Where Will Hawks Play?
Hawks' home ice uncertain
The future site of the hockey team's games -- the Coliseum, the Rose Garden or elsewhere -- looms as a sticking point
Friday, April 13, 2007
The Portland Winter Hawks want to call Memorial Coliseum home.
The problem is that the Western Hockey League considers the arena substandard and plans to complete a detailed report describing its deficiencies this month.
The City of Portland's response: Funds for major fixes are limited, so try playing more games next door at the Rose Garden.
That brings up another sticking point: The Hawks are in the 13th year of a 20-year lease at the Rose Quarter that team owners consider a "broken economic model."
Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen often threw out words to that effect to describe his predicament in recent years, before his Vulcan Inc. investment firm regained ownership of the Rose Garden when it reclaimed the arena from bankruptcy this month. Vulcan's Sports & Entertainment division now controls the Winter Hawks' lease with the Rose Quarter.
Concerns by Hawks owners foreshadow what could be a looming battle to decide where the junior hockey team skates the majority of its games -- in Portland or elsewhere. Jack Donovan, the club's president and co-owner, said he plans to meet Friday with J.E. Isaac, the Trail Blazers' senior vice president for business affairs, to "try to figure out where everything stands."
"We're looking forward to seeing if we can't resolve these issues," Isaac said. "We think they are resolvable, and we can continue to have the Hawks here as a major tenant."
Under new ownership last season, the Hawks played all but six of their 36 home games at the Coliseum, which was built in 1960. Areas needing improvement in the building, according to the WHL and Hawks owners, include women's restrooms that are too small and lack baby-changing stations, locker rooms with holes in the ceiling, glass boards that need to be replaced or cleaned, and a playing surface of inconsistent quality.
The newer, larger Rose Garden, where the Hawks played the remainder of their home games last season, would be a better venue for the team, said Dave Logsdon, Portland's spectator facilities manager. The city can reasonably afford $500,000 a year for Coliseum maintenance and repair, Logsdon said, but it probably would cost a "very significant amount of money" to bring the building to WHL standards.
"The Rose Garden is perfectly suited for hockey," Logsdon said. "So in our mind, part of the solution is to make better use of that facility."
Before last season, the Hawks often played a majority of their home games at the Rose Garden, which opened in 1995.
Logsdon's suggestion that the Hawks revert to playing more often at the Rose Garden angered Jack Donovan, the team's president and a minority owner.
It costs the team thousands of dollars more each game to play at the Rose Garden for various rental charges, and the Hawks gain no revenue from the arena's luxury suites, Donovan said. The Hawks also control more advertising revenue at the Coliseum, he said.
"The economics over there can never work for us, because that's the home of the Blazers," Donovan said. "I've never understood the city's attitude in telling us to go play someplace else. That attitude may have us playing someplace else. And not here (in Portland)."
Winter Hawks owners have logged several queries asking if they are interested in selling or moving the team, Donovan said.
"They know our backs are against the wall," he said. "We have to explore all options we have, and it's clear under the present scenario it doesn't work."
Donovan and his two investment partners -- majority owner Jim Goldsmith, a New York businessman, and John Bryant, a Dallas lawyer -- hoped to make the Hawks profitable within three years when they took ownership of the club in March 2006. Donovan described the Hawks' prior year financial losses as "substantial."
He likened the Winter Hawks' situation to one Allen faced before his investment firm announced April 2 it had regained ownership of the Rose Garden.
"They've been bloodied by a tough lease. They've felt the pain," Donovan said. "We're in the same boat. There's nothing different."
Allen forfeited the Rose Garden to lenders two years ago after putting Oregon Arena Corp., the entity he created to run the arena, into bankruptcy more than three years ago. He briefly sought public assistance last spring to stanch projected red ink. Allen later put the Trail Blazers and the Rose Garden up for sale before announcing his bid Feb. 2 to buy back the Rose Garden.
Continued.......
_____________________
Tipped Off