CALLER-TIMES INTERACTIVE: NEWS
Fri 12-Dec-1997
The shirt off hockey team's back? 'Ice threads
By MARK BUTTON
Caller-Times
This was our day. Our time. Finally. The Day of the Jersey.
Much of Corpus Christi, that is to say the sports fans in town, know about the IceRays, the city's new professional minor-league hockey team. The IceRays will be the 13th team in the Western Professional Hockey League (WPHL), and the puck drops for the IceRays in October of 1998.
Season ticket sales are booming. Ten months from the first glove-dropping fist-fight, err, hockey game, Darlene Robertson, director of ticket sales, has sold more than 900 season ticket packages. Only 1,300 packages - which vary in price from $389 to $689 for 35 regular season home games and a few exhibition games - remain to be sold. And while prices may seem steep, Scott Brower, manager of marketing and ticket operations, has set up a doozy of a deal for hockey-heads and future puck-people for getting to the games with enough money left to buy some popcorn. And beer.
An interested party could pick out a group of seats in Memorial Coliseum now - today - and not fork over the full-price for the season package right away. Through an agreement with Frost National Bank, you can finance your season ticket package through the bank, and pay as little as $75 a month for a season of smash-mouth, fast-paced IceRays hockey. Plus, there's a kicker (or slap shot, if you will), which brings us back to Thursday's main attraction at the IceRays' outlet store in Sunrise Mall: When you purchase season tickets through the ``Frost Ticket Express,'' you get your very own replica IceRays jersey. For free.
Of course, I knew this already. I had been waiting for Thursday's press conference for weeks. Because, you see, I - the Ice Rays' official jersey - was the guest of honor. I'm the home jersey, the one with the white background. The one in the picture on the front page of this section.
Anyway, it was exciting. All these people, probably around 50, came to the conference (or stopped shopping long enough to see what all the commotion was about) to check me out.
Then, finally, my time arrived. And I was ready. Corpus Christi coach Taylor Hall unveiled me, put me on, smiled, and asked the crowd what they thought.
``Whoo-hoo,'' was the collective response.
One guy said, ``Hey, that looks pretty sweet.''
Another said, ``It ain't the (New York) Rangers, but it ain't bad.''
Then Hall got to talk to all the television reporters, donning me over his pressed oxford shirt and tie, and talked about . . . me.
``I love it,'' he said. ``You know, there are a lot of traditional jerseys in the NHL. The Buffalo Sabres', the Boston Bruins' jerseys and others. They're symmetrical, conservative. But hockey has become a more promotional-oriented sport now. So we wanted to go with something more exciting. Something that flows.
``You're not really a professional team until you have a jersey.''
I like that kind of talk. And at the risk of being immodest, I do flow. In fact, I'd say I look pretty darn sharp.
Business Development Strategy Incorporated designed the fierce-looking stingray logo. And O.T. Sports, the North Carolina company that designed me, the jersey, painted a cobalt-blue swoop that surrounds my silver V-neck collar and sweeps down through the front, just under the IceRay logo, to represent the ocean. The IceRay itself rests in the middle of my meshness, keenly eying a loose puck.
``When I saw the jersey for the first time, I was like, `Wow,' '' Hall said. ``They pretty much hit it on the first try.''
Brower wore the away jersey - my buddy which looks just like me except that the white background is black. Not that it bothers me, but those were a hit with the crowd, too.
``I like the black ones,'' a passer-by said. ``They look mean.''
Brower and Hall talked all kinds of hockey talk, including its invasion on Corpus Christi. They seemed to be getting a lot of attention. Maybe because the people there were interested in hockey. Maybe because they wore menacing-looking jerseys.
``We're really excited about bringing hockey to Corpus Christi,'' Brower said. ``About 60 to 75 percent of the season tickets we've sold so far have been to transplanted Northerners, and the rest have been to locals who might not know much about hockey.''
Now, the citizens of Corpus Christi may not know much about hockey yet, but given time - and not much time at that - they will. And even though my black-and-blue road uniform and I, the home jersey, are cool as ice, I promise I won't take all the credit when Memorial Coliseum sells out for minor-league hockey.
If I'm lying, I'll give you the shirt off my back.
*