Revamped Bullfrogs to Give New League a Spin
The Bullfrogs roll into their sixth professional in-line hockey season in much the same way they have for the last five years at the Arrowhead Pond with the same owners, familiar players and high expectations.
But much has changed since last September, when the Bullfrogs won their second title in Roller Hockey International.
There will be a new coach behind the bench Friday, when the Bullfrogs host the Buffalo Wings at 7:30. A few longtime standouts aren’t expected to skate for the Bullfrogs, and there are big questions about the new league, Major League Roller Hockey.
“We’re just happy to be playing this year,” team founder and owner Maury Silver said.
Financial concerns continue to beset the team, which has lost $2 million since its inception.
During the off-season, the Bullfrogs closed their office in Anaheim and moved into a room on the second floor of a Fullerton roller rink owned by Stuart Silver, Maury Silver’s son.
They restructured a lease at the Pond because they were behind in rent payments, and Stuart Silver, club president, took on the general manger’s job too. That position had been vacant for nine months.
Earlier this spring, six months after Roller Hockey International folded, the Bullfrogs jumped to the MLRH, based in Alexandria, Va. The league is beginning its first full season after a two-month trial run with eight eastern teams in 1997.
It’s difficult to estimate the success of MLRH, which has 14 teams in North America and six in England. But its president and founder, Bill Raue, believes it was a coup landing the Bullfrogs, the league’s only team west of Michigan.
“This is going to be like the Bullfrog tour across America,” Raue said. “They’ll be playing in places they’ve never played before and everyone will get a chance to see them.”
MLRH teams play a 20-game schedule. A salary cap holds the average player’s earnings to $350 per week, about $70 less than they earned in the RHI.
Fourteen-man rosters for MLRH teams are three players leaner than RHI rosters, and not all the teams play in palaces. The Orlando Surge, the third professional roller hockey team in that city in the last four years, will play in a roller rink with 750 portable bleacher seats.
The Bullfrogs are in the World Conference with Washington, D.C., the Sting, which expects to play in a 1,200-seat rink in suburban Philadelphia, and the Riot of Larchmont, N.Y.
The Bullfrogs will play 10 home games and make two five-game eastern trips in July. British teams play a separate schedule and the champion will come to America for an eight-team playoff. Semifinals and finals will be at the Pond in August.
The Silvers, who say they will evaluate whether to remain in MLRH after the season, expect their team to win another championship.
“Anything other than that will be a disappointment,” said Todd Gordon, the team’s first-year coach. “We went after the best players, the best character guys. A lot have played ice hockey together and won championships.”
Gordon, 31, an assistant with San Antonio of the International Hockey League, replaced Brad McCaughey, who was fired in April in a dispute over back pay.
Richard Ropchan, who coached Team Canada to a silver medal in the last summer’s International Ice Hockey Federation In-Line Hockey World Championship, is Gordon’s assistant.
Three-time RHI all-star goaltender Rob Laurie returns. He was protected under the league’s 100-mile hometown radius rule.
The three other “local” players protected include forwards B.J. MacPherson, who had 23 regular season assists in 1997, and Taj Melson, who played for the Orlando Jackals of RHI, and defenseman Darren Perkins, the last original Bullfrog who missed a large part of the 1997 season with a hip injury.
Also back is winger/defenseman Sean Whyte, who played in eight games last season.
Sharp-shooting forward Glenn Stewart, picked up in the ninth round of the draft, also returns. He scored 24 goals with the Bullfrogs before being traded to the New Jersey Rockin’ Rollers. The Bullfrogs went on to defeat New Jersey in the RHI title series.
New faces with ample RHI experience include former Orlando winger Bill Lund, who led the RHI in scoring in 1997 with 32 goals and 46 assists, former San Jose Rhino Mark Woolf (35 goals, 29 assists) and former Blade Kevin St. Jacques (17 goals, 32 assists).
Victor Gervais and Rick Judson, whom the Bullfrogs lost in the draft to Buffalo and Columbus, said they wouldn’t skate this year for any team other than the Bullfrogs. Gervais is the team’s all-time leading scorer, and Judson took 56 shots in 17 game appearances last year.
Defenseman Brent Thurston (Tampa Bay) and left winger Hugo P. Belanger (Richmond), brought in during a midseason player shake-up a year ago, were also lost in the draft, and defenseman Doug McCarthy, also signed in mid-1997, has retired to become the coach of the Canadian national in-line team. Forward Todd Wetzel, who took 133 shots and scored only 21 goals, is sitting out.
Goaltender David Goverde was traded to Tampa Bay for defenseman Tom Menicci, who was left unprotected in the draft. Menicci, who appeared in 20 regular season games in 1997, has played in Anaheim for two years.
Goverde was a key ingredient in the Bullfrogs’ RHI championship in 1997, starting seven playoff games and winning five of them. But he was considered expendable.
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Bullfrogs at a Glance
* Home arena: Arrowhead Pond
* Tickets: $8-$30
* Game times: Weekdays and Saturdays home games begin at 7:30 p.m. Sunday games begin at 6 p.m.
* Affiliation: Major League Roller Hockey, founded 1997
* Websites:
https://home1.gte.net/jdignan/bullfrog.htm; https://mojo.simplenet.com/bullfrogs
* Related Websites:
https://www.mlrh.com ; https://www.inlinehockeycentral.com
* Information: (714) 939-POND
SCHEDULE
Friday, Wings, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Hawks, 6; JUNE 20, Sting, 7:30; 26, Power; 28, Rolling Thunder, 7:30 p.m.; 30, at Vultures, 4:30 (PDT).
JULY 1, at Crushers, 4:30 (PDT); 4, at Surge, 1:30 (PDT); 5, at Rolling Thunder, 3 (PDT); 7, at Fire Ants, 4 (PDT); 8, Riot, 7:30; 11, Power, 7:30; 12, at Riot, TBA; 14, at Torpedoes, TBA; 17, at Wings, 4:30 (PDT); 18, at Power, TBA; 19, at Power, 2 (PDT); 22, Vultures, 7:30.
AUGUST 8, Fire Ants, 7:30; 13, Surge, 7:30; 14-17, playoffs, first round; 21-22, playoffs, semifinals and finals, Arrowhead Pond.
ROSTER
*--*
No. Name Pos. 25 Darren Colbourne F 96 Jason Courtemanche D 44 Sandy Gasseau D 6 John Hanson F 30 James Jensen G 1 Rob Laurie G 4 Bill Lund W 18 B.J. MacPherson F 19 Taj Melson D 10 Tom Menicci D 21 Darren Perkins D 8 Mark Woolf W 16 Kevin St. Jacques W 81 Glenn Stewart F 29 Chad Wagner F 9 Sean Whyte F/D
*--*
Coach: Todd Gordon
THE LEAGUE
MAJOR LEAGUE ROLLER HOCKEY
North American Conference
* Southern Division
Richmond (Va.) Vultures
Winston-Salem (N.C.) Carolina Crushers
Florence (S.C.) Fire Ants
Orlando Surge
Tampa Bay Rolling Thunder
* Great Lakes Division
Harrisburg (Pa.) Posse
Toronto Torpedoes
Buffalo Wings
Columbus (Ohio) Hawks
Port Huron (Mich.) North Americans
World Conference
* Coastal Division
Bullfrogs
Washington (D.C.) Power
West Chester (Pa.)/New Jersey Sting
Westchester County (N.Y.) Riot
* UK Division
Manchester Tribe
Brighton Tigers
Beast of Guilford
London Lions
Herne Bay Gulls
Swindon Screaming Eagles