What's a RiverDog?
I’d like to welcome readers finding their way over from Tim Harvey’s Rink Blog. Tim is a fellow Hokie who graduated in an era one might call the “darkness before the dawn” of VT football. Now he’s bringing readers a wide range of hockey news and opinion — very good stuff.
I mentioned back in April that the Richmond Renegades were folding, bringing the longest-running chapter (13 years) in Richmond’s hockey history to a close. At the time, it was unknown whether Richmond would have a replacement team.
Now we do: the Richmond RiverDogs of the United Hockey League. The team’s founding was actually announced not long after the Renegades formally folded, but the team was not given a name until a couple of weeks ago.
The RiverDogs are owned by Dr. Eric Margenau, a minor league sports entrepreneur from Long Island who is, let’s just say, not a hockey purist. When the expansion franchise was announced, he gave an interview to the Richmond Times-Dispatch in which he mentioned that he wasn’t at all averse to walking into the locker room pre-game, throwing a fifty-dollar bill on the training table, and announcing that the first player to start a fight gets the fifty. So we definitely have some Slap Shot potential here.
So far, he’s not doing too badly on local appeal — a cursory examination of the partially-filled roster reveals several former Renegade fan favorites, most significantly goaltender Maxime Gingras. The team will be coached by former Washington Capitals defenseman Rod Langway, who after his 1992-93 NHL retirement came back as a player-coach with the Renegades for the 1994-95 stretch run and playoffs, then served as an assistant coach in 1996-97.
The big question is whether Margenau’s minor-league marketing expertise can sell a team with NO natural rivals, at even higher ticket prices than the previous failed club, for a lower level of hockey without an NHL affiliation. (I remain convinced that the Renegades’ slide began when their old rivals, the Hampton Roads (now Norfolk) Admirals, moved up to the AHL in 2000. The Admirals’ visits could be counted upon to fill the Coliseum 3-4 times a year. Richmond fans never developed the same hatred for obvious replacement Roanoke that the Express fans had for the ‘Gades.) The Coliseum management group has given the RiverDogs a slightly better selection of weekend home dates than the Renegades got, although the March problem of back-to-back-to-back basketball tournaments remains, leaving the R-Dogs one home game between 29 February and 25 March.
Perhaps the promise of fisticuffs will help marketing to the casual fan. But I’m not convinced that the product on the ice is going to be worth $16 for a mid-range seat, when $21 can get me into the upper corners in Carolina and $25 puts me in the upper corners/ends at MCI Center in Washington. I don’t mind the drive up I-95 or down I-85/US-1 if I’ll see good hockey when I get there.
And if Margenau can’t sell to the die-hards, he’s got a problem.
6 August 2003 / 0 Comments / Tags: hockey, richmond