LW27
02-26-2004, 04:28 AM
Topeka has open net for shot at hockey team
By Kurt Caywood
The Capital-Journal
Topeka is so close to having a hockey team that Kansas Expocentre officials are looking for people who want to buy tickets.
A lease agreement that would make the Expocentre home to a Central Hockey League franchise beginning next season is possible within a week, said H.R. Cook, the facility's general manager.
A deal is so imminent that associates of prospective owner Horn Chen have asked Cook to find season-ticket holders and sponsors of the city's two previous hockey franchises. The search is necessary, Cook said, because the final owners of the Topeka ScareCrows took the team's records when they moved the team to the St. Louis area.
Lester Rosen, attorney for Chicago financier Horn Chen, has had the Expocentre's lease proposal for two weeks but has yet to discuss it with Chen, who has been traveling.
"He should be back next week," Rosen said, "so I'm assuming next week we'll sit down and figure out where he wants to go."
It already was clear that Chen wanted to return hockey to Topeka. Now it appears that a breakdown in negotiations between Chen's Wichita team, the Thunder, and Sedgwick County, its landlord at the Kansas Coliseum, has paved the way.
On Tuesday, Sedgwick County officials informed Thunder general manager David Holt that Coliseum renovations would force the team out of the building for the entire 2005-06 season. Holt said he would not enter a lease for next season without a viable option for the following year.
The most likely option now seems to be for Chen to shut down his team in Wichita and move it to Topeka.
"We wanted (Topeka) to be its own entity to give us another rival," Holt said, "but it doesn't look like that's going to happen."
Cook said he was working to bring Chen and his group to Topeka next week to finalize negotiations and that, in a best-case scenario, an agreement could go before the Shawnee County Commission at its March 8 meeting.
"Right now," Cook said, "it's a matter of getting all the officials together so that they're comfortable with each other."
By Kurt Caywood
The Capital-Journal
Topeka is so close to having a hockey team that Kansas Expocentre officials are looking for people who want to buy tickets.
A lease agreement that would make the Expocentre home to a Central Hockey League franchise beginning next season is possible within a week, said H.R. Cook, the facility's general manager.
A deal is so imminent that associates of prospective owner Horn Chen have asked Cook to find season-ticket holders and sponsors of the city's two previous hockey franchises. The search is necessary, Cook said, because the final owners of the Topeka ScareCrows took the team's records when they moved the team to the St. Louis area.
Lester Rosen, attorney for Chicago financier Horn Chen, has had the Expocentre's lease proposal for two weeks but has yet to discuss it with Chen, who has been traveling.
"He should be back next week," Rosen said, "so I'm assuming next week we'll sit down and figure out where he wants to go."
It already was clear that Chen wanted to return hockey to Topeka. Now it appears that a breakdown in negotiations between Chen's Wichita team, the Thunder, and Sedgwick County, its landlord at the Kansas Coliseum, has paved the way.
On Tuesday, Sedgwick County officials informed Thunder general manager David Holt that Coliseum renovations would force the team out of the building for the entire 2005-06 season. Holt said he would not enter a lease for next season without a viable option for the following year.
The most likely option now seems to be for Chen to shut down his team in Wichita and move it to Topeka.
"We wanted (Topeka) to be its own entity to give us another rival," Holt said, "but it doesn't look like that's going to happen."
Cook said he was working to bring Chen and his group to Topeka next week to finalize negotiations and that, in a best-case scenario, an agreement could go before the Shawnee County Commission at its March 8 meeting.
"Right now," Cook said, "it's a matter of getting all the officials together so that they're comfortable with each other."