CALLER-TIMES INTERACTIVE: NEWS
Sun 15-Mar-1998
Western Professional League IceRays Memorial Coliseum hockey season
City prepares to transform Memorial Coliseum into home of the IceRays
By BRENT SCHROTENBOER
Caller-Times Corpus Christi's new minor-league hockey franchise expects to spend more than $500,000 renovating Memorial Coliseum this summer as the team prepares for its inaugural debut as a franchise next season.
The expansion Corpus Christi IceRays won't install its ice playing floor until the Al Amin Shrine Circus leaves town in September, but several other changes are planned for the 3,200-seat venue before the puck gets dropped for the first time this October.
The team's lease with the city allows it to make improvements to the facility, and the IceRays plan to build an expanded team locker room with showers and massage tables.
Among the more fan-friendly changes being planned: a press box to be built near the top of the seating bowl and a ``VIP club'' to be created on the stage area where club members can mingle with players after games.
The ice will be put in sometime mid-September, finishing off a playing floor that will measure 15 feet shorter than the length of a standard pro hockey rink. The coliseum floor will acquire a length and width expected to match the playing floor dimensions of the old Boston Garden, with measurements of 185 feet long by 85 feet wide.
Following a popular custom in force elsewhere in the Western Professional Hockey League, the team will allow fans to skate on the floor after games.
The IceRays also have established headquarters inside the Sunrise Mall, but they're looking to move into a more spacious area before the season.