CALLER-TIMES INTERACTIVE: NEWS

Wednesday, Oct. 14, 1998

'Rays sting, Bats bat, fans cheer

Guys don't play nice on ice

Fans cheer fights as 'Rays hold their opener at coliseum

By NOVELDA SOMMERS
Staff Writer

Hockey was a screaming success Tuesday night probably for much the same reason professional wrestling sells out the 3,300-seat Memorial Coliseum.
   The fights.
   Not three minutes after actor Lou Diamond Phillips, a Flour Bluff graduate, dropped the puck, an Ice Bat and an IceRay went at it, battering and clawing each other until the referees pulled them apart.
   Fans screamed their approval and pumped their fists in the air.
   "A lot of them here, that's what they came for," said Michael Phillips, a Michigan native who moved to Corpus Christi after joining the Navy.
   Corpus Christi fans will come to understand the rules of the game eventually, he said. Until then, the fights will keep them interested.
   For this Michigan native wearing a Detroit Red Wings jersey, attending the traditionally northern sporting event will take the edge off of his homesickness.
   "I'm quite impressed," he said.
   Even though the IceRays didn't put a score on the board the first period, they scored big with fans.
   The Corpus Christi crowd chanted, they screamed, they booed when it was appropriate, and they blew on souvenir party-favor horns given to fans as they entered the building.
   The crowd erupted into ear-splitting cheers when IceRays announcer Steven King boomed: "These are your Corpus Christi Iiiice Raaaays!," and began introducing players, who skated out into the spotlights.
   Fan Marcus Hazle, 22, wearing a Yankees cap and a white hockey mask, long a staple in horror movies, leaped to his feet and waved a handmade sign that read "You Da IceRay."
   "I'm very excited," Hazle said, adding that he works at the Corpus Christi Athletic Club, where the IceRays work out, so he knows several of the players.
   Hours before the game began, fans stood in a long line hoping to buy tickets for the sold-out game. Many purchased tickets for Thursday's game against the Alexandria Warthogs.
   Bill Murch, a search and rescue worker with the city of Corpus Christi Marina, said he's just glad he doesn't have to go all the way to San Antonio anymore to see live hockey.
   Murch, wearing a San Antonio Iguanas hockey jersey, said he became addicted to hockey about five years ago when a friend convinced him to drive to San Antonio to see a game.
   "This is going to draw all the football fans, because it's physical," he said.
   Steven Ferris, a Corpus Christi resident, wore his New York Rangers jersey with Wayne Gretzky's name on the back to show his support for the game.
   "I love the sport, the skills," he said.
   And it seems to be filling a void for Corpus Christi sports fans, he said.
   "We don't have much here," he said.
   Staff writer Novelda Sommers can be reached at 886-3774 or by e-mail at sommersn@scripps.com

Return to News Page