For the Columbus River Dragons, coronavirus means more than a canceled season
Most of the third period of the Columbus-Carolina FPHL hockey game remained, with the visiting River Dragons trailing by five goals. It was March 8, and the River Dragons had already locked up a playoff spot in their inaugural season.
River Dragons head coach Jerome “Boom Boom” Bechard and Thunderbirds coach Andre Niec started yelling back and forth. Bechard stood atop the wall and yelled across the home team’s bench.
Eventually players got involved and began brawling all over the ice. One River Dragons player emerged from the penalty box and ran into a Thunderbirds player. Niec ended up in the River Dragons bench.
“It’s a melee!” one play-by-play announcer exclaimed.
One week later, the season was canceled.
The new coronavirus outbreak stopped the sports world in its tracks last week. Headlines announcing the cancellation of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, every NCAA spring sport and the postponement of many professional leagues dominated the news.
But smaller teams in smaller leagues, where ticket revenue plays a much larger role, felt the force of the virus, too. The FPHL’s teams, including the River Dragons, were no exception.
The FPHL played 232 games of its 286-game season before suspending play indefinitely on March 12 and canceling the season outright on Monday.
“It’d be like if I had a firetruck and I showed up to a neighborhood on fire,” River Dragons president and general manager Scott Brand said Wednesday. “Like, where do you start?”
Taking care of the players
Many of the initial concerns Brand and the team’s front office faced when the season was canceled regarded the players and where they would be housed.
Brand said the team advised its Canadian players to return to return home as soon as possible. But Columbus’ European players cannot return home.
The team is providing food and housing for those who cannot return to their home country, Brand said.
“Our organization was going to take care of the players as long as this thing lasted,” Brand said.
The financial hit
The River Dragons had six home games, one-quarter of their home schedule, canceled when the league suspended operations.
Attendance at the Civic Center was trending upwards. Brand anticipated crowds of 4,000 or more for at least two of the team’s remaining home games, four of which were against Carolina, which already appears to be a blossoming rivalry.
Brand said if the River Dragons averaged an attendance of 3,800 over the final six games, they would have reached an overall attendance of 100,000 this season. The River Dragons averaged more than 3,000 in attendance each game.
Take an average of 3,800 over the next six games and multiply it by, say, $12 per ticket (single game tickets go for anywhere between $25 and $8), and that’s $273,600 in ticket revenue gone.
Brand said the only time he’s experienced something similar was 9/11, while he was with USA Hockey’s Officiating Development Program and the USHL.
But that only shut things down for three days.
“I think with the economic effect on it, you know, we’re all concerned,” Brand said. “And we want to make sure that we’re able to come out of this strong.”
Moving forward
Now that the player situation is situated, the team can focus on single-game ticket refunds (fans should be refunded through Ticketmaster) and honoring season-ticket holders.
The team will offer refunds, but would like to offer more enhanced options, so fans can get some kind of added value out of the situation, too. Those details will be released at a later date.
“We need to properly say ‘thank you,’ ” Brand said.
“Twelve or 15” season ticket holders have reached out to the team and told it to “keep the money and give it to the players,” Brand said.
“Yeah, we’re going to take a loss,” Brand said. “But with our ownership, with Jeff Croop and what this team means to him, and the community, we’re already chomping at the bit to start figuring out, OK, we’ve got 30 games next year, what can we do better?”
