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The Kalamazoo Wings sent shockwaves throughout the International Hockey League by announcing Monday night their intention to leave the league. Meanwhile, two Fort Wayne men were moving ahead with plans to found an IHL expansion team in Dayton.
Rich Bruner, 38, and Ryan Yerrick, 23, owners of the local Buddy's Pizza Buffets, have paid a franchise fee to the IHL and are awaiting approval from the league to have the Dayton Gems play in the 2009-10 season. The Gems would play at Hara Arena.
"We are both extreme hockey fans," Bruner said. "It was just something that we started to talk about and entertain the idea, 'What do you think about starting a hockey team?' We made the inquiry from the IHL, gathered the information from them and got started."
The departure of the Wings leaves the IHL with five member clubs, a significant number because it historically takes six for the league to get the government's requisite work visas for foreign players.
But Michael Franke, the head of the IHL's Board of Governors and Komets president, said that won't be true next season.
In a statement, the Wings said they were leaving the IHL to "enhance the franchise's ability to follow through with the inherent promise we make to our fans for affordable family entertainment."
Calls to Wings president Paul Pickard and general manager Wade Welsh were not returned.
Pickard served as the IHL's commissioner the last two seasons and was charged with making a downsized IHL economically and geographically viable. Now he will likely bring the Wings to either the 22-team ECHL or the 17-team Central Hockey League.
In the process, he could destroy the IHL he helped re-form in 2007 and still officially runs through June 30. The IHL has yet to name a successor to Pickard, who was informed months ago by the Board of Governors that they didn't want him to return as commissioner.
"It's incredible, unfathomable, that he would be involved in a decision like this to leave the league that he helped create two years ago," Franke said. "I would hope that this is not a situation of sour grapes from a former employee of the league. … I would hope that's not the case. But I don't know. I haven't had a chance to talk to Paul."
The IHL is continuing negotiations with an ownership group in Moline, Ill., which lost its American Hockey League franchise recently. And Dayton has begun selling tickets. There was a Dayton team named the Gems in the original IHL from 1964 to 1977 and from 1979 to 1980. The new franchise has hired former players Guy Trottier and Warren Beck as director of hockey operations and head of business operations, respectively.
Bruner and Yerrick said they considered joining the ECHL, which was home to the Dayton Bombers from 1991 to last spring, but they preferred the IHL's business model, which includes non-unionized players, less travel and almost no affiliations with higher-level teams.
Kalamazoo's average attendance of 3,190 was second best in the league, and the Wings' departure would be a blow to Komets fans, who have seen games against Kalamazoo for 34 of the last 35 years.
Franke promised there'd be IHL hockey next season, with seven or eight teams, believed a meeting with Kalamazoo owner William Johnston Jr. could salvage the Wings' membership in the IHL and intimated the Wings may not be able to play outside of the league.
"Their contract does not allow them to play in any other professional league next year without penalty from the IHL," Franke said. "And there are other bylaw issues that are affected by this which are also in serious question in regards to them leaving the league, which could preclude them from leaving the International Hockey League. We don't know exactly what's going on."
