How a Long Shot Suddenly Won a Game for Anaheim

It was supposed to be an important meeting between a couple of city councilmen and Walt Disney Co. executives to discuss the ambitious plans to build a second theme park next to Disneyland.

But when then-Councilmen Bill Ehrle and Tom Daly sat down with Disney Chairman Michael Eisner more than a year ago, it was clear that something other than the $3-billion project was on Eisner’s mind.

“He was more excited about bringing a hockey team to the Anaheim Arena than the expansion project,” Daly recalled last week.

“He didn’t stop talking about hockey and the arena,” Ehrle agreed. “It’s no secret that Eisner’s a hockey fan.”

Now, more than a year later, Eisner is more than a fan. The company he heads is a National Hockey League owner-to-be. Though Disney officials describe the company’s $50-million investment as “no big deal,” its venture into professional sports is yet another huge financial boon for a city whose fortunes are now forever tied to the entertainment giant.

Given Disney’s ubiquitous presence in Anaheim and its plans for expansion, the company’s announcement Thursday surprised even city leaders who only weeks ago had learned of another failed effort to lure professional hockey to their sports arena.

“I had no inkling this was coming,” said Councilman Irv Pickler, one of Disney’s closest allies on the City Council. “I don’t think they even told the city manager. Maybe that’s the best way to do those things.”

But while city leaders were fretting over the looming, multimillion-dollar costs of operating an empty arena, Disney executives were conducting quiet discussions with the NHL and the arena’s private operators that later grew into a flurry of faxes and telephone calls.

Brad Mayne, arena general manager with the Ogden Corp., one of the city’s partners in the project, said Disney’s local hockey interest first surfaced in the early fall when company executives arrived at the arena construction site for a brief visit.

Mayne said that efforts to keep contacts secret with the prospective team owners were so extreme that he was not provided the identities of his visitors until shortly before their scheduled arrival.

“The corporation people came out and took a look around the arena and left,” Mayne said. “We provided them with the cook’s tour. We showed them the locker rooms and they stood in (some of the 82 luxury) suites.

“Most of the discussion was via fax machines and long-distance telephone calls. It was like everything--it starts slow and grows.”

But Disney’s name was never uttered in the interim, not even during a hotly contested municipal election when the city’s risk of operating an empty sports facility became political fodder for warring campaigns.

Councilman Fred Hunter, who lost his mayor’s chair during the November election, has said his close association with the arena and its failure to find major league sports tenants by that time doomed his campaign for a third mayoral term.

“It was not to our advantage to discuss the specifics,” said Mayne, adding that he had received numerous requests from Mayor Hunter and Councilman Ehrle to divulge prospective owners before the election. “We don’t have any requirement of opening up our negotiation.”

Meanwhile, at Disney headquarters in Burbank, spokesman Tom Deegan said the company’s interest was known to only a few top executives. Deegan said he became aware of it only a week ago. But he said the idea of hockey ownership gained momentum in the past several weeks.

“It was a matter of serendipity,” Deegan said Thursday. “Certain opportunities arise and you don’t have time to spend years examining them.”

By all accounts, Disney’s decision was influenced enormously by Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall, chairman of the NHL’s Board of Governors.

It was only in October that McNall stated publicly that he intended to help Anaheim secure a franchise, saying that a second Southern California team could ease the travel burden for his club that now competes in a division dominated by Canadian teams.

At that time, McNall also said an Anaheim team could help spark a popular rivalry in the area.

“I don’t think we would have pursued this matter if he (McNall) had not been supportive,” Deegan said. “Bruce McNall thinks this could be good for his franchise.”

(One significant benefit to McNall is the $25-million indemnification fee he’ll receive from Disney for relinquishing his exclusive rights to the territory.)

NHL President Gil Stein said Friday he was aware that Eisner and McNall had been talking for at least “a couple months” about Disney’s entry into the league. It was only within the last month that McNall approached him about Disney’s interest, Stein said.

“Do you think I would have to think long and hard about Disney as a possible member of our league?” Stein said in a telephone interview from a Palm Beach, Fla., hotel, site of the league’s annual Board of Governors meeting. “Are you kidding me?”

In short order, Stein said, he presented Disney’s plan before members of the league’s advisory and marketing committees. The deal was cemented Thursday when Eisner, wearing a jersey from Disney’s popular youth hockey film called the “Mighty Ducks,” was introduced to league officials.

“Disney has a special reputation,” Stein said. “Their image is the highest there is. They bring added stature to the hockey league immediately.”

All the details of Disney’s new adventure have yet to be worked out, but Stein said it is hoped a team could begin playing by the 1993 or 1994 season.

In Anaheim on Friday, Disney’s announcement--although more than 24 hours old--was still being greeted with the enthusiasm once expressed for the arrival of the California Angels and the Los Angeles Rams.

Friday, Mayne said his local office was swamped with requests for season tickets. He said the crush of telephone inquiries forced him to add three new phone lines and hire two additional staffers. Interest has been so keen that Mayne took the arena’s remaining luxury suites--priced at between $36,000 and $68,000--off the market for soon-to-be-announced cost increases.

Longtime residents said the city’s early and unabashed support for Disney’s newest venture should not be surprising.

Allan Hughes, executive director of Anaheim’s Chamber of Commerce, said the city has never stopped building on the lucrative foundation laid by Walt Disney in 1955.

Since that time, this city of only 270,000 residents has become home to the largest convention center on the West Coast, to Anaheim Stadium, and has parlayed its resources to become a national vacation and convention destination.

“I don’t know what it is about Anaheim,” Hughes said Friday. “Maybe it’s the mystique of having succeeded in the past with big projects. But I think we always expected that this arena deal would come together.”