Hockey team in talks of returning to Shreveport
With one sports franchise vacating the Hirsch Memorial Coliseum for greener fields, another is eying that vacancy as an opportunity to return.
The Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs skated into the area in 1997. The minor-league hockey franchise treated fans to more than a decade of play before its exit in 2011, the same year the Mudbugs won the Presidents Cup Championship.
Now those close to the team said the Mudbugs may take the ice again.
“We’re working on it,” Tommy Scott, a one-time Mudbugs owner, said.
“And we have a lot of people working on it. We’re still working on a couple of major issues.”
Those issues include leasing a new home and franchise financial investments.
Scott said not to expect any official Mudbugs announcement until October. Potential gameplay would not start until 2016.
As for where games would be played, the Hirsch, where the Mudbugs first laced up, could be an answer.
“It’s looking like it is going to happen,” Chris Giordano, State Fair of Louisiana general manager/president, said. “We’re very confident it’s going to happen.”
The coliseum is short a sports team following this summer’s departure of the Shreveport-Bossier Mavericks, a franchise of the American Basketball Association.
The Mavericks came to the Hirsch in 2013, where it racked up 66 straight wins and two national championships. A change in leagues and low fan turnout forced a relocation.
But Giordano is positive the Mudbugs will be the Hirsch’s next resident sports franchise.
“The State Fair of Louisiana and [Scott] have been in discussions over the last couple of months in leasing the Hirsch to a new organization on a very long-term basis,” Giordano said.
“We’ve agreed on just about all the major points of a lease agreement. It looks very favorable for a lease agreement.”
Another issue the team will face is finding a league.
When the Mudbugs left in 2011, the team was part of the Central Hockey League. This time around, however, it looks like the
Mudbugs will be part of the North American Hockey League, Giordano said.
Giordano described the NAHL, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary this fall, as less expensive than the CHL.
It’s an assessment shared by Alex Kyrias, director of communications and sales for the NAHL. “The budget is significantly less,” Kyrias said. “It’s a better opportunity for success.” While Kyrais did not confirm any contact with the Mudbug organization, he did call Shreveport- Bossier a “prospective market” that would “fit well” in the NAHL.
“Shreveport is an area of interest,” Kyrias said. “It’s certainly sustained a hockey team before.”
A big benefit of the NAHL is players are not paid, which removes a large operational cost.
Kyrias said the bulk of players are working toward college scholarships or entry into the National Hockey League.
Players also pay for their own housing, Kyrais said. Typically, they live with host families within the community where they play.
Besides bringing in a new entertainment option, the Mudbugs will also provide a benefit to the Hirsch Coliseum.
Giordano said if the Coliseum and the Mudbugs agree on a lease, the team will make a “sizeable investment to renovate the inside of the coliseum.”
Then there’s the ice rink. As it stands now, the closest ice skating facility is in Dallas, Texas.
Giordano said an ice rink would be included in the first phase of construction, if the Mudbugs do move in. The addition of an ice rink would open up public skating opportunities as well as the possibility of youth hockey.
Giordano estimated that construction date to begin around April 2016.
–RT Morgan
Mudbug fact:
If the Mudbugs joined the NAHL, the team would enter a field of 22 teams in 10 states, including Texas, Kansas and New England.
