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The IHL has pledged that the Dayton Gems will continue playing hockey. It’s unclear whether that future will include its current owners, northeast Indiana-natives Richard Bruner and Ryan Yerrick.
“Our goal is to keep the Gems where they are. That’s the bottom line,” said IHL commissioner Dennis Hextall, adding the team has lost an investor and experienced financial difficulties. “We’ve been working with Rich Bruner, helping him out for a week to two weeks. We’d like to see him pull it off. But if he can’t, it’s not his decision to fold the team. It’s ours.”
The first-year Gems are 7-7-3 and averaging 1,497 fans per game, sixth best in the seven-team league.
Bruner, who couldn’t be reached for comment, told the Dayton Daily News on Thursday that he would fold the Gems to pre-emptively strike a takeover by the IHL. He was irked at a letter of concern from the IHL. On Friday, Bruner backed off his threat but conceded to the Dayton Daily News that his removal remained a possibility.
“There are no problems with the team. Payrolls are being met. Obligations are being met,” said Komets president Michael Franke, chairman of the IHL Board of Governors. “In the end, this was a non-event, non-story, and he just freaked out. I know he had spent a couple of days in the hospital last week and probably had some medication in his body still and probably overreacted to the letter, which was standard with certain circumstances. … The IHL fully plans on having the team in Dayton for years to come.”
Bruner and Yerrick are the former owners of the Buddy’s Pizza Buffets, which closed when they left for Dayton last summer, leaving a flurry of lawsuits in their wake.
