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Game Day
SMALL BUSINESS OF THE YEAR
As a small business that looks like a big one, the Beast of New Haven jumps through hoops to make it look just right
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Business New Haven
1/25/1999
By: Michael C. Bingham
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GGame day here at the world headquarters of the Beast of New Haven American Hockey League club begins, as it always does, with a 9 a.m. staff meeting. Eight earnest, well-scrubbed young faces convene around a conference-room table to review general business matters as well as go over who needs to do what to make tonight's 7:05 faceoff against the Adirondack Red Wings a reality.
Actually, that's not quite right. Making the faceoff a reality is easy: The referee simply drops the puck at center-ice. But creating the show that 3,106 will pay $12 or $14 to see that night is a more elaborate undertaking than meets the eye.
The staff frets over everything that could go wrong: Will the kid trumpeter scheduled to play “The Star Spangled Banner” hit the high notes? If not, a tape-recorded version must be readied. The U.S. Army color guard can be counted on to be prompt, but marketing manager Jeff Dorfman needs to make sure they're ready to go on the ice precisely at 7:01 p.m. The first intermission will feature a “game” with kids from Greater New Haven Youth Hockey - will the little ones be dressed, ready and on the ice in time? They've only got six minutes on ice, to the second.
Another thing to fret about: During the second intermission the plan is to bring an Army Humvee onto the ice for the “U.S. Army Be All You Can Be Humvee Pull,” in which two groups of fans vie to see who can pull the vehicle from the goal line to the blue line fastest. But will the Humvee fit through the tunnel onto the ice? No one seems to know. Also during the second intermission one of the Beast interns can't forget to walk across the street to find the “Branford Car Wash Dirtiest Car in the Lot.” The holder of that dubious distinction will win a free car wash. It's an important promotion, and God knows, the promotions are every bit as important as the game itself. Maybe more.
The meeting turns to other matters. Manager of corporate sales and promotions Justin Moscardelli, who during games also runs the controls for the Veterans Memorial Coliseum audio and video equipment (on the Beast staff of eight, everyone has multiple and often unrelated responsibilities) has been discussing a “great opportunity” with a dairy company for a “Got Milk? Get Tickets” discount coupon promotion for Beast tickets. Someone asks: Do you have to cut up the carton itself to use the coupon? Because milk cartons are, you know, yucky? Maybe the coupon could be printed on the back of the store receipt instead. They're doing this in Hartford and Worcester, chimes in team president and general manager Dave Gregory, so just figure out how to get it done.
10:10 a.m. - Gregory and Dorfman rush out for a 10:30 meeting in Bridgeport with the sports editor of the Connecticut Post. Their agenda: Last year the Post sent a freelance writer to Beast home games to file game stories for the next morning's paper. This season brought a new sports editor, and a new policy - no coverage, save for a two-line game summary from the wire services giving the score and perhaps the name of the player who scored the game-winning goal. Gregory and Dorfman hope to persuade the editor to cover Beast games anew.
11:45 a.m. - The pair return, having achieved little beyond spending an hour in I-95 traffic. “Look at this,” says Dorfman, leafing through the Post sports page. “It only January, and they already have a big story on the Bluefish. We don't get anything.” Inasmuch as the Post's promotions department already promotes the paper at Beast games in barter for ad space, Gregory and Dorfman don't understand the big freeze from the sports department. Obviously, Gregory allows, “We have some developmental work to do.”
Noon - Gregory leads a visitor through the bowels of the aging Coliseum. In the clubhouse home uniforms, skates, pads, socks and accessories hang neatly in a row in preparation for tonight's game. In an adjacent alcove players Byron Ritchie and Ryan Johnson catch Michael Jordan's farewell press conference on the television. They're in the minority: After practice ended at 11:30, most of the players scatter to their respective game-day rituals, which likely include meals, naps and other activities at precise times. A superstitious lot, athletes.
12:30 p.m. - As part of his own game-day ritual, Gregory sticks his head into the coaches' office to see if head coach Kevin McCarthy and “associate” coach Joe Paterson need anything. “Michael Jordan's agent just called to ask for a tryout,” says Paterson, who likewise is following the Jordan drama on television. McCarthy, meanwhile, is leafing through a pile of airline tickets for tomorrow's flight west for games in Cincinnati and Kentucky - one of just two airborne road trips the team will make during the season (the other is to the Canadian Maritime provinces). Tonight's will be the last game at the Coliseum until January 30. Gregory and McCarthy review practice sites on the trip, how many players will travel and who will room with whom.
12:45 p.m. - Gregory returns to his office to check phone messages and return calls. In between he talks about the competing demands for his attention from his job as general manager of a professional hockey team vs. his role as president and investor of a small business trying to make a go of something where others (the short-lived New Haven AHL affiliate of the Ottawa Senators, before that the Nighthawks and, going way back, the New Haven Blades) have failed.
Gregory estimates that he spends maybe 15 percent of his time dealing with on-ice matters. But it can be a frustrating 15 percent: GM Gregory can only react to player moves made by the two parent clubs, which are in essence the Beast's principal “customers,” the Carolina Hurricanes (nee Hartford Whalers) and Florida Panthers. When they call a Beast player up to the NHL, that leaves a roster hole that must be filled, so Gregory and his coaches must plumb the next-lowest professional hockey league, the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) for a stopgap. Conversely, when Carolina or Florida demote a player to New Haven, it's often to get him more ice time. That's means an existing player may find himself on the bench - or shipped out.
Because their responsibility to their NHL customers is player development, Gregory & Co. can only react, and try to make do with ever-shifting personnel.
But as president of the club, Gregory knows, too, that ever-shifting personnel make it harder to win games - and that directly affects his other clientele, fickle ticket-buyers who want to see a winner, but stay away in droves when the club is losing.
1 p.m. - With a 15-minute window in which to grab lunch, Gregory aims his Honda Accord toward Breugger's Bagels. A Toronto native, Gregory grew up around professional hockey. His father, Jim Gregory, was general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs and is now an executive with the NHL. The younger Gregory played hockey right through college at Elmira, but a career in hockey was anything but a foregone conclusion. “I didn't want to just be known as Jim Gregory's kid,” he explains.
Instead, he enrolled in an M.B.A. program at the University of Buffalo and then ended up back in Toronto at Citibank, where over seven years he worked in marketing, lending and product development, rising to the vice-president level. “I wanted to get the business and finance experience” that he knew would come in handy when he went out on his own.
Ironically, it was the Citibank connection that set him on the path back to the family business. Gregory had a client who had a friend who was trying to land an AHL franchise for Syracuse, N.Y. Gregory signed on as a consultant to that effort in 1994. In May of the following year the deal was struck, and the ownership group turned to Gregory to run the team as vice president and general manager.
The career switch “was such a refreshing change” from banking, Gregory recalls, and his energy and enthusiasm paid quick dividends: The expansion Syracuse Crunch sold out 19 home dates that first season in an aging building, finishing in the top five in the league in attendance.
It was also in Syracuse that Gregory first hooked up with some key people he would later bring with him to New Haven - Amy Hannah, who would become assistant GM of the Beast, and Dorfman.
Gregory had known that, leaving banking for hockey, “The opportunity to stabilize my career was in ownership.” He had actually known it all along: As a boy, Gregory and two of his friends, Blair McArthur and Larry Repar, had fantasized about owning their own team. Both McArthur and Repar had done exceptionally well in business, and Gregory had himself squirreled away a nest egg. His experience in Syracuse having convinced Gregory that he could succeed on the playing field of the AHL, “I called them [McArthur and Repar] up and I said, 'Were we serious [about owning a team], or just kidding around?'”
They were serious, and in 1996 the trio began the laborious process of applying to the AHL for an expansion franchise. They figured they could come up with the $2.5 million it would take to capitalize the venture adequately, but the most pressing question was: Where?
“We did a lot of research on potential cities,” Gregory recalls, “and we graded them according to population, location, hockey history, facility - everything we could think of. On our first list, we had four 'A' locations and four 'B' locations. New Haven wasn't on either list.
“But then I got a call from Dave Andrews [president of the West Springfield, Mass.-based AHL], who said there was a new [political] administration in New Haven, and they had indicated they would be supportive” of a franchise bid.
Gregory's initial point of entry to New Haven was through Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce President Matthew Nemerson. Nemerson waxed enthusiastic about the city's great location, its rich hockey history, the region's favorable demographics. True, the aging Veterans Memorial Coliseum was a far-from-ideal facility. But Nemerson and city officials convinced Gregory that “The commitment to change was there.” Eighteen months later, the Beast were born.
2 p.m. - Two Marine sergeants in full dress uniform arrive for a meeting with Gregory and Gregg DeVitto, the team's special-events manager who doubles as radio play-by-play man on radio station WAVZ. The purpose is to review the team's participation in the Marines' annual “Toys for Tots” drive, which in 1998 collected some 40,000 toys regionwide for needy children. The team was an enthusiastic and effective participant in collecting toys, and the two servicemen are most grateful. The four spend 20 minutes discussing how they can do even better in 1999.
Tons of organizations - from professional sports teams to media outlets - love to don the white hats of good corporate citizenship by associating their name with charity work. But the Beast management walks the walk as few others do. From Day One in New Haven Gregory has been adamant that “We have to leverage that high visibility that professional sports has to accomplish things that make the community a better place for all of us.” Sometimes that's almost to the point of distraction: “You guys sure seem to wear a lot of hats here,” observes one of the Marines.
2:20 p.m. - Gregory stops into Dorfman's office to listen in on a conference-call press conference to promote the AHL All-Star Game.
2:30 p.m. - Gregory takes the brisk stroll around the corner to the Union Avenue police station for another dose of good deeds. The meeting with Sgt. Patrick Redding is to discuss the Beast's promotion of the New Haven Police Athletic League. The team donates tickets to participating kids, gives out trading cards, runs hockey clinics, makes players available. The team is also helping Redding put together a hockey tournament for police and fire departments from throughout New England, and Gregory advises the sergeant on logistics.
2:50 p.m. - The meeting with Redding moves to the office of Assistant Chief Douglas MacDonald, who spends 20 minutes regaling his visitors about the virtues of the PAL, and the critical role partners such as the Beast play in helping to give city kids something worthwhile to do during their formative years.
3:20 p.m. - Back at the Beast office, Beast ticket sales executive Gary Wetmore explains a special night he is organizing for the LeGrand family of Wallingford, who lost their one-year-old daughter Molly to leukemia in October and are left with a grim legacy of uninsured medical bills “well into six figures,” Wetmore says. So for the February 21 game against Springfield, the club will donate $3 from every ticket to the family. Wetmore first got to know the child's father, Joe LeGrand, when both were season ticket-holders at Nighthawks games.
Like his colleagues, Wetmore works hours only 20-somethings would or could put up with - in the office at 9 a.m. on game day, they won't go home until 11 or so that night. Even on Sundays, the staff is in at 10 a.m. for a 5 p.m. faceoff. “After a while, you kind of don't notice any more,” says Wetmore of the schedule.
Gregory likes to remind himself that an enterprise such as the Beast is “a small business that looks like a big business” because of the visibility that professional sports attracts. His annual budget is just over $2 million. The Beast office staff is just eight or nine, but that number swells to 20 or so one game days, what with ticket people, P.A. announcers, video camera crew, even Buddy, the Beast mascot.
Gregory explains that salaries comprise only about ten percent of his expenses; the bulk of the budget is actual hockey-related expenses, from travel to medical supplies to workers comp to per-diem money for the players and staff. Then there is the hefty chunk the team pays to Carolina and Florida, which provide the players and coaches. That's half the budget right there. Another 20 percent is spent on advertising, everything from radio to newspapers to billboards adorned with the club's ferocious gargoyle mascot.
Then there is the team's deal with the Coliseum. The club and building share revenues from concessions, parking and advertising. The team pays rent based on attendance. The Coliseum has its own staff of ushers and maintenance crew, many of which are union employees. No 16-hour days for them.
4:20 p.m. - Amy Hannah comes into Gregory's office, calendar in hand, to start planning the schedule for the 1999-2000 season. League play begins October 1, and the team can ask the league for preferred dates in each month.
It's not as easy as it sounds - the pair take into account Parents Weekend at Yale (not a good time for a home game), Columbus Day, Halloween, the World Series. Gregory would like to back end-load all the home dates he can, recalling how attendance soared toward the end of the 1997-98 season. But the league insists on a minimum of 16 home dates before December 31, so Gregory and Hannah pore over the calendar and fret.
4:38 p.m. - Gregory fields a call from AHL president Andrews to discuss where the club is in its talks with Carolina about a new affiliation agreement. The original two-year pacts expire at the end of this season, and the Florida Panthers have already announced that their AHL club next year will be in Louisville, Ky. So for the Beast, it's either cut a new deal with Carolina, or start over from scratch with another NHL club.
5:10 p.m. - Gregory meets with Tom Regan, the team's attorney, ostensibly to discuss the aforementioned affiliation negotiations. But the pair end up talking about their families and their kids. Gregory has three sons; Regan's wife is expecting their second child by the end of the month. Gregory mentions a call he received from the GM of the Kentucky Thoroughblades, who's negotiating a new lease agreement for their Lexington arena. He wants to see a copy of the Beast's lease with the Coliseum, and Regan assures him it's a public document.
5:30 p.m. - Gregory walks down to the press room to greet the media and the half-dozen or so scouts who will populate the press box for tonight's game. The coldcut-and-pasta salad spread doesn't last long; the media as an army does indeed travel on its stomach.
5:40 p.m. - Gregory sticks his head in the coaches' office to make sure everything's okay for tonight. In the hallway he runs into Dave Spannus, an old buddy from Elmira College who is one of the linesmen for tonight's game.
6 p.m. - The doors to the Coliseum are opened for the 7:05 start. For the next four hours Gregory and his staff will be on their feet. Gregory greets fans as they trickle in, sharing a word or two with season ticket-holders, handing out Beast stickers to the kids. “The feedback we get” from fans during these pre-game chitchats, Gregory says, “both positive and negative, is invaluable to us.”
Throughout the evening staff members roam the building, walkie-talkies in hand, troubleshooting whatever problems or concerns may arise. There's not much time to watch the product on the ice but, as Gregory explains, “We want to have the highest level of customer service possible,” and he means it.
6:30 p.m. - By day, former Dartmouth football player Moscardelli manages corporate sales and promotions. By night, he is in charge of “game presentation” - the videos, P.A. announcements, the deejay, the in-the-stands promotions guy. Linked by headset with staff throughout the building, Moscardelli has a bewildering array of sights and sounds in his arsenal - as he should, since every stoppage of play brings an announcement, or ear-shattering song fragment, or sponsor promotions such as the “DiGiorno Pizza Loudest Fan Giveaway,” the “Citizens Bank Seat Upgrade,” the “Star Auto Trivia Contest.”
The 24-year-old Moscardelli, who began his Beast career only in August, shows off the graphic images he has created for display on the above-ice video screen. How did he learn the trade? “Like a lot of things around here,” he says, “you just learn by doing.”
6:54 p.m. - In the tunnel leading to the ice, Dorfman moves Buddy the Beast, the Army color guard and young trumpeter Blake Nebal out of the way so the team can take the ice for a warm-up skate to the din of Bush's “Machine Head.” Then he rolls out a patch of carpet for the soldiers and Nebal to stand on (ice is slippery, remember) during the playing of the National Anthem. Despite the worries from this morning's staff meeting, Nebal hits every note.
7:05 p.m. - Oh, yes - there's a hockey game tonight. Not much of a crowd, though: Tonight's attendance will barely top 3,000 - not terrible for a weeknight game, but well below the 4,500 Gregory hopes to average for the season. The snow beginning to fall outside of the Coliseum isn't much help, either.
7:13 p.m. - On the ice, things aren't going quite so smoothly, as Beast goalie Todd MacDonald surrenders an early goal for a 1-0 Red Wings lead.
Surveying the Coliseum crowd, it's hard to get a handle on what kind of people, exactly, go to Beast games. Gregory says that 44 percent of ticket buyers are female, and there do seem to be plenty of couples in the crowd. Gregory points to one arm-in-arm couple with almost parental pride, noting that “They met here on Opening Night.” There are few African-American faces evident; Gregory knows he sells more tickets in places like Hamden, North Haven and Branford than he does in the inner city. But that's the nature of the game.
8 p.m. - A wheelchair-bound female patron comes up Gregory with a problem: She's lost her husband, who she says she last saw heading down toward the press area for a cat nap. Gregory dispatches staffer Liz Sylvia to try to find him.
8:02 p.m. - Now in the second period, the Beast knot up the score on a goal by center Tom Buckley, his fourth of the season. That provokes a reaction from the heretofore quiet crowd, but nothing like the reaction to...
8:06 p.m. - A major set-to erupts between Beast defenseman John Jakopin and the Red Wings' Doug Houda, resulting in trips to the penalty box for both. The funny thing is, Jakopin is one of the team's most upstanding citizens: Last season he earned the AHL's Yanick Dupre Man of the Year honor for his off-ice work for such good causes as Hockey Haven and Reading Is Fun. The officials are apparently unaware of Jakopin's warm-and-fuzzy side, however, and sit him down for a five-minute fighting major.
8:21 p.m. - The Beast take a 2-1 lead on a power-play tally by winger Scott Levins. The team will be an efficient three-of-six tonight with the man advantage.
8:31 p.m. - During the second intermission, the Army Humvee is wheeled onto the ice and two groups of fans compete to see who can pull it the farthest the fastest. In doing so they rediscover that eternal truth, that ice is very slippery.
8:51 p.m. - During the third period Gregory and a guest observe the game from the home penalty box (“You get a whole different sense of the speed of the game from down here,” he says.)
9:01 p.m. - The pair are joined in the box for two minutes by center Pat Mikesch, who is sent off the ice by officials to contemplate the error of his (roughing) ways.
9:06 p.m. - Beast blue-liner Chris Allen makes it 3-1 on his fourth goal of the season.
9:12 p.m. - Beast defenseman Jaroslav Spacek makes it 4-1 with a goal at 11:13 of the third period. The crowd begins to relax a bit.
9:15 p.m. - Not so fast. Red Wings winger Martin Laitre finds the net at 13:07 of the third period to make it 4-2. “We're still in a game here,” Gregory observes.
9:21 p.m. - With just over three minutes left in the game, the pushcart vendors begin to head for the exits. While the Red Wings look for opportunities to pull their goalie, the last opportunities for pretzels and hot dogs dry up for the night.
9:27 p.m. - The final horn sounds, ending the contest at 4-2 in favor of the home team. “That wasn't a great start, but we'll take the result,” says Amy Hannah in summation.
The game may be over, but the night is far from done for Gregory and his staff. He'll see the crowd out, visit with the coaches, make last-minute preparations for the team's road trip, plan his own trip home to Toronto tomorrow, tally the evening's receipts, make sure the building is battened down for the evening. By the time Gregory arrives home in Branford, his boys will have been asleep for hours and hours.
But he doesn't really mind. He's still only 38, and knows he has miles to go before he gets to where he wants to be. For now, he figures he'll enjoy the ride.
“There are 27 NHL teams and 19 in our league,” says Gregory. “So I figure I've got one of the 46 best jobs in hockey.”
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