Wednesday News

Wow... I guess I pushed some buttons in the NAHL yesterday. Some of you might want to scroll down for the regular stories, I'm going to be awhile here... Regarding the Tornado. Word gets around fast considering the last time I checked my blog (to be fair, anything from blogger.com) was blocked by Pavestone's ISP. There's been an official denial and declaration from the franchise that the for-sale listing I mentioned has nothing to do with them. Fine. I never said it was. Speculation, yes... I said it appeared to be for them. Big difference. I also expressed concern as to whether the listing is current. Why is that important? Because there's a discrepancy between the listing stating the franchise for sale is five years old, and the actual age of the Tornado (eight). That's all well and good, except another part of the listing lists the franchise as being founded in 1999, which is when the Tornado were founded. The article linked above mentions the five-year issue, but doesn't address the 1999 statement or anything else. Now, let's discuss why I and many others (whom I'll get to in a moment) thought this listing was for the Tornado... "This... well established sports franchise is considered the best overall franchise in its league." Yup... "The league itself is well established and successful!" Well, a little puffery never killed anyone. "franchise is located in a large pleasant and growing southern city in the south central United States." That narrows it down a fair bit... "The team plays in one of the newest and finest facilities in the south." With apologies to Yogi Berra, it's Deja Blue all over again... "A good portion of (satisfaction) comes from meeting the rising stars in this exceptionally popular sports field and helping them in both their career growth and their personal/professional growth." Junior hockey boilerplate if I ever saw it. "The sellers have directed that we provide detailed information only to those individuals who have a demonstrated net worth of $1 million or companies with a substantive net or cash flow sufficient to support a sale." If I'm not mistaken, this was the net worth requirement of the NAHL three years ago. Now then, if it's not the Tornado, who could it be? It's not another junior or minor league hockey team. There's nothing in juniors going back to 1999 that fit the region, and no CHL/WPHL/ECHL teams fit the profile (Little Rock's ECHL team was founded in 1999 and played in a new arena, but didn't last but four seasons). So let's move on... Basketball - there's nothing in minor league basketball that's lasted in the region, period. Baseball - affiliated teams in the region are all AA or AAA, and would easily be worth more than $2M (for example, a AA team was sold last week for $13.25M). In the world of indy ball, there's not a lot to work with in the region and none of it fits the profile. Arena/Indoor Football - nothing goes back to 1999. So what have we got left? Well, I came to the same conclusion that a lot of people did. I also happened to query about a dozen people in the game (not fans, but coaches/GMs/owners), and got the same conclusions. For the record, it wasn't a leading question, I always got an opinion before I offered my own. I did attempt to contact the Tornado before I said anything, but didn't know my usual contact was effectively out of pocket. In any case, the Tornado are denying it. Fine, I'll take them at their word. End of story. The next happy fun issue on the agenda concerns whoever from within the NAHL is leaking me stuff like the league minutes. As one might imagine, yesterday's comments initiated (or perhaps regenerated) a witch hunt to determine who my benefactor is. I can tell folks one thing, it's not who some think it is. Do I know people in the league, and sometimes they tell me things... but why would they send me huge volumes of things (like meetings minutes tend to be) anonymously? Wouldn't it be easier to just tell me? Oh well, there's not that much interesting in the minutes, anyway. More or less normal everyday stuff. But if folks want to expend a lot of energy with their torches and pitchforks over something that will never see the light of this blog, then so be it. In other news... The Topeka RoadRunners have found their new assistant coach in the form of Mike Aikens. If that name sounds familiar, he's been the head coach for the Rochester Mustangs, Williams Lake Timberwolves, and Billings Bulls, where he logged a couple of AWHL Bourne Cups. More recently he was the head coach of the Russell Stover Midgets in Kansas City. I'd say Topeka made a pretty good choice. Pioneers buy into WHA spot (hey, that's not my headline)... WHA hires Butch Goring as director of hockey ops...