The next-to-impossible may happen — Florida could have a National Hockey League franchise before it has major league baseball.
The NHL seriously wants to play in Florida as early as the 1992-93 season. “It's important to spread our base,” Washington Capitals owner Abe Pollin said. “I'm all for a Florida franchise.”
So is NHL President John Ziegler, who last January made a strong statement about Florida in the NHL's expansion plans. “We're very interested, we would like this very much,” Ziegler said.
St. Petersburg and Miami are strong possibilities for the NHL. Orlando would be. also, if Orlando Arena could meet NHL capacity standards and be able to convert quickly to ice. As of today, no one has made a serious overture to get a team for Orlando even though evidence shows there is a strong base of fans in the area.
Hockey Hall of Famer Phil Esposito heads one of two groups trying to have a team at the Florida Suncoast Dome in St. Petersburg. Esposito is trying to arrange an exhibition game between the Boston Bruins and Los Angeles Kings in September, a game he predicts could draw as many as 25,000 fans.
“This is all kind of amazing but very real,” St. Petersburg Assistant City Manager Rick Dodge said. “Our No. 1 priority all along has been major league baseball, but hockey may make it here before baseball does. We're working on it.”
The NHL already has granted a franchise to San Jose, Calif., and wants two more expansion teams by the 1992-93 season — at least six months before the National League could field two new baseball expansion teams, one of them more than likely to be based in Florida.
There currently are 21 NHL teams. The additions would bring the league to 24 franchises with four six-team divisions.
“I definitely think it's time for the NHL in Florida,” said Capitals President Dick Patrick, a member of the NHL's expansion committee. “We're attracted to Florida for many reasons — the number of people there, the fact it is so easy to get there. There are a lot of hockey people who like Florida — and who intend to do something to bring it there.”
This should come as good news to Sun Belt ice hockey fans, who dare talk now about going to the Suncoast Dome to watch, say, the St. Petersburg Pucks play the San Jose Screaming Programmers in a couple of years. Will these guys have to skate in sand? Who'll be the first goalie to lose a puck in the sun?
“Hey, don't laugh,” said former NHL center Derek Sanderson, now a radio-TV announcer for the Boston Bruins. “I wish we could have gone to Florida when I played — stay down there four or five days and play one game. I know a lot of guys who are going to eat this up. It'll sure beat being in Winnipeg in January.”
“Twenty-five years ago, thinking about hockey in Florida would have been totally inconceivable,” said Montreal Gazette Sports Editor Red Fisher, who has written about the NHL for 38 years. “And as far as I'm concerned it's inconceivable now. The game was never intended to be played in warm weather places.
“Look at the Los Angeles Kings. Look how long it took for the Kings to sell out any games. They had to get Wayne Gretzky. A Florida team would need Gretzky and Mario Lemieux together — and that won't happen in a thousand years.”
Fisher's belief that hockey is too regional to succeed except in places where customers must drive to the rink through snow drifts is changing quicker than snow would melt under the Florida sun. Within a week after announcing Gretzky and the Kings would play the New York Rangers in an exhibition this September, the game at Miami Arena was sold out — despite ticket prices of $20.75, $30.75 and $99.
A New Jersey Devils-Minnesota North Stars game last year at Orlando Arena attracted 13.400 people _ just 400 short of a sellout, enough to prompt Orlando Cen-troplex director Joanne Grant to schedule two NHL exhibition games this year. Grant said one of the games is assured, and final details are being negotiated for a second game. She said she hopes to announce a combination ticket sale soon.
By Russ White THE SENTINEL STAFF