The title is a little misleading…. It’s not really just a rec rink. Its part of a larger facility where the Pirates are based called the OA Sports Center. The facility houses MHG Ice Centre, OA Performance Center, which contains full medical facilities for handling sports injuries including surgical, rehabbing and diagnostic medical visits. It has an off-ice indoor training facility w/ indoor field turf, Michael Phelps Swim Center and fully completed out-fitted locker rooms for the Pirates and Junior Pirates. Offices for Octogon are also in the building. The place is really state of the art and one of a kind in the AHL.
It’s easy to throw all sort of blame, make jokes and call the Pirates a joke organization. Some of it is rightly deserved, but to fling mud – not intended at anyone directly – without know all the facts is just ignorance.
The Pirates could play in the Civic Center anyway this season with or without a lease dispute. The building was undergoing a $37M renovation and it wasn’t completed until mid-Feb. Even still the Pirates locker room and stuff pertaining to hockey hasn’t been completed yet and won’t until later this spring so the Pirates were playing this season in Lewiston regardless.
The lawsuit was silly, but it was as much driven by ego on both sides as anything…. That’s why Petro is now in the back of the bus and likely to be gone at some point in the future. The Pirates have a new majority owner w/ deep pockets, new COO who was a former player as well as other changes to the organization which are for the better I feel. That said, Church has only been on the job for what? 2 months?
The on-ice product is PHX’s fault… They need to fix it and I suspect they will this summer. The attendance issue? Who know that Lewiston wasn’t going to show up? For generations here Lewiston has been touted as Maine’s true hockeytown and they’ll show Portland. Well, they showed Portland alright. They should Portland they’ll never get another team every again. It’s one off events and maybe a low level junior hockey team that doesn’t require a gate.
Bottom line is everyone knew when the Pirates had to make a decision back in Sept to play in Lewiston. The Colisee should have know at that time and been working toward to getting a fix that would work for both sides. They didn’t and that’s on them. Not on the Pirates or the Shrine Circus. The Pirates looked at other venues like UMaine’s Alfond Arena, Sid Watson Arena (Bowdoin) in Brunswick as well as several other potential venues, but they decided on MHG because of timing. Also, because St. John’s is in a playoff battle with Bingo for home ice and they didn’t want to mess it because crazy travel. The IceCaps already have several plans in place for how rd 1 will be played and whether they have home ice or not.
So, it’s not they just closed their eyes and said let’s play here. There was a reason why they chose MHG.
