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ALSO ON SLAM!
'Hawks aim to soar at Hershey Centre
During a news conference yesterday at the Hershey Centre unveiling the Toronto ThunderHawks -- the National Professional Soccer League's newest franchise -- Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion tried her best to avoid saying the team's first name.
While she slipped once and said the word Toronto, the point was clear.
The indoor soccer team, which will begin play in October, is named Toronto instead of Mississauga because the NPSL brass want fans in the 13 other cities to be able to pinpoint the location of the new team.
But the ThunderHawks owners -- Neil Jamieson, the president of Scocan RSA Ltd. and Carolina Hurricanes defenceman Paul Coffey -- know that playing out of the 6,200-seat Mississauga arena rather than a downtown Toronto rink gives them a better chance of succeeding in the fickle Greater Toronto Area market.
"There are 70,000 registered (soccer) players within 25 miles of the Hershey Centre," Jamieson said. "If each kid comes to one game a year, we sell out all 20 games.
"The issue (of the name) boiled down to the NPSL's three- to five- year goal to establish itself as a major North American league, and in order to do that we feel we need to take the name Toronto.
"But we're proud to be in Mississauga and we're going to promote that."
Jamieson and Coffey are believed to have paid about $1 million US for the franchise. Coffey said he will foot at least 10% of the bill and is considering taking a greater portion.
Ticket prices will be in the $12-$25 range. Jamieson said the ThunderHawks will need to attract an average crowd of 4,000 to home games to break even.
To accomplish that, Jamieson and Coffey will have to do what no other soccer team owners in the GTA have been able to do in the past decade: get local fans to become loyal supporters.
Toronto's previous NPSL team, the Shooting Stars, often played to fewer than 1,000 fans at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1996-97 and folded at season's end.
"Yes, (what happened to the Shooting Stars) does worry me," Jamieson said. "I can't say we're going to do things so different that I'm not going to worry about what they did.
"The significant difference in my mind, though, is the Hershey Centre. A smaller venue like this didn't exist when (the Shooting Stars) were around."
The ThunderHawks yesterday named Ontario Soccer Association technical director Jim Cannovan as their general manager.
Cannovan said the coach he plans to hire is an American with six years of NPSL experience.
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