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.