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No Need For Negatives, Icemen Have Been A Plus
June 7, 2000
Dave Pace, BC Icemen Owner
Press
& Sun Bulletin
It was with great disappointment and frustration that I read Sean Mayer’s article of May 31 about a tale of two hockey cities.
Although I believe that Mayer and the Press & Sun-Bulletin have been very fair in their coverage of the Icemen, for some reason they once again found themselves compelled to resurrect the past and further lament the departure of the Rangers.
Instead of accepting the change, however disappointing it may have been to the community, Mayer chose to comment on the bad luck of both cities in having to compromise their standards and be willing to tolerate what he defines as obviously inferior levels of hockey.
Therefore, instead of fixating on the negatives, I would ask that Mayer reflect on the positives that the Icemen organization has brought to the community over the past three years (I suspect that some of the same might be found if one were to dig deeper into how the team in Hartford has adjusted to its new environs.)
The Icemen were founded three years ago only days after the announcement of the Rangers’ departure. Despite the fact we intended to wait a year before beginning game operations, we bowed to the urgings of local political leaders who didn’t want to see the city “go dark.”
This decision caused our organization to race through the process of hiring a staff, getting a schedule, soliciting sponsors and most importantly, drafting a team. We didn’t know if it could be done, but we wanted a team in the Arena just as badly as the community did. The city didn’t go dark and we played our first game only four months later.
Over the past three years, the Icemen organization has distinguished itself on the ice by winning the Eastern Division championship in two of its first three seasons. More importantly, this organization has distinguished itself off the ice in many other ways including:
--Working to build the expansion of the UHL to the East and develop national rivalries, securing the future of professional hockey in Binghamton (five teams have been added in addition to the Icemen).
--Initiating the Binghamton Hockey Hall of Fame to celebrate our past heroes.
--Promoting youth hockey in the Triple Cities.
--Heavy involvement in worthy charitable causes like Mom’s House, Day Nursery and several local scholarship foundations among others.
--Developing an extensive outreach program that has our players and staff visiting schools, hospitals and other organization nearly every day throughout the season.
This is the community’s team and it’s important that we reflect on this, and even more important that we promote it and support it so that we may reflect on it further for years to come.