Krupka Comments Update

Well... The NAHL has decided to pull Krupka's interview from the league's website. The controversy, however, did not escape the radar of Mike Easterling of the Albuquerque Journal. It's behind a subscription, so here's the piece: RoadRunner notes: NAHL commissioner Eric Krupka ignited a fire storm of controversy Wednesday with his comments in an interview that appeared on the league Web site before it was taken down Thursday. Krupka's remarks were especially poorly received in Santa Fe, which he cited as an example of the league's problems. The commish basically threw the RoadRunners franchise— which has struggled to generate fan support since moving to Santa Fe in September 2004— under the bus, telling blogger Stan Fischler "Some teams aren't run right, they're in the wrong market. For example, Santa Fe is not a market that's going to work for hockey." Krupka also made clear his intention to drop several teams from the league in an effort to get down to 12 teams. Langer was still upset about the remarks Thursday night, saying: "It really didn't sit well with a whole lot of people, not just in Santa Fe. He could have said the things he wanted to say and not said anything about Santa Fe." While acknowledging the club's poor attendance, Langer cited the hard work the franchise did over the offseason to improve its presence in the community and bristled at Krupka's failure to recognize how many players the RoadRunners have sent on to NCAA Division I hockey programs over the last two years, which he described as the league's primary mission. "(Team owner) Mary Magdalene Lorang has busted her rear end to help this team," Langer said. "If the city of Santa Fe doesn't want to get behind us, that's fine. But we don't need to have our recruiting hurt by our own commissioner." The league's executive committee met for much of the day Thursday to discuss how to limit the damage from Krupka's remarks, but Langer seemed resigned to the fact that the controversy would hurt his team's chances of landing talent in the future. "There's not much I can do about it right now," he said. "I'm on a bus." ... Santa Fe defenseman Rafael Rodriguez, who sat out last weekend's series against the Wildcats with a shoulder injury, did not travel to Texas with the team. "He practiced this week, but he's feeling quite a bit of pain from his shoulder injury," Langer said. "It's a big loss for our hockey team." The veteran blueliner, who has struggled with a bad shoulder throughout his career in Santa Fe, had gotten off to a sizzling start this season, racking up six assists in his first six games before being sidelined. Now, reaction here on the comments has been mixed, but if anything folks are applauding Krupka for facing some hard realities of the game. The problem is that while it's okay to have these opinions, as a league official it's not always appropriate to air them. I know Eric, and I know Brian McDonough, the league's media director. I hope this is just a rookie mistake for them, and they use the experience as an opportunity for improvement.