Third Times a Charm?

Well Topkea is at it again, Landon arena has landed itself a new hockey team to start play in the 2007-08 season. The team is the Santa Fe RoadRunners from the NAHL who will be called the Topeka RoadRunners when they make the move at the end of this season. But will hockey work this time in T-town? Is the third time a charm?

Call me an optimist, but I think this team will fair much better than the two previous teams. The main reason is the owner's (Mary Lorang) expectations. Currently the Santa Fe Roadrunners are drawing around 400 people per game, most of which are there on free tickets. She says that if Topeka can double those numbers she will be happy. Historically Topeka drew around 1,000 with the USHL ScareCrows (more when they were in the CHL) and the Tarantulas brought in about 1,500 a game, so asking for 800 a game should be a reasonable request. Another plus for the team is that the owner is going to move to Topeka instead of ruling from afar like the last two team owners, hopefully the move will allow the locals to fell it is more of a permanent team. The last big difference this time around is that it is much cheaper to run a NAHL team than a CHL team. This means that an attendance of 800 per game will just about keep the team from losing money, where the CHL teams needed more than 2000 to break even. That is a big change that just may give Topeka a better shot at hockey this time around. It looks like the NAHL season starts in September, soon there will be hockey and post game "celebrations" (the Tarantulas didn't really win games) at Steak and Shake again in the land. A-boo-yeah.

Thanks Amber for the news!