The state of hockey in state

During the last decade, ice hockey was the hottest new sport in South Carolina with four teams playing in the Palmetto State.

The S.C. Stringrays. The Pee Dee Pride. The Greenville Grrrowl. The Columbia Inferno. Hockey was hot. Hockey was cool.

Now, well, things have chilled.

When the Stingrays hit the ice here at the North Charleston Coliseum back in 1993, they were an automatic sensation. Sellout crowds stoked hockey fever across the state with minor league teams sprouting up everywhere.

With more transplants flocking to the state, the future of the game looked bright. Today, however, hockey's version of global warming is taking its toll.

Teams are disappearing like glaciers.

The Pee Dee Pride melted away in 2005.

The Greenville Grrrowl dissolved in 2006.

The Columbia Inferno played its last game last night.

Now it's back to one — the Stingrays — the last team standing in South Carolina.

Sell the experience

"Greenville went away a few years ago, Florence is gone and Columbia is taking a voluntary suspension for a year, so hockey is not the same economics it was 10 years ago," Darren Abbott, president of the Stingrays, said Monday night as his team won the ECHL Southern Division with a 2-0 win over Columbia in the fifth game of this best-of-five series.

A crowd of 3,055 Monday night was good, but nothing like the throngs the Stingrays used to draw. There was only one sellout last year. Only one this year.

The rise and fall of minor league hockey in the South probably could have been foreseen if owners hadn't been so smitten with their early success.

Sure, crowds were big in the beginning because the sport was a novelty to the area. Even non-hockey fans came out to drink beer and cheer the fights on the ice.

But eventually, inevitably, when the newness wore off, all that was left was a hockey game, which few Southerners knew or cared much about.

Minor league baseball learned long ago that the game was nothing more than a distraction to most fans who come to ballparks for the sheer fun of it.

"Hockey teams have really had to muscle-up their sales staff and take a page out of minor league baseball's book and move toward marketing and group sales," Abbott said. "When we first started, we tried to sell the game. Now we've learned to sell the experience."

Survival market

The ECHL, which has now expanded all the way to Alaska, is still a bus league which depends on local rivalries to keep costs down and rivalries high.

Losing teams like Florence, Greenville and Columbia not only hurts fan interest, but the bottom line as the Stingrays have to travel farther and stay over more nights in hotels.

All this travel, especially with gas prices skyrocketing, cuts into the profits.

"It does affect us economically," Abbott said. "The price of fuel. The cost of hotels. Also, you don't get fans from nearby teams coming here and buying tickets."

Abbott said there's talk about new teams coming on line in Conway and Greensboro, N.C., which would help. But there's no question things have changed in this league.

"In a way, we are victims of our own success," Abbott said. "We did so well early on that we didn't worry about the little things. Now, the little things matter."

Little things like the rent.

Most people might be surprised to know the Stingrays pay about $6,000 a night to play in the 10,000-seat coliseum. They have to charge an extra $2 per ticket in the playoffs just to pay the players.

"We've had to tighten up our belts to survive," Abbott said. "It's a survival market for pro sports teams."

It's a business

Still, the Stingrays are the exception in this game. Strong, local ownership makes the difference.

"The future of Stingrays hockey is very, very bright," Abbott said. "Obviously, we just lost a shining star in our midst when Jerry Zucker passed away last month. But (his wife) Anita said, don't worry, we're a hundred percent behind you.

"When you have families like the Zuckers, the (Edwin) Pearlsteins and the Greenwalds committed, then we're here to stay."

Abbott said the Stingrays just re-negotiated their lease with the North Charleston Coliseum through 2015.

"A lot of places have adversarial relationships with their buildings," Abbott said. "But our ownership has always had good relations with the city and the mayor of North Charleston."

Monday night's victory means the Stingrays now move on to another best-of-seven series against the Cincinnati Cyclones, which excites the fans and worries the management.

Many think the playoffs are a financial boon for these teams when they actually can cost the franchise money.

"Normally the playoffs are a struggle," Abbott said, because season tickets don't apply and corporate sponsors don't kick in new money for the playoffs. "So far we've been lucky. Only one hotel night, so we've kept our costs down.

"But if we have to fly to Las Vegas for the finals, let's just say the margins are very small in the playoffs."

Which is the new name of the game in minor league hockey.

"The fans are there, and we need to find ways to get to them and bring groups out," Abbott said. "But it's hard work. It's a business."

Reach Ken Burger at kburger@postandcourier.com or 937-5598.