Game over? Valley Junior A hockey team could be heading to Pennsylvania

PALMER — It has been “Mystery, Alaska,” but now the Alaska Avalanche appear to be headed to the hometown of “Slap Shot.”

Mark Lee, owner of the Palmer-based North American Hockey League team, confirmed Tuesday afternoon that discussions are in place to relocate the Tier II Junior A hockey franchise to Johnstown, Pa.

“Nothing is inked, but it’s certainly promising,” said Lee, a local realtor who has been involved with the Avalanche franchise during the team’s seven-year stay in the Valley. “We have requested a relocation and sale of the team.”

Lee said the NAHL Board of Governors will vote on the requested move and relocation on Monday.

After calling the city of Wasilla’s Curtis C. Menard II Memorial Ice Arena home for five years, the Avs have spent the least two seasons at the MTA Events Center in Palmer. Since the arrival of the Avalanche, the building, formerly known as the Palmer Ice Arena, has been the focus of a series of upgrades. Despite the improvements, the Avs were left with modest facilities compared to their NAHL rivals. The team’s locker room stands outside the main building of the arena. This created sort of a running joke within the franchise, with the comparison to “Mystery, Alaska,” a popular hockey movie about a team in a fictional small town in Alaska.

But after two years worth of declining attendance numbers, Lee announced his intent to sell the franchise in February. With his announcement, Lee said it was his goal to keep the team in the Valley. There were discussions to make the franchise a local nonprofit and a nonprofit board was created, but the overall attempt was unsuccessful.

“It breaks my heart to have to move the team. But in two playoff games, we barely had over 300 people for both games,” Lee said. “It’s a shame that the Palmer-Wasilla area could not support this team, but clearly they did not. It left me with no choice.”

The Avalanche hosted the final two playoff games of a best-of-5 first-round series with the Wenatchee Wild last week. The Avalanche drew a reported total of 373 fans on April 13, according to the league’s website. The attendance dropped to 173 for the final game of the series, which Alaska lost 2-1 in overtime.

If the sale and move is approved by the NAHL, the relocated franchise could call the Cambria County War Memorial Arena in Johnstown home. The 4,000-seat facility was the home to a professional hockey team, the Johnstown Chiefs of the East Coast Hockey League, before the Chiefs moved to Greenville, S.C. The famous hockey movie “Slap Shot,” was also filmed at War Memorial Arena.

Lee said it’s still in the application process. If the deal is confirmed, he would become a minor partner within the new ownership group.

The first hurdle, Lee said, was to seek approval from the NAHL to keep the team active. Earlier this season, the league granted the Avalanche the option of declaring dormancy for a season. That would hold the franchise’s place within the Tier II league, but dormant teams cannot keep players on a roster. League rules state that all junior eligible players on dormant or unconfirmed teams become free agents 48 hours after the team’s final regular season or playoff game.

Alaska’s final game was the overtime loss to Wenatchee.

The team’s junior eligible players could have been declared free agents Monday night, but the league granted an extension, which keeps the athletes eligible to play junior hockey next year on the franchise’s roster.

Lee said he told the Avalanche players on Monday that the team could be moving to Pennsylvania and sent emails to parents of the players to inform them of the potential sale and move.

The franchise enjoyed its best season on the ice in 2011-12. The Avalanche set franchise records for wins (35) and points in the standings (76). The Avs also came within reach of winning its first playoff series since moving to the Valley. Alaska head coach Corey Millen said he’s proud of his team’s accomplishments.

“We had to overcome a lot. There were a lot of different obstacles,” Millen said Thursday. “It’s a testament to the boys. They did a great job.”

The Avs faced a difficult schedule. A dozen of their 33 home games at the MTA Events Center were scheduled on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday night. The team battled through brutal stretches, including eight games during a 13-day span in October. The Avs closed the regular season with seven games in 10 days.

Alaska also had long breaks in the schedule. There was a 20-day break in December and a 26-day layoff in February.

The Avalanche drew an average of 387 per home game, according the league’s website, second lowest among the 28 teams in the NAHL. Kalamazoo averaged a league-low 234 fans per game. The league average was 1,342 fans per game.

Of the 33 home dates, the attendance was greater than 500 fans four times, but less than 200 per game six times.

Millen said the future of the coaching staff is uncertain.

“Management change, ownership change, anytime you do that there’s usually a lot of other change that comes along with it,” Millen said. “It’s the nature of the best usually.”

Millen and assistant coach Josh Petrich both finished their first seasons with the team. Both were hired in May 2011, just prior to the team’s first offseason camp last year.

If the deal is approved the 18 junior-eligible players on the Alaska roster will be transferred with the sale. That group includes Anchorage native Gage Christianson, who set a franchise record with 53 points. Christianson finished 25th in the league in scoring. Rookie forwards Evan Janssen (23-25-48) and Mitch Kontny (18-21-39) are eligible to return, in addition to both goaltenders — Nick Kulmanovsky and Bodhi Engum.

The Avs had only five players in their final season of junior hockey.

Millen said an unfortunate part of the potential move is missing the chance for the existing Valley team to see the returners build on recent success.

“It would have been nice to keep these 18 guys and add to them,” Millen said. “Right away, they’ve got a nice group of guys. One of the attractive parts about buying the franchise is the 18 parts that come with it.”

The franchise was sold and relocated from Springfield, Mo., to the Valley in 2005 and the team was called the Wasilla Spirit for a season before it was renamed the Alaska Avalanche in 2006.

The franchise was originally placed in St. Louis, Mo., and dubbed the St. Louis Sting. The Sting left for Springfield in 2001 and renamed the Spirit.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com and follow him at twitter.com/matsu_sports.