Bullfrog Owners Must Pick a League for Next Season

The Silver family, which owns the Bullfrogs, has a difficult decision to make in the next few months.

Does it return to Roller Hockey International in 1999 and, if accepted, play by its rules? That would mean surrendering ownership of America’s most successful professional in-line hockey team.

Or does it stick it out in two-year-old Major League Roller Hockey, a loose-knit, predominantly East Coast league that has provided inferior competition this season?

The answer might be in how much the Silvers like being in charge and how deep their pockets really are. This season hasn’t been good financially, and it will take more than just turning off the giant television screen at the Arrowhead Pond to make ends meet.

A public stock offering issued by the Silvers shows $321,377 net profit in 1997 for Bullfrogs Sports Group, Inc., which owns the Bullfrogs and several roller rinks. But team founder Maury Silver has said the Bullfrogs have lost about $2 million since 1993.

If you cut through the highly inflated average figures of 7,500 spectators per game announced by the team, attendance is off at least 50%. An estimated crowd of 2,500 showed up June 20 to watch an 8-3 victory over Columbus. The previously announced low was 5,493 against Connecticut of RHI in 1993. Dasher boards that generated about $400,000 a year in revenue are noticeably light this season.

Stuart Silver, who fancies monogrammed cuff-links and expensive suits, admits he enjoys running a team that plays at the Pond, with its luxury boxes and big-time arena quality.

That’s why the RHI deal doesn’t appeal to him. Silver says he doesn’t relish becoming a puppet in the new RHI, which will be structured so owners act as franchise operators. Silver would take direction from the RHI board of directors and many changes are sure to be made.

For instance, the two-year contract extension recently given to Coach Todd Gordon and assistant Richard Ropchan wouldn’t be honored, according to current RHI President and CEO Bernie Mullin. All coaches apply for jobs with the league office, which assigns them.

Further, said Stuart Silver, some RHI board members, among them Orlando owner Norton Herrick, bickered with the Silvers in the old RHI, which went broke in 1997. That point was brought to light again last month at a press conference, when Mullin said the Silvers would only be allowed to return to the RHI on the league’s terms.

“It’s a two-way street,” Mullin said in front of about 50 people at the press conference. “It depends on the [Silvers’] desire to come back, and we have to want them back.”

Stuart Silver calls that posturing. He said he believes he can negotiate to maintain ownership of the Bullfrogs and return to RHI, because Orange County is a market RHI desperately needs to maintain a strong presence in Southern California.

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Major League Roller Hockey has had to reschedule its semifinals and final games at the Pond to Aug. 25-26. The previously announced dates were Aug. 21-22.

MLRH President Bill Raue blamed the switch on a miscommunication with Stuart Silver. Silver told Raue he thought the Pond was available Aug. 21-22, and Raue thought Silver had arranged for those dates. But the Pond is booked with an Elton John concert both nights.

Raue also said the format for the playoffs, scheduled to begin Aug. 13, may be revised too.

Originally, eight teams were supposed to compete in postseason play, with the final four playing at the Pond. Raue said now he isn’t sure if the champion of the six-team British Division, which began play July 18, will compete in the playoffs.

If they don’t participate, Raue said, the first round of the playoffs would most likely include games between East Coast division runner-ups. The winners would advance to the Pond.

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Raue has never pulled any punches about MLRH growing pains and he admitted his league has had its ups and downs this season.

“We knew it would be tough in some places,” he said. “We knew we would have problems, but I believe we are going in the right direction.”

Some of the points Raue said the league is addressing:

* Many teams have not been very competitive. The result has been lopsided scores.

“But other than the Bullfrogs, you look at the East Coast and those scores are getting a lot closer,” Raue said from Virginia. “We’re developing rivalries in the East, like Washington and Virginia, Buffalo and New York, Orlando and Tampa Bay. Those have all been big series.”

* Teams in Port Huron, Mich., New York and Philadelphia have had to move venues during the season, while some other facilities are barely more than small roller rinks.

“We’re going to work with our teams to get them into bigger buildings,” he said.

* Expansion. Teams in San Diego and Phoenix are planned for 1999, and Raue said he is also pursuing an expansion team in San Jose. San Diego and San Jose are also slated for RHI teams.

Bullfrog Notes

Would RHI try to establish a team in Orange County should the Bullfrogs not choose to return? Not in 1999, current RHI President and CEO Bernie Mullin said, but the league does have expansion plans to as many as 24 teams by the year 2004. . . . Stuart Silver’s attempt to bring a minor league ice hockey team to the Anaheim Convention Center this fall has turned to purchasing the bankrupt West Coast Hockey League Reno Rage. But WCHL President Mike McCall said that Reno will not field a team this season. An agent for Silver also had talks with the WCHL Tucson Gila Monsters. . . . Winger Mark Woolf, who is leaving the Bullfrogs after Saturday’s game with Orlando to play for his Scottish ice hockey team, will most likely be sent back to the San Jose Rhinos, should the Bullfrogs return to RHI. Mullin said that many of the former RHI standouts on the Bullfrogs’ roster would be reassigned to their old teams. . . . Victor Gervais, who skated for the first time July 22 on a one-game contract, is leaving to play ice hockey in Germany. . . . Former Bullfrogs Coach Grant Sonier has been named coach of the Fort Wayne Komets of the International Hockey League.