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It's a match made in minor-league hockey's financial purgatory.

Ken and Kristen Dixon were losing money on their United Hockey League franchise in Port Huron, Mich., and were looking for a new home. Roanoke lost its debt-ridden franchise and was looking for a new team.

That's when UHL president Richard Brosal came in.

Brosal brokered a deal with civic center director Mina Boyd to bring a UHL franchise to Roanoke and introduced the Dixons as the owners of the franchise at a news conference at the Roanoke Performing Arts Theater on Tuesday.

Making a success of the team, said Brosal and City Manager Darlene Burcham, depends on the people and businesses of Roanoke.

"When the people of this community come together, we can make something happen," Burcham said before about 30 people in attendance. "Our work is just beginning. Each of us is going to have to go out and recruit others."

Brosal said he would like to see a minimum of 1,000 season tickets sold. Season tickets will start at $399 each, with the cheapest adult individual game tickets selling for $12.50. Seniors will pay $10.50 and children younger than 12 years old pay $8.50.

The civic center is still working on a three-year lease agreement with the Dixons, civic center marketing director Robyn Schon said. The lease will have to be approved by the city council.

A multiyear deal is important in the world of minor-league hockey where teams and even leagues form and crumble often.

That was one reason, Boyd has said, that she preferred dealing with the 16-year-old UHL over other leagues that showed an interest in Roanoke.

The Roanoke Valley has had a professional hockey team in one minor league or another since 1967, except for 1976-80 and this year. At least three Roanoke franchises and two leagues that had teams in Roanoke have folded in that time.

The ECHL revoked the charter of the Roanoke Express in July 2004 when the owners said they didn't want to continue to run the team at a loss but couldn't find a buyer in time to meet a league-imposed deadline.

That's when the UHL, which has a team in Richmond but no others in the Southeast, got involved, asking the Roanoke community to prove it was interested in hockey. Richmond played an exhibition game at the Roanoke Civic Center in October, drawing 3,163 fans and, Brosal said, at least 600 fans have paid a $25 deposit on season tickets.

Two weeks ago, Brosal announced the league would bring a team to Roanoke. Tuesday, he announced it would be the Port Huron franchise.

Brosal said that the board of governors took "less than a minute" to approve the Dixons' application to move their team from Port Huron to Roanoke.

"This is a group that knows how to run an organization and knows how to be successful," Brosal said.

The Dixons, though, lost $1 million running the Port Huron team in three years, Kristen Dixon said. It wasn't enough to make the Canton, Ohio, couple get out of hockey, but it was enough to make them want to move their franchise to a larger city.

"We were determined not to fold, but we also had a lot of money invested," Dixon said. "We like this business and I think we're good at this."

Port Huron, which is 60 miles northeast of Detroit, had an IHL team for 15 years before it folded in 1981. A UHL team, the Border Cats, came to Port Huron in 1996 and lasted six seasons before failing.

The Dixons brought the Beacons to town in 2002 and have lost money since.

The Beacons have averaged 1,688 fans a game this season, according to theuhl.com.

Dixon said Port Huron is too small and its arena is too small for a minor-league hockey team to make a profit. Port Huron has a population of 32,338, according to the city's Web site, porthuron.org. McMorran Place seats 3,200 for hockey; the Roanoke Civic Center seats 8,642.

Larry Krabach, general manager of McMorran Place, said Michigan's high unemployment rate contributed to the Beacons' demise. Port Huron Mayor Mark Neal estimated St. Clair County's unemployment rate at 12 percent and noted that rate doesn't include those who have fallen off the rolls.

"They were bucking a very tough economy," Krabach said.

Angela Anter, general manager of the Port Huron Athletic Club restaurant and sports bar, acknowledged that McMorran Place is small but disagreed with Dixon's assertion that Port Huron couldn't support a team.

"Marketing was the biggest thing," Anter said. "This is a big hockey town."

Krabach pointed out, though, that there are three other minor-league hockey teams within 70 miles of Port Huron.

"If you like hockey, there are many opportunities to see hockey," Krabach said.

Anter, whose restaurant is a Beacons sponsor and has 10 season tickets, said she saw a lot of Kristen Dixon the first year of the Beacons' existence, but saw less and less in the following years. Ken Dixon, Anter said, was never around much.

Ken Dixon owns a telecommunications business in Canton, where he and their sons Matthew, 16, and Michael, 12, live.

Kristen Dixon, a former sales and marketing representative for IBM, said they will buy a Roanoke area home and she will stay in Roanoke from just after Easter through the summer as the team gets established. She said she will bring some staff from Port Huron, but plans to do most of the hiring in Roanoke.

The "absentee ownership" was a problem for the Beacons, Mayor Neal said.

"I don't think they had the right people in the right places," including marketing and management, Neal said. "The Dixons are super people, but with their absentee ownership, they just didn't get a feel for the community."

Brosal said he would prefer that people not focus on the Dixons' history or that of hockey in Roanoke, but on their future.

"People should stop dwelling on what the past is," Brosal said. "The only way it will work is if everyone will pull together."