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Sunday, Jan. 3, 1999
Midway through season, IceRays make grade
Still there's room for improvement
By MARK BUTTON
Staff Writer

   If the first 70-game season of the Corpus Christi IceRays is a test for how they stack up against Western Professional Hockey League competition, then it follows that today's 35th game in Austin would be the appropriate time for a midterm report.
   You take a sport that has never previously played in South Texas, combine it with a first-year hockey beat writer, toss in a dash of South Texas culture and you have knotty convergence zone from which to make a progress report.
    Corpus Christi IceRays 1998-99 Midseason Report Card

    Part I -- On the Ice

    OVERALL: B+
   They held first place in their division almost from the first day of the season. Like the NFC East, the WPHL's Central is shaping up to be the weakest division in the league -- so maybe it's a Texas tradition shared with the football-playing Cowboys.
   It's all relative and you can't technically do any better than first in your division. But heading into the weekend, the IceRays were tied for sixth in points in the WPHL -- they'd be in fourth place in the Western Division -- and under the demanding grading system we're making up as we go, you have to be in the top three league-wide to earn an A.
   Leaves a little room for improvement in the second half.
    WIN/LOSS RECORD: B
   Going into Saturday's game against Odessa, Corpus Christi held sole possession of first place in the WPHL Central Division for 74 of 81 days this season and it has had a share of the division's top spot for 79 days.
   Still, for a team that has been on top of its division for such a long stretch in the first half, the IceRays are just 1-4 against the top three teams in the Western Division -- the league's winningest division. The team said from the start of the season that it would prove its worth on the road, playing on larger ice surfaces, yet the IceRays are 7-8-2 away from Memorial Coliseum -- not the sort of numbers that strike fear in opponents when Corpus Christi comes to visit.
   The IceRays have lost three or more straight games three times this season. The upside? They have pieced together winning streaks of three or games on four occasions.
   They've been up. They've been down. But they held on to the coveted top spot in the Central for nearly the entire season.
   Which isn't bad at all.
    OFFENSE: C
   Early on, it looked as though the IceRays were going to be an explosive scoring team. Eight games into the season, Corpus Christi was 5-3 and led the league in goals scored with 46, an average of 5.75 per game. In the 25 games that followed, the IceRays scored just 82 goals, an average of 3.2 per game.
   As of Jan. 1, the IceRays' 132 goals ranked ninth in the league.
    DEFENSE: B+
   From where it started, this is the team's area of greatest improvement -- especially factoring in the loss of team captain Jody Praznik for 24 games.
   During a stretch in late October, Corpus Christi gave up six goals a game for four straight contests. Those 24 goals represent 22 percent of the IceRays' goals allowed through their first 33 games. Although the IceRays won three of those games, the high goals-against mark made coach Taylor Hall fume over what he called "sloppy turnovers" inside the Corpus Christi defensive zone. Had they played as well defensively in those four games as they have in all the others, the IceRays would have easily allowed the fewest goals in the league this season.
   Since then, the IceRays have tightened, allowing a team to score six goals just once and have held opponents to four or fewer goals in 22 of 25 games.
    POWER PLAYS: B+
   IceRays are third in the league in scoring on the power play, and they could probably lead the league when team is healthy. The much-missed Praznik was the quarterback of the power-play unit. They are converting scoring chances on power plays 23 percent of the time throughout the season and have compiled a league-best 29 percent in home games.
    PENALTY KILLING: D
   As of Dec. 30, the IceRays were 14th in the league in penalty killing. Without Praznik -- the WPHL Defensive Player of the Year in 1996-97 -- Hall couldn't expect his team's best effort. But if nobody ever got injured, it wouldn't be hockey and every team would have a different story to tell.
    GOALTENDING: C
   Although third-year professional Scott Barber has filled in admirably, Frank Caprice's right knee sprain has kept the team from consistently shining between the pipes. None of the IceRays' netminders has been consistently spectacular, none has been consistently disastrous.
    COACHING: A-
   Taylor Hall built his team from scratch, recruiting players from wherever he could. Six full-time players have missed at least 10 games each with injuries, including team captain Jody Praznik and player/assistant coaches Frank Caprice and Craig Coxe. The three combine for more than 40 years of professional hockey experience, leaving Hall the daunting task of winning games while mixing and matching youthful lineups.
    HANDLING ADVERSITY: B
   The death of IceRays director of ticketing, former goalie Scott Brower sent shock waves of misery through the spines of all who knew him. The resilient team, however, won six of the following eight games. "Scotty would have wanted us to push on," forward Geoff Bumstead said.
   Also, the team has managed to stay on top of its division while injuries whittled away at the roster. Two things are always certain in hockey -- everyone will have injuries and everyone will play half its games on the road. The most fundamental test of adversity is how well teams play on the road after being hit with injuries. The IceRays have to pick it up away from home to earn a top mark.
    PART II -- In the Community

    TICKET SALES: A
   Seventeen home dates, 17 sellouts. Enough said.
    FAN APPRECIATION: A
   You can start with the sellouts and end with crowd noise. "Sometimes the fans are so loud inside the Igloo that I can't hear the guy sitting next to me -- and we're both wearing headsets," IceRays radio broadcaster Jake Stevens said. They are learning the game as the season has gone on, counting down the final seconds when penalties are killed and some seem to be catching on to the benefits of clearing the puck when at a man disadvantage. Except for the creeps who throw real 'Rays on the ice, you can't ask for much more.
    MERCHANDISE SALES: A-
   Wouldn't want to say the IceRays' logo is flat-out ugly, but it does seem to be a cut below all the others in the league, and why that swoosh behind the stingray? Understood, it's supposed to be two Cs, but it has the effect of cluttering up the design. Tough to read the name IceRays, too.
   Still, fans can't get enough IceRays gear. Corpus Christi leads the league in merchandise sales per capita (the figure is based on the number of people buying merchandise computed with the number of people in attendance per game), and the IceRays are second in the league in concession sales, according to Dan Ciarametaro, the WPHL's Chief Financial Officer.
    ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: B
   Average cost for two IceRays tickets? $32
   Two beers and a couple hot dogs? $25
   The chance to scream your head off like an idiot, hug a stranger and appear completely normal? Priceless.
   A thought or two on the IceRays spirit squad:
   SugarRay can't skate. Teach him or make him go away.
   As for the much-maligned IceGirls, it's not so much that they're bothersome, they just seem out of place. A lot of the fans seem to like them, and at times they're entertaining.
   But much like Tom Hanks' "There's no crying in baseball," there's an unspoken rule that there should be no cheerleaders in hockey.
   "I got talked into it," IceRays general manager Jimmy Garino said. "Originally I was against it, but after I saw how dedicated they were, I was won over."
    Individual Midseason Honors
    MVPs


Chris Robertson: A WPHL All Star for the second time in two years, the team's offensive leader was the league's Player of the Month for October, when he recorded eight goals and 12 assists in 10 games. It's a rare night that "Robo" fails to record at least one point.

Regan Harper: Another two-time WPHL All Star, "Harps" is an example of a player who rarely makes a mistake -- positioning or otherwise -- and if you haven't noticed Harper much, it's probably because he doesn't show up in the box scores often. Always in the right place at the right time, the third-year professional is one of the league's premier blue liners.

Scott Barber: Don't let the overall goaltending grade fool you. After a year away from the ice, "Barbs" was looking for a job behind a veteran goalie. He found a home backing-up Frank Caprice, but once the 16-year professional suffered a serious knee injury, Barber filled in and, at times, looked like a veteran himself.

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