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katrina.waugh@roanoke.com 981-3127

For the first time in its 16-year existence, the ECHL will not be playing hockey in the Roanoke Valley this season.

The ECHL Board of Governors voted to terminate the Roanoke Express franchise in a conference call Tuesday, league president Brian McKenna said.

"The Roanoke Express membership in the ECHL ceases to exist," McKenna explained. "We will not be operating in 'O4-'05 in Roanoke and the market is open in the future."

The minor league team's ownership group, Old Time Hockey, had been losing money since it bought the franchise in 2001. It announced as early as last December that it wanted to sell.

General manager and part-owner Chris Pollock engaged in lengthy negotiations for a new lease from the Roanoke Civic Center, and said at the time he was negotiating on behalf of a future buyer of the team. Pollock had said as many as three different groups were interested in buying the team, but no sale was completed.

Pollock declined to comment Tuesday. Fellow owners Ashby Coleman and Mike Lonchar did not return phone calls. The other two members of the ownership group have remained anonymous.

"The current ownership group was not prepared to move forward to operate the team; as of today there was not any firm deal in place," to sell the team, McKenna said. "Faced with that, the board decided a decision had to be made."

The Express' demise leaves the Roanoke Civic Center with 35 open dates to fill.

"We're going to be very, very busy trying to fill some dates. Immediately," said Roanoke's director of civic facilities Mina Boyd. "Right now we're trying to put our heads together to come up with some ideas, rather than get into a panic."

Boyd said there was a chance "in the best of worlds" that the civic center could attract a team from another minor hockey league, but most leagues begin play in October and have already set their schedules.

If a new league isn't found, the Roanoke region would be without professional hockey for the first time since 1979.

McKenna said the ECHL would not be averse to putting a new franchise in the civic center as soon as the 2005-06 season.

"There's a base of fans, we like the market, the building is good, the building made a strong effort to put a very fair lease offer on the table," McKenna said. "With good management and a six- to nine-month lead time, it could work."

The move leaves head coach Tony MacAulay and four other full-time Express staff members without a team.

"I honestly don't know what I'll do," said director of community events Amy Webb, who is also a student at Roanoke College.

"We were all hoping something positive would happen, and maybe that's part of the reason we all hung around.

"I'm not as concerned about myself as I am with my co-workers because I'm still in school. I can get a job as a waitress and survive."

The league also terminated the rights of the Greensboro (N.C.) Generals for essentially the same reason.

The city of Greensboro had operated the franchise last season, but was not prepared to do so again and no sale had been made, McKenna said.

Roanoke's and Greensboro's players instantly became free agents.

Because the Express owners had not signed a lease for the upcoming season, the franchise faces no penalties from the civic center for not playing this season.

It does, however, still owe the civic center money from last season.

Boyd declined to say how much the civic center is owed, but said the owners had signed a credit agreement that can cover those debts.

"We won't be left out in the cold," Boyd said.

The team faces no further fines from the league, McKenna said.

"Losing the franchise is the ultimate penalty," McKenna said. "The money, the resources tied up there, are far greater than any penalty we could give.

"Whatever they thought the value of the membership was is gone."