South Carolina Stingrays at 25: Secrets of the ECHL’s longest-running brand

Photo credit: South Carolina Stingrays

 

The South Carolina Stingrays have long zapped the platitude of a “non-traditional hockey market.” But beyond that, they have outlasted all of the other ECHL mainstays, including those in Northern markets. Their unique formula lies largely in catering to a champion community for natives, tourists and transplants.

The blurb in the visitor’s guide at a North Charleston hotel room started with the obligatory, albeit cliché, Q-A combination.

“Hockey in the South? You bet.”

The rest of the text used its limited space for a fundamental explanation of who the South Carolina Stingrays were. Most guests might have overlooked it, but exceptions did not even need it.

The date was Tuesday, March 18, 2003. Two tourists were heading south for spring break, and North Charleston was their last overnight stop. As it happened, the Stingrays game would the crux of their evening in town.

That had been their plan coming in. These out-of-towners were heading to Florida, but first went out of their way to see how Low Country did hockey. They had looked for it, which was strange considering the organization’s most influential figures had admittedly not when they came.

Yet by this time, the Stingrays were celebrating their 10th season as an ECHL franchise. They were looking like a refreshing mark of stability in the ever-volatile minor-league hockey landscape.

Of course, the average sightseer could have been forgiven for not having the slightest idea. Most people passing through the city on their own brief getaway who decided to check out that night’s action would have been startled.

“It’s a football region,” admits Rob Concannon, who last played in 2003 and has been the team president since 2010. “But it seems like the interest in hockey picks up in December.”

“As the season goes on,” he continued in his recent interview with Pucks and Recreation, “more people come out.”

Even with the 2003 playoffs looming, there were stark challenges selling tickets to this particular game. Perhaps topping that list was that it was on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Debates swirled in every circle of the sports world over whether continued competition was appropriate back home. But like everyone else, the ECHL heeded the government’s encouragement and carried on, officially stating its intent the next day.

No official attendance record is readily available, but enough would-be attendees were convinced to come out. The crowd easily eclipsed 3,000 in the 10,000-seat North Charleston Coliseum for the Stingrays-Peoria Rivermen matchup.

The visitors surmounted a 3-0 deficit, making good on a mid-game goalie change to seize a 4-3 shootout victory. But the Stingrays’ early assertiveness on the scoreboard invigorated the audience. So did the scraps, one of which reportedly clocked in at two minutes and 10 seconds. That’s 10 seconds longer than a minor power play with no stoppages.

The cheering for the home squad’s regulation goals, shootout strikes and interspersed fights left one’s ears momentarily ringing back in the hotel.

That was none too shabby for a mid-level minor-league hockey game. All the more impressive for a weeknight when surely not everyone was on spring break.

Still more outstanding for a nonconference matchup with a team from western Illinois. Peoria could hardly expect to draw the same animosity or anticipation as Augusta, Columbia or Greenville that year.

And yes, not bad for a “non-traditional hockey market.” But really, given the other factors, it was not bad for any speck on the map.

Fast-forward 15 years. The ECHL is twice as old now as it was then, and only five of its teams from 2002-03 have stuck.

For their part, the Stingrays have cemented an unprecedented distinction. They just finished the formalities of playing 25 consecutive seasons under the league’s banner, all with the same moniker.

Wheeling has fielded the same franchise for 27 years, but it has assumed two identities as the Thunderbirds and Nailers. Meanwhile, Toledo’s team has logged a quarter-century of ECHL play, but that run was disrupted by a two-year dormancy. The Toledo Storm dissipated after 16 seasons in 2007, resurfacing as the Walleye in 2009.

A handful of other brands currently in the league have a longer uninterrupted tenure than the Stingrays. But the Fort Wayne Komets, Kalamazoo Wings, Tulsa Oilers and Wichita Thunder sought ECHL auspices when other Double-A leagues caved in.

South Carolina stands alone as an ECHL original that liked what it was doing from the start. North Charleston is one of the few bona fide coastal markets in the circuit formerly known as the East Coast Hockey League. Next season, Jacksonville, Norfolk and Portland will be the only others.

But South Carolina especially represents a throwback to the league’s origins. It also typifies the ECHL’s rise to prominence above all leagues of its level.

“It’s one of those places where guys want to play,” said Concannon.

Concannon is living proof, being one of 10 men to have skated in all or part of six or more seasons in North Charleston. Six others have stuck around or returned for five. Another 15 logged four.

In either a matter-of-fact or detracting manner, some pundits assert that warmer-climate leanings have upset the NBA’s balance of power. Cleveland and Golden State aside, recent memory has seen superstars prefer Florida, Texas or Southern California. The pool of contenders and scroll of champions reads accordingly. Only six of the last 20 titles have gone to “cold-weather” cities since Michael Jordan left Chicago.

But when the ECHL was taking shape, it built its nucleus around North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. The Stingrays, who were almost the Sharks until San Jose’s NHL team stole their thunder, were the first South Carolina-based team.

As Concannon reflected, the fledgling league was indistinguishable from other Double-A unions around the continent. It was far from the definitive training ground for NHL prospects not ready for the AHL that it is today.

As such, building teams hinged far less on affiliations. The front office could sell the city of Charleston at will. That measure of autonomy compared to the American League was itself a selling point for the club’s ownership group.

Through a Stingrays spokesperson, Concannon and team office manager Julie Thoennes concurred “that there are a lot of great things about Charleston. The city is consistently voted highly as one of the top cities to visit in the US and in the world.

“There’s great golfing year-round, the local beaches, excellent food from restaurants in addition to great nightlife. For those same reasons, a lot of our players’ girlfriends and significant others enjoy staying here.”

Perhaps due to infectious hockey humility, they left out one jutting detail. Per an annual reader’s survey in Travel + Leisure, Charleston is the five-time defending champion among top U.S. cities. Last July, it was also deemed the second most-attractive town in the world.

Even today, as partners of the Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals, the Rays round out their roster with independent players. The nightlife and no need to wait to hit the links until the offseason can still hook key cogs.

It is a continuation of a marriage built on once-hidden compatibility.

Sticking out and going all-in

Hockey in the South?

At this point, around here, to elicit the “non-traditional hockey market” label is to sting a dead seahorse.

Even at their inception, though, the Stingrays were debunking the doubts. They were an instant hit at the brand-new Coliseum, and ticket sales buried some behind-the-scenes stumbles with ice chips.

Jon C. Stott’s 2006 book, Hockey Night in Dixie, devotes a substantial section to South Carolina. D.J. Church, the team’s first equipment manager, confessed to Stott he had never heard of a skate sharpener before joining the Stingrays.

Church later left the team, only to return when they needed a new athletic trainer. As he explained in the book, “I was the only one they had with any hockey experience.”

That didn’t mean no one wanted their first hockey experience. The Stingrays’ attendance means for its first two seasons were 9,151 and 8,589, respectively.

Playing their inaugural home game on a Saturday, the Stingrays drew 9,363 ticketholders. More than a few had surely already gotten a weekend sports fix through homestretch high-school football, the Gamecocks or Clemson. But they craved some shaved ice for dessert.

According to Stott, South Carolina’s second season opener also fetched a crowd north of 9,000. And Church noticed that novice spectators took a shine to the game for its reminiscence of NASCAR.

“They liked the hitting and the noise,” he told Stott.

More seasoned spectators displaced from Northern states, now living at nearby military forts, added quantity and quality to the crowds. But pure-bred Palmetto Staters, especially those who worked for the team, needed to lean on local pride. And maybe a little happenstance.

Thoennes is the lone Stingrays employee who has witnessed their entire quarter-century. She started as an administrative assistant, then wore several other lids on her rise to office manager. The team enshrined her in its hall of fame in 2011.

But if not for a timely stride across the great pond and one shot yielding a rebound, it all may never have happened.

“I never actually applied to any job with the Stingrays,” Thoennes confessed to Pucks and Rec. “My husband and I had just moved back from Germany in 1993, and I was sending out resumes, looking for a job.

“One of the jobs I had applied to was no longer available. But they forwarded my resume on to the Stingrays, who called me and said they were interested.”

The interest was mutual, and Thoennes has inevitably embodied the club-community dynamic with her daily presence at the Coliseum. Her current profile lists among her tasks, “accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll and the day-to-day responsibilities of the front office.” Moreover, “she assists the team’s coaching staff with player operations which include worker’s compensation and immigration issues.”

“Julie’s not a flashy person,” Concannon said. “She’s very loyal and very, very proud of the accomplishments of the team. I don’t think the team would be here if it wasn’t for Julie.

“She’s the one who understands the ins and outs. She’s not only helped me, but whenever we transition to another coach, assistant coach or office staff, she’s the one we go to for guidance.

“Her kids grew up going to the games, and she’s been instrumental in continuing our tradition.”

The framework and philosophy that fostered the tradition came from another unlikely source. At their inception, the Stingrays were owned by Jerry Zucker, an Israeli-born businessman and philanthropist.

By the time the team came, the Zucker family had been a Charleston-area staple for 15 years. There is now a North Charleston science-specific middle school and several local charity events in Jerry’s name.

But having moved from Zucker’s wife, Anita’s, native Florida, they were a quintessential “non-traditional” hockey ownership group. Except their exemplary presence around the city matched the sport’s principles of humility and selflessness.

When Jerry died of brain cancer in 2008, then-Stingrays president Darren Abbott fondly recalled his approach in the Charleston Post & Courier.

“First and foremost,” Abbott told the paper, “he really wanted everybody in the organization to be community-driven.”

Not every member of the organization got to know Zucker on a significant personal level. But everyone who was with the team for its 2008 playoff run attended his funeral.

Afterwards, Zucker’s widow, along with his son, Jonathan, retained majority control for another decade. They expressly sustained relationships with as many players as possible, particularly those who made the area their post-hockey home. And they savored the franchise’s third Kelly Cup championship in 2009, then four additional multi-round playoff runs.

“I think the reason we’ve had such great consistency is due to our ownership,” Thoennes said. “The Zucker family gave so much to the team for so many years.”

In mid-April of this year, the family gave the team to an enthused Northeastern migrant. With his purchase, Todd Halloran has fulfilled a longtime dream of owning a hockey club. He told the local press that he had limited his horizons to familiar territory, but made an exception for the Stingrays.

Neither party in the transaction is taking many C-cuts around an uncomfortable reality. Yearly attendance has melted, never reaching the same heights as the 10th anniversary, let alone the honeymoon or sophomore seasons. In this decade, yearly averages have been more like what a single nonconference weeknight game once drew.

Still, Halloran sees the staying power of the club’s values, along with its value to the league as a signature franchise. By all accounts, he intends to keep the South Carolina Stingrays as they are, where they are.

Concannon’s conversion

Hockey in the South?

Halloran is a Connecticut resident with other business interests in New York City and Los Angeles. But like so many Stingrays players, coaches and rooters before him, he plans on being a precocious snowbird.

Per Patrick Hoff of the Charleston Regional Business Journal, Halloran said, “what happens in a market like this (Charleston) is the team takes on a greater importance. It is a team in the truest sense of the word. The popularity, the interest, isn’t in any one player or any one star, but in the team and what it brings to the community.”

The way the Rays drew Halloran in supports Concannon’s statement, “I think we’re an oragnization that people know.”

Indeed, like those two tourists in 2003, Halloran went for the Stingrays experience head-on. Yet his epiphany from afar was one Concannon needed to test two-plus decades ago.

If he had his way as a 24-year-old, Concannon would have played in North America’s most intensive hockey market. Undrafted out of Division III Salem State, the Massachusetts native pounced on an invitiation to Toronto’s training camp in 1995.

The Maple Leafs soon sent him to their AHL affiliate in Newfoundland. St. John’s, in turn, cut him, and Charleston was his next option.

Rick Vaive was entering his third season as head coach in as many years of the Stingrays’ existence. A 15-year veteran of mostly NHL play, he had started his own career in Dixie with the WHA’s Birmingham Bulls.

But try as he did to twist Concannon’s arm over the phone, Vaive had trouble spinning the southward spiral. The geographic trajectory into uncharted ground appropriately reflected the bubble-bursting sense of demotion.

“I still wasn’t sold on it,” Concannon admits, looking back.

It would have to be something he saw before he could believe it. With that said, a pair of fellow twentysomething Massachusetts transplants convinced him to give it a look.

Twin brothers Mark and Mike Bavis had played together for the Stingrays’ in 1994-95, each catching AHL breaks in the process. Mike would retire from playing after that season, but Mark came back for more. Yes, more Double-A hockey and more life in Low Country.

And even while one was leaving, the Bavis brothers collaborated on one last assist. Their pitch to Concannon effectively enabled a move that led to his current position as Stingrays president.

“They said if I go to Charleston, I’ll love it and never go home,” Concannon recalled.

To that point, Concannon played the better part of the next five seasons for the Stingrays. During his rookie campaign, he enjoyed a 20-game call-up to the St. John’s Maple Leafs. In 1999-00, he played five more AHL tilts with the Saint John Flames, under a since-promoted Vaive.

Otherwise, he stuck in South Carolina, partaking in its first Kelly Cup in 1997, among other highlights. And after one year out of state and out of the ECHL, he found himself pining for Palmetto.

“I felt like my heart was in Charleston,” he said. And officially speaking, his home has been there for the last 20 years.

In 2001-02, he came close to setting his situation right again, playing for the intrastate rival Greenville Grrrowl. But then he reached the point where being in town year-round eclipsed his desire to play.

He would suit up for all of three games in 2002-03, all with the Stingrays, before retiring in earnest. Throughout the current decade, he has run the team’s front office.

While Concannon was away, South Carolina demonstrated its two-way street of staying power under the most horrific circumstances.

Besides encouraging one of the team’s most vital on-ice figures, Mark Bavis scored 68 points in 87 games for the Stingrays. He added 10 points over 17 games in two playoff tournaments, then retired as a Ray in 1996.

Five years later, he was on the Los Angeles Kings scouting staff when he boarded United Airlines Flight 175 with colleague Ace Bailey. They had been in Boston, and were about to fly cross-country for the start of the team’s training camp.

A month after Mark died in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, South Carolina retired his No. 12 jersey. The banner bears his name and numerals, the dates of his Stingrays tenure and an American flag. The unveiling made for an evening of mixed emotions, as that home opener was also banner night for the 2001 Kelly Cup champions.

Per a team spokesman, Bavis “made a big impact here in the organization and in the community, even though he was only in Charleston for a short amount of time. He and his brother were very popular.”

No one who comes to the Coliseum will forget that. Nor will anyone with inside knowledge forget what the Zuckers, their partners and their employees have done.

“I think it’s a pretty cool achievement that, next to Wheeling, we are the longest-tenured team at the ECHL level,” Concannon offered. “We’ve had a lot of good people here who have been able to carry on that tradition on and off the ice.”

And now the new boss in town is tackling that task to begin another quarter-century. That is what every natural-born and naturalized Charlestonian hopes, and trusts.

“It’s exciting to see that Todd Halloran has lots of energy and excitement,” Thoennes said. “We’ve done really well throughout the transition.”

So, hockey in the South? Now and for a long time to come?

With Charleston, North Charleston and the Stingrays, that looks like a safe bet.

Meet the Press: Zack Fisch savoring the ‘Sweetest’ gig in the minor leagues

(Photo courtesy of Zach Fisch)

Zack Fisch and professional hockey are not in Kansas City anymore. The last team to represent the first-year Hershey Bears broadcaster’s native locality — the United League’s Outlaws — came and went when he was a mere 14 years old in 2004-05. Their predecessors, the International League’s Blades, started before Fisch was old enough to remember anything, then marred his memory bank by evaporating when he was 10.

Fast-forward a decade-plus, and Fisch is more understanding of those setbacks, not to mention inclined to count his blessings.

“I now know how much minor-league sports are a business,” he told Pucks and Recreation, “and at times, tough business decisions have to be made. It’s an unfortunate nature of this business that teams do come and go, and with that, so do some amazing people in this industry.

“I have seen friends lose jobs because a team they worked for folded or moved. While no one is immune to change, I have been very fortunate to have worked for the teams I have worked for.”

Considering their historical stature and the enviable stability that connotes, Fisch’s two employers through two seasons of calling pro hockey make an understatement of his remark. He spent 2015-16 with the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays, who will celebrate their 25th anniversary next year. Playing at the same Double-A level as the bygone UHL, the Stingrays are the longest living brand in their league.

This past season, Fisch was elevated to the AHL’s Bears, who will round out their full decade of operation next year. Playing at the same Triple-A level as the bygone IHL, the Bears are the longest living brand in all of minor-league hockey.

“While the Blades are long gone, it’s quite humbling to think that I am working at essentially the same level in the American Hockey League,” he said. “The level of play is top-notch, and I am lucky enough to work with the most historic franchise in the league.”

Native to Olathe, Kan., a suburb just across the Missouri state border, Fisch grew up an insatiable Heartland hockey enthusiast. As such, the Blades functioned like a fun uncle or family friend from the next county over.

Fisch went to games at Kemper Arena on a regular basis and played youth hockey in the Junior Blades program. On occasion, he combined those activities by joining his team for intermission mini-games. In one instance, he was even selected as the youth representative to lead the big Blades onto the ice for the main event.

Over their final four years of operation, the Blades and their league took on a terminal outlook. After peaking at 19 member clubs in 1996-97, the IHL lost teams exponentially over the next four seasons. It was down to 11 by 2000-01, and still more franchises were lingering in vain.

As a result, in a move reminiscent of the 1979 NHL-WHA merger, the late spring of 2001 saw the IHL’s few healthy franchises transfer to the AHL. The Blades could have been among them, theoretically, based on decent attendance figures. The trouble was they were owned by the same group, Richard DeVos and his family, as the league rival Grand Rapids Griffins and Orlando Solar Bears.

Because the AHL had a one-team policy for owners, the Michigan-based DeVoses needed to make a choice. The Griffins won out, and back in Olathe, 10-year-old Fisch was forced and “devastated” to watch the local news bulletins of the Blades’ demise.

Even today, he is preserving his first favorite team’s memory by keeping a jersey in the closet at his new home. It is a gesture worth more than nostalgia because in dying, the franchise later bequeathed a boost to his career, and a few perks still to come.

“Funny enough, the Blades helped me get my job in Hershey,” Fisch said. “Current VP of hockey operations Bryan Helmer played with the Blades during their final season, and his son Cade was actually born in Kansas City. I dropped a Blades reference during my interview with Hershey, and that was enough to get Bryan’s ears to perk up.”

In his field’s fraternity, the Bears broadcaster is not alone among those who used to frequent Kemper Arena. His childhood idol, Bob Kaser, called the Blades’ first 10 seasons before moving to the Griffins in 2000. He is still with the Grand Rapids franchise, and has won a combined three broadcaster-of-the-year awards from the two leagues.

Being in separate conferences, the Bears and Griffins rarely cross paths, last doing so in 2005-06. However, Fisch has learned that Grand Rapids will be on Hershey’s docket for 2017-18, which will equal his first chance to meet Kaser.

“I am excited to get a chance to share stories about his time in Kansas City and thank him for being an influence in how I call a game all these years later,” he said. 

Giant expectations in small places

In his effort to emulate Kaser and Hall of Fame Kansas City Royals announcer Denny Matthews, Fisch covered the short-lived Outlaws for a small-town paper while still a teen. Around the same time, he started venturing an hour west to his state capital to cover the Topeka Tarantulas of the Central League. It was there that he first saw a player-assistant coach named Troy Mann, who by 2009-10 had moved up to the AHL and is now in his third year as the Bears bench boss.

“That’s how small the hockey world is,” Fisch said.

With the exception of his first job out of college with the junior-level USHL’s Dubuque Fighting Saints in Iowa, Fisch has not experienced many small subsectors of the hockey world until now. His native city of Olathe has a population easily above fix figures. The same goes for North Charleston, S.C. where the locals enjoy Stingrays games at a 14,000-seat Coliseum. Neighboring Charleston checks in at over 130,000 residents.

The community at his alma mater, St. Cloud State University, boasts more than a combined 17,000 undergraduates, postgraduates, faculty and staff. Only one-third of that conglomeration can get into the Herb Brooks National Hockey Center on a given game night.

Hershey is a far numerical cry from each of those, although Fisch says Dubuque, where he met his wife, Krista, during his three-year run, had a similar feel. As a lifelong Iowan, Krista would find Hershey to her liking for that reason.

“Dubuque isn’t a huge city, and to us, Hershey is comparable,” Zack Fisch said. “Both towns are quaint, have some picturesque sights, and are rabid for hockey. The people here have made it a very easy adjustment. I met so many people who welcomed me to the area with open arms and gave me all sorts of tips and suggestions about the town and region.”

That region revolves around the Pennsylvania capital of Harrisburg, of which Hershey is basically a suburb. Harrisburg is a relatively small city in its own right with a population south of 50,000.

According to City Data, Hershey’s population spiked by 11.6 percent during the first decade of this century, but is still at a meager 14,257. With its 10,500 seating capacity, the Giant Center — which replaced the historic Hersheypark Arena as the Bears’ new home in 2002 — can accommodate more than two-thirds of the town’s residents.

On many game nights, it appears to be doing just that. In between, the team is a reliable topic for small talk among strangers in a town so small that the locals are barely strangers. In a community where season tickets have been passed down for two generations or more, tales from as far back as the 1950s are told first-, second- and third-hand.

“I often run into fans at the supermarket or while shopping,” Fisch said. “Everyone is so cordial and loves to talk hockey.”

The habitual hockey talk from Hershey’s residents has only amplified the sense of promotion and confirmed at least one common thread with the other franchises Fisch has worked for. In his first year at Dubuque, the Fighting Saints finished first in the USHL, then followed up by winning the 2013 Clark Cup, their second in three years. Their head coach, Jim Montgomery, subsequently moved to the University of Denver.

The Saints reached the semifinals in each of Fisch’s next two years in their booth. He left at the same time as second-year coach Matt Shaw, who joined Brad Berry’s staff at the University of North Dakota.

When he got to South Carolina, the Stingrays were coming off their fourth Kelly Cup Final in franchise history, and had fallen one win shy of their fourth championship. They went to the conference final in his presence, then reached the title round again this year.

“I love getting to work for a team that expects to be successful both on and off the ice,” Fisch said. “As a broadcaster and employee, it holds me to a high standard and makes me proud to put my passion toward a team that has already written so many chapters in the history books.

“From Dubuque to South Carolina to Hershey, I’ve landed in three organizations that are immersed in the community, are regular Cup contenders and are looked at as the gold standard in their respective leagues. If that doesn’t get you excited to come to work every day, I don’t know what will.”

Frantic and fanatical first impressions

With the Stingrays and Bears acting as Washington’s two development clubs, Fisch quickly formed a friendship with Capitals radio voice John Walton, who had called Hershey games for nine years before making his leap to The Show. Through that connection, much like the players he would soon cover, Fisch got a taste of preseason NHL action on Oct. 5 of last year.

Fittingly enough, the Caps were engaging the Blues at the Sprint Center in Kansas City. The St. Louis franchise’s effort to strengthen statewide support translated to a respectable mass of 11,781 at the 17,544-seat venue.

“That moment was a pinch-me moment,” Fisch said, “and something that I’ll never forget.”

The afterglow of the midweek homecoming soon gave way to a literal and figurative tempest. Fisch returned to South Carolina for the weekend when Hurricane Matthew slugged the state. And having been promoted to the AHL in late September, he was left with little time as it was to complete his relocation ahead of the Oct. 14 season opener in Rochester, N.Y.

Walton, his predecessor, helped him in that process, and he ultimately accomplished all of the necessary preparation within his control. Lo and behold, by game night, Blue Cross Arena’s Ethernet feeder malfunctioned in the visitors’ booth. In turn, Fisch spent his debut describing a game between the Bears (the league’s oldest and most storied brand) and the Rochester Americans (the league’s second-oldest franchise at 61 years and counting) over his cell phone.

“We got on the air, but it made for a heck of a story,” he said.

The Bears shuffled to Binghamton the next night, then held their home opener Oct. 22. “From the day I set foot in the city and at the Giant Center, you could tell that Hershey was its own piece of Hockey Heaven,” Fisch said.

He had broken into the AHL through those two away games. He had a full week thereafter to focus on the home opener. He had the added tune-up from the preseason gig in his hometown. And he had heard plenty from his predecessor and mentor, Walton.

But then he settled in and actually watched 8,045 announced attendees file in put the Hershey hockey culture on full display. Referring to Walton, Fisch remarked, “I had high expectations based on his thoughts, and many others, and that night just blew them all out of the water.”

If he had any plans, even of the most deep-down nature, to take an impartial approach, those went the way of the expectations. The crowd punctuated the Star-Spangled Banner with “Go Bears!” They spelled out the team nickname New York Jets style in the wake of the first goal, bringing “an ear-to-ear grin” to Fisch’s face. And coming back from a commercial break, which only let the atmosphere sink in all the more, he was temporarily speechless.

“The Giant Center is a building like no other,” he said. “But it’s the Bears fans, many who have been coming to games their whole lives, who make this experience here so invigorating.”

Embracing with a Bear hug

Indeed, there is no place like Hershey. Not if you love chocolate, and not if you love minor-league hockey.

Fisch suspected as much on the latter while he was still in the Heartland, though he admits there is no substitute for in-person confirmation.

“I never got far enough east to see a Hershey Bears game in person, but I was very aware of the significance of the team,” he said. “I always held them, and the Fort Wayne Komets, to such a high standard as teams that had such a special history. As I started to work in hockey as I got older, I heard more and more just how special of a place Hershey was.”

To date, the Bears have won a record 11 Calder Cup championships. They have been to 23 finals, most recently last year. Despite multiple affiliation changes and the inevitable revolving door on both sides of the building, the Bears have been a relatively consistent contender.

Since 1997, they have only once gone more than five years without at least one trip to the AHL conference finals. During that stretch, they have made five Calder Cup Final appearances and won four titles. Walton called three of those championships, while his predecessor, future Tampa Bay Lightning voice Dave Mishkin, chronicled the 1997 run.

The Bears’ dominance at the gate is even more patent. They have topped the AHL’s attendance chart for 11 years running.

“Every team in hockey claims they have the best fans in the league,” Fisch said. “However, I can say with confidence that Hershey has the best fans in the AHL, hands down.”

“It’s a fan base, and most of all a community, that has love and passion for their team like no other place I’ve been. No matter how the team is playing, no matter the weather, these folks will be there night in and night out cheering on their Bears.”

Technically an unincorporated community self-titled after chocolatier Milton S. Hershey, the town makes the most out of ostensibly the least. Nearly every major establishment in its epicenter shares the name of the famed candy company. (The Bears are not the least of those examples, their name being a natural pun on the company’s signature product.)

The aptly dubbed Giant Center is one of the few spots named after a separate entity, a chain of Pennsylvania grocery stores. But given the history of its tenant, it fits in more than it stands out.

The arena’s latest Stadium Journey review assesses, “this is one arena where you can make an entire vacation out of your trip for a hockey game. You could fill an entire week by spending a day or two at the amusement park, a day at the chocolate world, a day at the spa (complete with cocoa baths) and an evening at a Bears hockey game.”

With its theme park and boardwalk among the attractions in the shopping district, Hersheypark is like a real-life Wonder Wharf from Bob’s Burgers, but with more chocolate, less off-putting people and Bears hockey in lieu of Wonderdogs baseball. Perfect for a puck-centric sportscaster and a small-town product like Zack Fisch and Krista, respectively.

“Hershey is ‘The Sweetest Place on Earth’ and it really is a fantastic place to call home,” said Fisch. “What Milton Hershey built here, all based around chocolate, is pretty impressive, and there are so many people committed to carrying on his legacy and making Hershey a destination. The people in Hershey have been so kind and welcoming, and that’s something that really stands out to me. The kindness and generosity of the people in the area is second to none.”

More than enough that he is willing to, for the first time in a long time, settle down and wait for his next elevation up the broadcasting ladder.

“Obviously, every player or broadcaster has the goal of getting to the NHL, and I'm no exception,” he said. “However, I'm not in any hurry for that to happen because of just how fantastic Hershey is. This is a place where I am looking forward to growing personally and professionally, and really making myself the person and broadcaster I want to be. I’m honored to be part of the Hershey community and a member of the Bears. Hershey is a special place.”