for today, but you’re building that sense of community for those youth for years and years and years,” he said, “and I think that positive potential is here for Casper.”
“But,” Frank said, “make no mistake. This is true professional hockey. You think about these kids at the AAA pro level. You got one league between that and the National Hockey League. That’s not very many players. So these are big kids. These are professional players though they’re young and have aspirations; the quality of the hockey is very, very good.” Frank said most people going to a hockey game, even those with hockey experience, would look at this level of play and have a hard time detecting huge differences between AAA play and the NHL.
Kozuback said he expects ticket prices in Casper would range from $12 to $24.
There are currently 11 teams in the Central Hockey League, with 19 players on each roster. Just two steps away from NHL, there’s a maximum salary cap of $11,000 per week per player.
Kozuback said the success of his league’s teams is one-third, one-third, and one-third. “They really don’t differentiate very much from other pro sports. You have one crust of about a third of the teams make a lot of money. One-third struggles to make money or lose a little bit, and then the group at the bottom. It doesn’t matter; football or hockey are pretty much similar,” he said.
Showalter said they think there would be a lot of interest in hockey in Casper. A small group of successful investors, including John Wold, have come forward to form an ownership group. And when there was a small article in the Casper Star-Tribune, the city had people call for season tickets. “So we know there’s some interest,” Showalter said. The question Showalter is struggling with is the ice. “How do we make it [ice] a reality?” he asked. “It makes all the sense in the world ... a partnership in the whole community with local nonprofits.” He thinks it’s worth the investment of his time and energy to follow this through. Showalter said his goal is simple: make it happen.
(Full disclosure: The author is a member of the Casper affiliate board of the Wyoming Community Foundation.)
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