Everything is official in Corpus Christi, as the North American Hockey League team from Alpena, Mich., has been purchased and moved to the American Bank Center.
The sale and relocation have been approved by the NAHL, prompting the press conference at the ABC today.
That Alpena team, previously known as the IceDiggers, will become the new IceRays.
As is made obvious by that press release and the webite for the Corpus NAHL franchise, the only people truly losing here are the IceRays' players, as the IceRays staff will be staying on, and fans can obviously stick around, too, if they want.
Coach Ruskowski's first response when I asked him about this move was to note that this leaves players out of jobs - at the moment anyway - which is never a good or fair thing to do, in his opinion.
Ruskowski joked that he had been upset to hear the IceRays may fold before they were purchased by the Lange family only to have them beat up on his team during the 2009-10 season, so his emotions about losing the team are mixed.
On a more serious note, he said that this is not something you want to see and that losing the rivalry and being forced to travel more are both bad things for his team.
You can read more of what Ruskowski had to say in my story in tomorrow's paper or check back here tomorrow for some quotes.
As far as teams joining the CHL, Justin Cohn has more up on his blog.
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3 comments:
Joy: Alpena is located in Michigan, not South Dakota. Geography lesson.
Well.. there is an Alpena in South Dakota. Just not the right one. Sorry about that.
haha
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