Article Contributed on: 6/23/2009 1:58:29 PM
Come hockey season, weekend nights won't be the same for Jeremy Leak.
The Westminster resident is mourning the loss of the Rocky Mountain Rage hockey team, which will be sitting out the 2009-10 season, partly because of economic woes at the Broomfield Event Center and partly because of a management team in limbo, according to a Central Hockey League (CHL) announcement last week.
Leak, a Rage season ticket holder and a booster club member, wasn't surprised by the decision.
He held off on buying season tickets when he heard the news the Broomfield Sports and Entertainment wanted out of its contract with the city.
Still he was optimistic.
"I was looking forward to the upcoming season after making the playoffs for the first time last season," Leak said. "I thought they'd go for the Cup this year."
Leak's going to miss the players the most.
"The greatest thing about having a small-town team is they're so down to earth," he said. "You could meet the players. You could run into them at the mall. You can't do that with the NHL."
While the Rage sit out this season, Leak will travel to the Pepsi Center for Colorado Avalanche games, but he won't be rooting for Loveland-based Colorado Eagles, a rival CHL team.
"Going out rooting for the Eagles is like rooting for the enemy," he said.
Leak blames a lack of marketing for the sluggish ticket sales at the center.
"I just don't think they had enough out there," he said. "I don't think we had the community involved. I'm just starting to see Rage flags in businesses. That should have started from the beginning."
Lori Cox, a Broomfield City Councilwoman and the Rages' booster club president, said it's not that simple.
"I think a lot of things went very wrong," Cox said. "Some things had to do with management, some things didn't."
The event center, which opened in November 2006, hasn't had time to succeed, considering the first year and a half it wasn't on the map and now the last six months it's been in flux between management, Cox said.
There's been no decision as to whether the Rage will return or if there will be any sports teams under AEG Live and Kroenke Sports Enterprises, said Paul Andrews, executive vice president of Kroneke Sports Enterprises.
The AEG/Kroneke partnership was approved 9-1 last week by Broomfield City Council as the lead candidate to take over the center, which has experienced financial difficulty under the management of Broomfield Sports and Entertainment.
The city has 45 days to negotiate a deal with AEG/Kroenke. If the two parties can't come to terms on an agreement, the city will negotiate with its No. 2 pick, VenuWorks.
Kroenke executives will meet with Rage executives and city officials about a possible Rage return, but no date has been set, Andrews said.
"I think we're a ways off on making a decision with the sports team until we have a contract with the venue," he said.
In the meantime, the possibility of signing hockey players this summer for the 2009-10 season and starting training camp in the fall was implausible without management in place, Cox said.
She said city staff is "motivated" to secure an agreement with AEG/Kroenke, which could happen as early as August, however, she added, "there are deal breakers."
"We're not willing to take financial hits to keep AEG in the building," Cox said.
She's still hopeful about the future of the center.
"I still believe with my whole heart it still has the opportunity to be wildly successful if managed and marketed correctly," she said.
14ers basketball team saying goodbye
Adding to sports fans' grief, the championship Colorado 14ers basketball team won't be playing ball at the event center, either. The team was sold to Texas D-League Management, LLC, according to an announcement made last week by the NBA Development League.
Donnie Nelson, Dallas Mavericks president of basketball operations and general manager, will be the principal owner and operator of the team.
The team will take a year hiatus before playing in suburban Dallas. The club will be affiliated with up to three NBA teams when it begins play. The club's nickname has not been chosen.