Reprinted with permission from hockeybuzz.com
Don Stevens has been around the Rochester Americans for a long time and he's seen a multitude of changes not only with the Amerks, but for the league itself. He started doing broadcasting for the Amerks during the 1986-87 season when the American Hockey League had 13 teams. A couple of names you might know who skated in the AHL that season were Hall of Famer Brett Hull, who was with the Moncton Wild Cats and Anaheim head coach Bruce Boudreau, a center for the Nova Scotia Oilers that year.
During his first season the Amerks won the Calder Cup, their second of the decade, fifth of six since their inception. "Since [that first game]," reads No. 2 on his bio-list of most memorable moments, "there have been lots of memorable moments. One of the best was going to the championship in my first year and winning it at Sherbrooke, and coming home to the thousands of people at the airport at 4:00 in the morning.”
He also mentions in the bio that going to the Calder Cup Finals in seven of his first 14 years behind the mic "is just an incredible statistic."
There has been significant growth in the AHL since then. The league grew to 20 teams by the start of the 2000-01 season, then went to 27 after absorbing the International Hockey League in 2001-02, and now there are 30, one for each NHL franchise. As with everything AHL there seems to be constant flux and this year realignment brought about some major divisional changes to the league with the addition of the Pacific Division.
The Amerks, along with the Utica Comets (VAN) and Toronto Marlies (TOR) moved from the western conference to the east and have a more centralized division which for Stevens comes with plusses and minuses. Rochester, Utica, and Toronto will be joined by the Albany Devils (NJD,) Binghamton Senators (OTT,) St. John's Ice Caps (MTL) and Syracuse Crunch (TBL) to form the North Division. "Our whole makeup will change," he told me last week, "it takes us from being a team that spends a lot of time at airports to a team that spends just about all their time on the bus."
Change is nothing new to the AHL, or their teams, or their affiliations or to those who follow the league. Teams will move from one city to another somewhat regularly, affiliations with the parent club will change hands many times and as a developmental league for the NHL, the roster is in a constant state of flux as it's at the mercy of the big club. In the Sabres case, GM Tim Murray has filled up the NHL roster, but there's plenty of uncertainty as to who will be on the opening day roster. Once that's finalized, those who head to Rochester will have just about a week to prepare for their season.
When I talked to Stevens last week, it was on a very cool, damp day, one that had the feel of a day in September when school's in session and training camps are full swing. It was easy to forget that it was July and summer still had six weeks left. Stevens and I would talk about various players and things like the coaching search and so on.
But what really perked up the conversation was when I'd asked him if he had the opportunity to check out HARBORCENTER, the $172M hockey-centric facility built by Sabres' owners Terry and Kim Pegula. The complex which is adjacent to First Niagara Center, is equipped with two NHL-sized rinks atop it's own parking garage and also boasts training facilities, the 13,000 sq.ft. (716) restaurant and a soon to be opened Marriott Hotel, among other things.
A rejuvenation of downtown Buffalo and the positive energy that emanates from the Canalside area left Stevens as a kid caught up in the grandness of what's happening around him. "I sit back and look around and my eyes are wide," said Stevens of the facility and the surrounding area. "I'm sitting in disbelief of where we were and what we are now. It's just amazing."
When asked how he feels about being a part of it all, Stevens he chuckled and said, "secure." "Thing is," he continued, "I now know that my paycheck isn't going to bounce. There were some years there where it always wasn't the case."
The Amerks have had a long list of affiliations since their inception in 1956. It began with the Montreal Canadiens who were followed by six other franchises (including Buffalo for one year) serving as parent club until the 1981-82 season when the Sabres took full control. After two plus decades of stability, which included the franchise's sixth Calder Cup in 1996, flux entered into the equation again as Buffalo shared the Amerks with the Florida Panthers for the 2005-06 season. The following year Buffalo bolted for Portland while Florida took full control of Rochester until new Sabres owner Terry Pegula bought the Amerks in 2011.
With the purchase of the Rochester Americans, the organization was made whole once again. It was the third major hockey-related investment Pegula made after he sold off some of his East Resources drilling rights to Royal Dutch Petroleum for $4.7B. The first was his $88M donation to his alma mater, Penn State, "to fund a state-of-the-art, multi-purpose arena and help to establish an NCAA Division I men's hockey program."
After taking care of them, he turned his attention to professional hockey telling his confidant, Cliff Benson, what he wanted to do next--buy a National Hockey League team.
Sports Business Daily Senior Writer Bill King tells it this way, "Pegula wanted an NHL team, and it had to be the Sabres," wrote King. "He’d become a rabid hockey fan while living in Buffalo back in the 1980s, holding season tickets for 18 years. Kim Pegula was raised about 90 minutes east of Buffalo [Fairport, NY, a Rochester suburb,] in a small town where her parents still reside.
"Benson tried to talk him out of it, suggesting that if he wanted to buy a hockey team, he look for one in a more palatable market. But Pegula wouldn't hear of it," and the rest is history.
The Pegula's didn't stop with the purchase of the Amerks and the Sabres. There goal was to make Buffalo the center of USA hockey, and so the idea for HARBORCENTER was born.
Originally it was planned as nothing more than two rinks and a parking garage. "When Terry and Benson were spitballing the idea," wrote King, "the plan was to build two hockey rinks on top of a parking garage. They wanted to improve the property adjacent to the arena to show their commitment to improving downtown."
But as opportunity knocked, just like their purchase of the Buffalo Bills, the Pegula's pounced with Kim Pegula taking the reigns of HARBORCENTER. 'Parking garages don’t make money,' Kim said to King, explaining the shift in thinking. 'So what makes money? Hotels make money. Let’s do a hotel. Restaurants make money. How do we get a restaurant to come here? Well, I always wanted to own a restaurant so let’s do it ourselves. And let’s put a Tim Hortons in here, too.'
Kim Pegula now holds the title of president and Chief Executive Officer of Pegula Sports & Entertainment, the umbrella which ties all of the Pegula's interests together. Rather than separate entities who are like little islands communicating through messages in bottles, Kim has been bring those within the organization together holding seminars on varying aspects of the organization.
"There's a lot more to the organization than just hockey," said Stevens, "There's the Sabres, Amerks and [Buffalo] Bandits. They're in the restaurant business with (716,) the hotel business (with the soon to be opened Marriott,) they're in the practice rink business with the workout facility and the practice facility. Not only that, there's now the Bills and Black River Entertainment in Nashville, TN."
To help keep what they do in perspective, PSE educates those in the organization during the off season. "We have some things the organization does in the off season, one is called Sabres University where the organization gets together for a couple of days for different classes and seminars," Stevens told me. "We'll go in and one day the speaker might be the Sabres marketing director where we learn about that area. Another one that was quite interesting was the people who put on all the concerts and the mechanics of getting all the equipment in an out of the arena.
"You learn a whole lot about who it is you're working for and what it is we're doing."
But hockey still remains a supreme focus. With three NHL-size rinks right at their disposal, the Pegula's got what they were looking for, the eyes of the NHL. "The NHL is liking what the organization is doing," said Stevens. "They were real happy with the facilities and the [NHL Draft] Combine."
Buffalo will be hosting the Combine once again in 2016 and will also be hosting the 2016 NHL Draft a few weeks later. There's also talk of the team hosting a prospects tournament similar to the Traverse City Tournament they were a part of the past two years. And they may even be looking to land a junior team join the D-1 Canisius College Golden Griffins Canisius as well as the Buffalo Junior Sabres youth hockey organization.
Lost in the rejuvenation PSE brought to downtown Buffalo, however, seems to be a full-on commitment to the Rochester Americans. With everything that's been going on in Buffalo, the team has been put on the back-burner somewhat and the commitment hasn't made it's way 90 miles east.
Next: Pulling the Rochester Americans out of a rough period.
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