[monochameleon]

PREMIER LEAGUE HOCKEY NEWS

- LEAGUE PRESIDENT SPEAKS: EXPANSION, TV DEAL, "FOR THE FANS"
- GAME OF THE DAY: SEATTLE AT COLORADO

Game of the Day
Seattle Nightmare 6 - 1 Colorado Eagles
Whitefall Arena, Denver (Att. 16,450)

The Colorado Eagles looked baffled and bemused as the Seattle Nightmare ran over them like a locomotive last night. Despite winning the shots on net - 36-28 - the Eagles were woefully poor and the goaltending of Matt Wagner for the Nightmare was exemplary. The same could not be said for Derek Kelly, who didn't look like he could stop a beachball out there, much less a hockey puck.

A fairly tame opening period - one goal, on the powerplay to Alexis Paquette, his fourth in five games - gave way to chaos. Thomas White scored just 30 seconds into the second to even it up, a one-timer right in front of the net set up by Gil Blanton. But then the floodgates opened: Mattias Rosell, Stan Duoba and Nick Henderson all scored for the visitors before the second intermission. In the final period, all the fight had gone out of the Eagles, and there was none of the fight and physicality that they had shown in the first. Morgan Jonsson and Matt Jobke scored in plays that looked simply inevitable: Jonsson on a breakaway that the hapless Kelly never saw whistle past his blocker, and Jobke on a set up pass from Stan Duoba behind the net.

The Nightmare's third win of the season is good enough to give them the early lead in Mountain West. The Eagles are saved only from the bottom of that same division by the even worse play of the St. Paul Cardinals.

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Tonight on Center Ice on Saturday, commentator and former player Jack Simms spoke with league president Quinn MacMurray. MacMurray was previous president of the Atlantic League and spearheaded the merger between the two leagues. Prior to that, he was a 5-season player, general manager and briefly owner of the Toronto Greenshirts, now Aces. Here are some highlights.

Simms: Do you think the merger is a success?

MacMurray: I don't know that I'd call it an unreserved success as yet - we've only just started - but I do know that from a business standpoint neither league has ever been healthier, so I think in that regard it's been quite successful.

Simms: You've brought a lot of ambitious policies with you from the Atlantic League - massive discounts for families with kids, freebies for kids like trading cards and drinks, making players available for signature sessions after games, rescheduling games for earlier times - have the Mountain League or the TV people balked at any of this?

MacMurray: When we brought in things like the trading cards and the discounts for families and the earlier start times - all that, what we were doing was trying to grow the game - and we've succeeded. In 1984/85, Atlantic League Hockey reached a peak attendance, and more importantly, the attendance of kids at our games was up something like 40%. That's an important figure. We need to get more and more kids involved with hockey - watching it, playing it, enjoying it, loving it. We will no longer be the little brother sport: the PLH and the NHL must become proper, major players in the North American sports market.

Simms: Both of them?

MacMurray: If possible.

Simms: If I can turn to the new TV deal, you've said that it's the biggest ever signed by a hockey league, but the NHL have stated that it's with a bunch of nobodies. Do you feel that by going with RKO, you've sold out when you could have held off for a major deal with one of the more established networks?

MacMurray: The deal we got for radio and TV rights was excellent, and immediate. Also, it's worth noting that since RKO was bought from Genco by Radio House Entertainment, it's really starting again from scratch. We're proud to be part - a lynchpin - of that network's line-up. The last season of Atlantic Hockey was part of that, and now Premier League Hockey will be as well.

Simms: Were there any major caveats on the deal?

MacMurray: Yes, we will be expanding the league to 22 teams by 1990.

Simms: Four teams in four years?

MacMurray: Yes. The Mountain League had planned to expand for the current season but delayed due to the merger. Next year we will welcome two new franchises - one in Atlantic West, one in Mountain East.

Simms: Where will these franchises be based?

MacMurray: One in Cleveland, the other is yet to be decided.

Simms: St. Louis?

MacMurray: We are unlikely to expand into an NHL market at this time.

Simms: Do you think the league can support 22 teams, given the 21 in the rival NHL?

MacMurray: The worldwide depth of talent is huge and the draft this year suggests that a lot of that talent wants to come and play with us. A great crop of young players are coming up through our junior affiliate leagues, and we hope to see that continue. But that's also why it's vital that we get young people to our games: everything we do, it's got to be to make sure that hockey's fanbase includes plenty of kids, who will come to the game, who will love the game, and who will pass the game on.

Simms: Director MacMurray, thanks for your time.

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