On a Saturday in August of 2010, we held a Summer Fest, which attracted 5,000 people to meet former Whalers like Ronnie Francis, Kevin Dineen, Andre Lacroix and Gordie, Mark and Marty Howe. We followed that with a Winter Fest that went for 10 days at the football stadium in early 2011 and featured about 120 hockey games of every level — college, high school, boys’ and girls’ minor leagues — played around the clock.
We played an AHL game too, between the Whale and Providence, Boston’s farm team. The Rangers weren’t exactly cooperative, and they wouldn’t let the game be played in the afternoon, because the team was coming back from a road trip, which shouldn’t have mattered at all. It turned out to be the coldest day in the last 50 years and we had to play at night in the perishing cold. But the head count was still 23,000. If we’d played in the afternoon when it was more comfortable for fans, we felt we could have drawn about 35,000 people.
For both Fests, we had reached out to the State and to the City but we got zero help from either of them, which was typical for our entire tenure.
My son Howard Jr. was in charge of all business aspects of the team overall, and he worked very closely with Mark Willand on all ticketing and marketing for the Whale. They should get all the credit for raising attendance from 18th in the AHL the season before we took over, to 12th in our first year in the league, and for increasing the season ticket base by 250 per cent in our second year. For those two years we also won the AHL award for the greatest increase in overall revenues. In the second year we tripled sponsorship levels and in the third year of the contract we would have quadrupled them, and we would have been among the top three or four in the AHL.
But there was to be no third year.
We had no chance of breaking even with the exorbitant lease and affiliation fees we were paying, so we didn’t have the income to properly market the team. In the middle of our second year, we went to Civic Center management and asked for a contract extension of five years. We made it clear that we weren’t asking for a renegotiation of the remaining third year. We said we would do the last year under the onerous terms but we wouldn’t go beyond that unless we renegotiated a new rental deal. In order to continue to put capital in the company, we needed to know that we’d have a business plan that went beyond one more year.
For reasons unfathomable to me, we received zero support from the City and the State. We were therefore unable to reach a reasonable deal for the Civic Center for the future. It became a very political issue with the State and City — it was almost as if they were punishing people like us for coming into the state and trying to do something good. We didn’t want to be throwing good money after bad in the third year, and we were forced to walk away. It was heartbreaking.
The arena management company did get every single dime they were owed from us, and the Rangers got 80 per cent of their money for that second year. If everyone had worked together and agreed to extend the lease, enabling us to recapitalize our company, it would have greatly benefited not only the Rangers but the Hartford hockey market.
Since we left, sponsorships have fallen back to the bottom of the league, as has attendance. At the end of the season, AEG did not have its management contract renewed. Global Comcast took over managing the arena and the hockey team, whose name went back to the Wolf Pack.
Sadly, the expensive and harsh lesson that I learned was, “You can’t go back. Don’t try to recreate the past. Instead focus on the future.” Our dear friend Chris Berman of ESPN fame would always joke with us, and referred to me as Don Quixote: always fighting windmills. Sometimes you have to know when to stop.
The entire experience accentuated what had worked so well in the ’70s, when we had a corporate community working closely with city and state government for the betterment of all. You just had to walk down the streets of Hartford in the late ’70s and ’80s to feel the enthusiasm and energy of the city, thanks in large part to the hockey team. There was something to do, and to be proud of. Now when you walk on the streets of Hartford, there is nobody else on them.
The corporate community today isn’t working toward the betterment of Hartford, and the City and State have their own agendas. Honestly, I haven’t yet figured out what those agendas actually are, nor do I care to at this point.
In the 1970s we had leaders like Arthur Lumsden, head of the Downtown Chamber of Commerce, who was constantly pulling people together and trying to do the right thing for the city and state. Now, they have a thing called the MetroHartford Alliance that is run by Oz Griebel. To this day, I’m not sure what that is, but suffice it to say, in my opinion it’s not very effective.
The media support was, by and large, okay, but not one media organization was really willing to roll up its sleeves and work. They were quick to criticize but not inclined to explore the problems more deeply. They all took the easy way out, which was to criticize us when all we were trying to do was bring some life back into the city.
The city wanted its major league team back but was unwilling to pay the price that needed to be paid, to take the steps necessary to rebuild the market.
The fans were great. They cared and responded. I think the fans understood and were prepared to do what had to be done, but the powers-that-be squashed it. They didn’t get it . . . and still don’t.
The people who run the NHL aren’t sitting in New York City scratching their heads to think of other markets that may be suitable for the NHL. They aren’t saying, “Gee, we have to go to Hartford, Connecticut.” The people in leadership positions in Hartford need to be reminded now that the NHL didn’t elect to come to Hartford in 1979, they came there because it was a solution to a problem: the war between the NHL and WHA. If it weren’t for that, Hartford may have never been part of the NHL.
Hartford needs to put itself in a position whereby it is “all dressed up and ready to go.” It needs to become a viable solution and a logical location for an NHL franchise, whether it be through league expansion or the transfer of a team. It needs to take a page out of Winnipeg’s book. Winnipeg was led by Mark Chipman, who put an AHL team into a newly built arena, thereby keeping the market enthusiastic for hockey and keeping the market on the NHL radar. And, lo and behold, when Gary Bettman had a problem in Atlanta, he solved it by moving the team to Winnipeg.
The Guardian Project
Today, Karen and I reside in Los Angeles and are working diligently on our film company as well as the very exciting Stan Lee/NHL superhero project. Sports is still in my blood, but now finds its outlet in the superhero project and some of our movies. Running NHL teams is for younger people.
Just as Sudden Death and Mystery, Alaska and Mr. Hockey brought together my love for movies and for hockey, the Guardian Project is a perfect opportunity to blend the entertainment and sports worlds.
In 2010, Mark Terry, a friend of ours from the film business, introduced us to the Guardians, designed by the brilliant Stan Lee of Marvel Comics. Stan is the mind behind such graphic and memorable super-heroes as Spider-Man, Iron Man and Captain America. For the Guardians, he created one of his distinctive stylized superheroes for each of the 30 NHL teams, with complete back stories encompassing the lore of the individual teams and the cities they represent.
Pittsburgh’s Guardian, for instance, is the Penguin, “who can project missiles from his hand, and travels on a frozen ice sheet.” Philadelphia has the Flyer, “a master of telekinesis and mind control” with wings, while Toronto is protected by the Maple Leaf, a walking, talking maple tree, “an immovable object which can grow exponentially larger at will.” San Jose has the Shark, a really cool surfer who “controls an army of sharks to help him in battle.”
Karen and I were blown away by the project. It was a well-thought-out business plan designed to bring the massive Stan Lee audience to the sports world with merchandising, gaming, TV, video, film and apps components. Mark, knowing our relationship with the NHL, suggested we show it to them.
We all feel the Guardians has huge potential for NHL teams, will provide growth for the league and will become a solid profit center for all the partners involved. And it enables us to work with our friends in both the NHL and entertainment worlds.
The blending of sport and entertainment is the wave of the future, and the Guardians is the vehicle in which we are riding on it.
Entertainment Value in Hockey —
You Didn’t Really Ask, But . . .
Here is one man’s opinion — mine — of a few things that could be done to make hockey more entertaining in the future.
Offence: Star Power Created by Statistics
All the meaningful statistics in sports are offensive statistics. In hockey, when we think of the great stars we think of Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Mario Lemieux, Rocket Richard and Bobby Orr. Although Bobby Orr was a defenceman, he created his greatness through offence.
It is my belief that the NHL is in danger of becoming a low-scoring defensive league, thereby eliminating almost all the stars. The league must get its brightest minds (and there are some good ones) together and not be afraid to make the changes needed so that offence can rule the day. You just need to look at the goaltenders of today to see that they look like characters out of a Transformers movie, padded to the hilt.
We have to accept the fact that the human body is bigger, stronger and taller today than ever before. As well, the equipment is better and bigger. Yet the ice surface remains the same size: 200 feet by 85 feet. There is no longer the room to move around to create plays, so the sport has become so much clutch-and-grab and not the beautiful display of skill and finesse that we know hockey can be. It seems sad to me that I can name just as many NBA stars of today as I can NHL stars.
One idea that might create more scoring would be to have four-on-four hockey all game, thereby opening the ice up a lot more. Then, if there was a penalty, one team would get to add a player, rather than the offending team having to subtract one.
Four’s a Crowd
I would have only the two referees on the ice, with the two linesmen sitting in the stands. If you’re a tennis judge, you’re sitting on the line, but if you’re a hockey linesman you’re moving up and down the ice and constantly looking at other things. You’re never right on the line, even though you may think you are. Why not have a linesman 10 rows up from the ice on the blueline? I have a hunch very few calls would be missed then.
There Is No Point to a Tie
Nobody should be satisfied with a tie. We are rewarding mediocrity by awarding a point for a regulation-time tie. Games are played to be won or lost. If you win a game with a shoot-out, you gain two points, but the other team should get nothing. You shouldn’t get a point for losing a game.
If you don’t have that point available to you, you’re going to go balls-out to try to win the game and not count on sudden death and the shootout. The way it is now, weaker teams will often times play for a tie on the road, particularly in the second half of a game, when they think they may get at least one point. Therefore the customer is cheated. It becomes a giant “snore.” Whereas if there was no reward — i.e., no point given for a tie — that team would have no choice but to play its hardest to try to get a win. In a sporting event you either win or lose — there is no tie. There is no tie in baseball or basketball. In football you have one tie every few years.
Fighting is Bad Business
In the mid-’90s, at the annual meeting in Tampa Bay, when I was governor of the Penguins — I forget who was with me on this — we suggested to the other governors a vote on abolishing fighting. Needless to say, it failed. People felt fighting was important to the game. Many thought of fighting as a logical outlet for frustration that might prevent violence. Others felt that it was a bonus for the fans.
We have to reach a bigger audience in hockey to generate the electronic revenue that the other three major leagues get. Your hockey audience will say you have to have fighting because most of that hockey audience loves fighting. I think they do, and frankly, I understand why. But if we’re going to broaden that audience, bring it into the average household with children, where there’s a great resistance to the violence in hockey, we can’t have fighting.
I also feel that players today are so big, so strong and so powerful, and we do have a responsibility to these young kids to make sure that they have a life after hockey. Just four or five games into the 2013 season, the fighting was vicious. Believe me, in the 1970s and ’80s I saw some intense ones, but the fights now seem really mean to me. There was almost a joy to the fights in the ’70s and ’80s. Now they’re vicious — players are really trying to hurt each other, and I think we have to do something about that. Right now, the whole issue of concussions is bringing this to the fore, which is a good thing. Keep in mind that the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball all have their occasional fights as well, but those leagues just don’t condone it the way the NHL does. If you fight in those other sports, you are out of the game immediately.
Location, Location, Location
The NHL has three big events a year, four if you count the Awards night: the draft, the All-Star Game, and the Stanley Cup final. I would suggest that the NHL consider doing what the other leagues do, which is to have the draft in a major media market every year. In the NHL’s case, that would be Toronto, Montreal, New York and maybe Los Angeles. This would attract greater media interest. The bigger the market, the larger the advertisers and the more attention is paid to hockey.
If the NHL wants to move the All-Star Game around to help markets, fine. But let’s have the draft in a major market each year. Why does the NFL always do the draft in Radio City Music Hall every year? Duh. The NHL is already doing that with the awards in Las Vegas, so now do it with the draft.
As for the Stanley Cup finals, of course those games have to be hosted by the cities that are actually in the finals. But if anybody tells you that the league office doesn’t go to bed at night and pray the final includes at least one major market, don’t believe them. I hope the day is coming soon when a European champion will play the Stanley Cup champion. When this does happen, let’s make certain that the final is in a major media market, whether it’s in North America or overseas.
Honoring the Past
As I reflect on the past, one of my hopes is that the current ownership and leadership, both on the player side and ownership side, won’t forget those players, coaches, front office executives and others who took the leap of faith and moved from a well-established league into what was considered to be a “mighty risky venture,” a.k.a. the WHA. Players such as Larry Pleau, Tom Webster, John McKenzie, Ralph Backstrom, Bobby Hull, the Howes, Dave Keon, Rick Ley and many more all had good NHL jobs and bright futures there and opted to take a chance and jump leagues. Of course, there are coaches and executives who took the leap as well, such as Jack Kelley, Terry Slater, Glen Sonmor, Harry Neale, Bill Dineen and many more.
It is only really in the last 15 to 20 years that salaries for hockey players, coaches and general managers have caught up to the other three professional leagues. I believe that the average NHL salary at the time of the formation of the WHA was about $18K per annum. Coaches and general managers were fortunate enough to make $30K to $35K per year. Today, players average almost $2.4 million per year and almost all GMs and coaches are in the seven-figure range. The entire budget for the first year of the New England Whalers was $700K — all in. Right now that is just a bit over the NHL minimum salary for just one player.
I point all this out only because in this world of “today” we te
nd to forget about those people that did so much with so much less to make the sport what it is today. One of the many things I love about hockey as a business is that the people in it have always been so great. They are the kind of people you would be proud to bring home to meet your family. Let us not forget our roots. There is nothing worse than being forgotten.
EPILOGUE
It has been tremendous fun working on this book, because it has forced me to go back to recall certain events, people and experiences, almost all of which are extraordinarily positive memories.
Over dinner one night, my good friend Tom Reich looked at me and said that there were plenty of things we could have done that might have made us more money, but we sure wouldn’t have had as much fun.
I am very proud of the fact that I came up “through the ranks” in professional hockey. I was never given anything — I had to earn it. One of the criticisms I have heard about me is that I work with OPM — other people’s money. That is only partially true. Karen and I have invested significant sums of our own money into our film business, and we have invested money in sports as well. The fact of the matter is that when I got into sport, I didn’t have the money to make a meaningful investment. If I had had it, I would have used it. When I finally was in a position to do so — I did.
Both businesses — hockey and film — take passion, commitment, and dedication. They are like any other business in that you will not succeed unless you persevere. But the key difference with the things that I have chosen to do in my working life is that in film and sports everything is visible, laid out in plain sight for public viewing. Early on in my career, I couldn’t imagine anyone ever saying or writing anything disparaging about me, but over the years I have learned that you had better be able to take the good, the bad and the ugly, and not let any one of those three affect you. I have pointed out the portion of my career in Hartford when I did let it affect me and it created an environment in which I made some bad decisions.
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