Sault lands pro hockey franchise (international exclusive)

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario has just landed an International Independent Hockey League franchise, SooToday.com has learned.

"The owner is Shane Kelly from Kingston," said Joe Kolodziej, IIHL director of player development, who learned of the development from an internal E-mail from league president Mike Killbreath that he opened during a telephone interview with SooToday.com.

Kelly is a former player in the Danish Elite League.

The new pro team is expected to maintain an office and practice rink in Sault Ontario and will consist of Canadian players supplemented by up to six imports, Kolodziej tells us.

The franchise will be known as the Soo City Mavericks.

The Mavericks are expected to play most of their home games at Pullar Center in the Michigan Soo, with other games to be played in Sault Ontario and a number of other Ontario cities that the IIHL has targeted as potential franchise locations.

The IIHL is a minor league pro conference that functions at the A level as a feeder system for AA clubs and a place for players to be seen by scouts from the AAA teams in the American Hockey League, European pro teams and NHL clubs.

Three ownership groups, from Chicago, Illinois and Kingston, were in the running for the franchise awarded today.

Two other groups from Detroit also submitted bids.

The Detroit bidders were planning to call the club the North Country Barnstormers and would have practised in Harbor Springs, with 12 dates played at the Pullar Center and the remaining 16 home games moved to other cities in northern Michigan.

The Chicago group wanted to operate under the Soo Border Dawgs banner, and like Shane Kelly, was thinking of using a reverse application of the IIHL's roster rules, which for U.S.-based teams restrict Canadian and foreign-born imports to six players.

The IIHL is based in Harbor Springs, Michigan.

Its owners include Detroit Red Wings star Jason Woolley, who travels to Harbor Springs each year to conduct summer camps.

Shane Kelly will be in Harbor Springs tonight for a 6 p.m. meeting with roster candidates and a 7:30 p.m. tryout game against the IIHL's Northern Michigan Predators.

Further tryout games were scheduled in Harbor Springs at Polar Bear Ice & Fitness for 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 12:30 p.m.

The games were to be played against Southern Michigan Super Wolves, but league officials caution that the new owner has the right to cancel them if turnouts are low.

The newly formed league expects to have eight teams for the 2003-04 season, including operations based in the Sault; Harbor Springs; Lansing; Chelsea; Huntington, West Virginia; and Athens, Ohio.