June 3, 2009:
Syracuse (WSYR-TV) - With plans for an historic outdoor hockey game dead, the Crunch is already working on its next big event – and it wouldn't need any approvals of any lawmakers.
By a wide margin, the county legislature Tuesday voted down spending $350,000 for the outdoor game at Alliance Bank Stadium, as the Crunch had asked, and instead approved putting up $75,000.
The Crunch has now abandoned the original plan and now want to set an indoor attendance record at an arena known for record crowds.
Just in case anyone was holding out any sliver of hope for an outdoor game, Crunch owner Howard Dolgon put that to rest Wednesday.
Dolgon told NewsChannel 9 that the outdoor game is "not happening, and the 19 bozos assured that wouldn't happen."
Onondaga County Legislator Pat Kilmartin says, "I think it was a good faith effort, it was supported by the overwhelming majority of the legislature and I think everybody here thought there was too much risk involved putting forward $350,000."
Dolgon is already moving on; instead of a basketball court, he sees an ice rink in the Carrier Dome, and all the seats that are usually filled with basketball fans, he plans on having them filled with hockey fans to set an attendance record for the game.
"That'd be a nice feather in our cap for our city and the university and our team -- and it'd be more than just a game, it'd be a celebration of hockey in New York State, we'd put all the bells and whistles into it, and … the good part is we don't need legislative approval for it,” Dolgon says.
It wasn't quite hockey, but the Dome has hosted skating shows before, and SU seems very interested in hosting its first-ever hockey games.
"We certainly want to do everything we can to promote and encourage hockey in the region, but more specifically for our women's hockey program [which] in its first year had a great inaugural season,” says SU associate athletic director Scott Sidwell. “If we had the opportunity to play a women's ice hockey game in the Dome combined with a Crunch game, that's something we'd like to do."
Dolgon and SU will meet Thursday morning to start working out the many details associated with the games. Dolgon wants to find a date that works for both the team and the Dome, this season, while school is in session.
June 2, 2009:
Outdoor Crunch game all but dead after county rejects plan
Syracuse (WSYR-TV) – The Onondaga County Legislature has voted down a measure that would have spent $350,000 in county room occupancy tax money to help pay for an outdoor Crunch game at Alliance Bank Stadium.
Legislators did approve a measure that would spend $75,000 on the game. The money would be reimbursed through parking and concession revenues at the game.
Crunch owner Howard Dolgon says he is “disappointed, but not at all surprised” by the move, and says the offer of $75,000 in funding isn’t enough to make the game at ABS a reality.
The Crunch say they have a meeting scheduled with Syracuse University Wednesday morning to talk about holding a game at the Carrier Dome.
Up until the end of last week, the bill that would have allowed the county to put $350,000 toward the game was off the agenda. The argument against it was that the county couldn’t afford to spend all that money on a one-time event.
Statement from Crunch president Howard Dolgon
“Once again we were disappointed but not at all surprised by the short-sighted and narrow minded thinking of the individuals in decision making power within the community where our hockey team plays.
Instead of embracing a rare opportunity to showcase the terrific attributes of our community at a benefit to the businesses and people that reside here, decisions are continually made with little or no vision considered.
We respectfully thank the legislators who supported the original proposal as well as the County Executive, her staff and the Syracuse Chiefs organization, who like us believed that an event of this magnitude would have positively exposed our community regionally as well as nationally and certainly would have created long term measurable benefits to Syracuse.
Instead we are asked to accept an unacceptable deal to which we respond – deal us out.”
