Looks like it’s curtains for the Richmond Renegades, of the scrappy-yet-venerable Southern Professional Hockey League. The team will call it quits after this season, having fallen victim to Depression v2.0. According to Renegades owner Allen Harvie, one of the big problems is Richmond’s parochialism:
The Wiley Bridge and Route 288 and the new malls at Stony Point and Short Pump have helped us because people cross town to go to the new shopping centers, but there are still people in Midlothian and Short Pump who’ve never crossed the [James] River. There are also people who’ve lived in the Richmond area for 10 years who don’t even know we have a hockey team.
Microkhan is saddened by the Renegades’ demise, given our boundless admiration for the SPHL—a league where Manitoban-bred lugs fight valiantly in desperate hope of becoming NHL enforcers. Check out the league’s impressive body of combat at DropYourGloves.com, a clearinghouse for hockey-fight data.
DaveS // Mar 17, 2009 at 4:36 pm
My buddy played in the SPHL for a bit a couple years ago, doing exactly what you described – starting fights. he said the players called it the “Stop Playing Hockey League”, as in, if you’re in this league you should probably stop playing hockey
Brendan I. Koerner // Mar 17, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Yeah, I’m fascinated by the lowest echelons of minor league hockey. The SPHL is of particular interest because teams come and go with such alacrity, but somehow the league keeps chugging along. I suspect that 98 percent of the fans turn out solely for the fights.
One of these days, I want to do a magazine piece on some veteran SPHL scrapper–preferably a grizzled old-timer from the Canadian sticks who still dreams of becoming an NHL goon.