Sports Expo, Funny Pictures

The contract was just signed today for PIHA-Gateway to participate in the St. Louis Sports Expo on February 11th from 1-5 PM at Scottrade Center (where the Blues play). The event is not only great for promotion but also for a great cause: St. Patrick's Center which helps the homeless. Some great personalities will be in attendance including numerous St. Louis sports celebrities and the Hanson Brothers from the movie Slapshot! We will have our own booth setup and have the right to sell tickets, merchandise, and promote our league. I will be able to get a select number of PIHA players into the event as well. Over 35,000 sports enthusiasts attend this event every year and booths are set up with everything from pro sports teams to sports video games to sports memorabilia. It will be a great way to promote the league and inline hockey in general! Pictures will be posted following the event.

Picture of fun:

Gateway Ref-in-chief Tom Micks (sweet teeth):



-Dave

Pythons Home Opener

The Pythons home opener lived up to expectations this past Saturday night at the Matteson Triplex. Over 600 fans were in attendance and the event went into the wee hours of the night with all kinds of entertainment. Kids were entertained by the bouncy pit, magician, four corners game, and autographs from Python players. A light show (complete with fog machine) introduced the Whalers and Pythons (pro and minor teams). A fan narrowly missed a chance at winning $1,000 and two 50/50 drawings were held. Overall it was a fun evening and clips will go up shortly on Youtube.

The hockey this past weekend was great as the Whalers returned to action. Great to see guys like Pete Messina making the trip into St. Louis (from Chicago) to play in the games. Some of the games were a bit more high scoring this weekend and extremely entertaining!

This past Friday, we had a photo shoot at All American for an upcoming article on PIHA in St. Louis Magazine. JP Beilsten and Phil 'Philthy' Maroon joined me for some great photos! Make sure to check out St. Louis Magazine in a couple of weeks.

The PIHA newsletter is currently being finalized and will go out soon. Emails will also be going out later this week about the PIHA Street Team.

Now some fun stuff from Python opening night (random pictures I took with my camera phone):

Python photo board for fans to know the Pythons:

Fans could buy some great Pythons merchandise:


Crowd getting their tickets for the first minor game:



Laundry List of activities for the evening:


Mystifying card tricks with the Pythons magician:



More Magic Action:


'Space Bounce' was packed all night with young ones:


Who is this blurry man? It's Vio!


The crowd is PACKED


The rink is decked with Python logos:


Nothing like matching AJ Speno autographs:


Fans get a chance to play games on the rink:


-Dave

Want to joing the PIHA Street Team?

Attention PIHA-Gateway Players,

PIHA is currently looking for around 10-15 ENERGETIC and OUTGOING players that are interested in joining the PIHA Street Team!

What is the PIHA Street Team?
The Street Team is a grassroots marketing approach to get schedules and information in the hands of many St. Louisans as possible. It may include:
-Special charity events.
-Attending crowded events in St. Louis to pass on information and promote the league.
-Goofy promotions such as players in full equipment skating through Forrest Park.
-Street promotions.
-Fun events at some of St. Louis' hottest night spots (for those 21 and older).
-Other fun surprises and perks.

Requirements:
-PIHA Pro or Minor Player.
-Willingness to approach complete strangers.
-Fun, outgoing, and creative.
-Interested in learning about marketing.

Other information:
-There is no payment for being a member of the PIHA Street Team but you will have a ton of fun and learn a lot as well;however for those interested in $$$$.....
-Members of the street team who excel may be chosen for a new guerrilla marketing team coming soon to the St. Louis area (promoting other products and businesses besides hockey) which will be PAID!

If you are interested, please send an email to pihagateway@gmail.com and briefly tell me why you would be good for the position.

-Dave



On another note, watch out the REAL Python visiting Matteson Triplex on Saturday night...you'll see what I mean.

Photo Shoot and Phone Calls

This Friday will be a fun day for PIHA-Gateway and will be a great start to a weekend that has three sets of games. At noon on Friday at All American, St. Louis Magazine will be dropping in to do a photo shoot for their next issue that includes an article on PIHA-Gateway. Whaler JP Beilsten and Sniper Phil Maroon will be part of the shoot as well. Later in the afternoon (and this is tentative), sportscaster Frank Cusumano may be stopping in to do some interviews and some filming. If you are a PIHA-Gateway PRO player and are interested on being on TV, let me know!

Today's theme at the PIHA Gateway offices: Phone Calls. I'm so excited to type right now because that means I'm NOT making a phone call. Today calls were made to over 40 St. Louis-based companies that are interested in learning about our league. I got to talk to a myriad of assistants, presidents of major companies, and voicemail systems. I sent each of these businesses a letter last week. Persistence (not annoyance) is key when you want to get something done. Example: Sending a letter via snail mail, three days later calling, followed by a follow-up and email. We could have some new sponsors right around the corner that are as excited about our league as we are!


Other news and notes:
-Email pihagateway@gmail.com to be added to our newsletter mailing list for some great e-stuff!
-The Philly Growl never cease to amaze me with creativity. They have found a way to show a pre-game video that is similar to the one that the Blues come out to (video clips, player close ups, graphics, music). How did they do it? They hang a banner that comes down from the rafters at the rink and then they project the video onto it. All for 1/1000000000000000 the cost of a jumbo tron. Those kinds of creative ideas will be brought the Gateway City in no time! Great job Growl (your six years leg up experience is a great learning tool for everyone).

-Dave

Pythons and Bling Bling

While coaching this weekend out at Matteson Triplex, I talked with Rick about the plans for their home opener which is this upcoming Saturday (January 27th starting at 6:30 with the minors). Their home opener is going to be AMAZING! The crowd will be packed with younger fans and older fans alike. Every member of the Cobras organization will be there. The event will not only be a hockey game, but also a night of entertainment for everyone.
Some of the things on tap include:
-A smoke machine and light show entrance for the Pythons (involving a snake, but I don't want to give too much away).
-Great giveaways such as Pythons tee shirts.
-All kinds of entertainment and prizes throughout the night with different contests, a blow up tent for kids to jump on on the mini rink, a magician, and an extremely funny half time show.
-There will also be a skate with the Pythons pro and minor teams and autograph tables set up after the games.
-Members of the local media will also be there.

This event will help expand the bar we have already set. Normally one 'game night' (2 pro and 2 minor games) takes around 3 hours. Rick is turning it into four hours part entertainment part circus and a whole lot of hockey. I'm excited to go see the event and everyone should come check it out! Nights of entertainment like this one will keep the creative juices flowing for the other teams as well.

Speaking of the Pythons, they are working on decking out their rink with Python stuff. They have a board set up already with some news articles and pictures of players:


The River City Whalers will also be getting back into stride this weekend as they play Saturday (away) and Sunday/Monday (at home). They will have some great stuff going on at Omni and I will find out more details from Ian as we get closer.


The PIHA champs that come out of Florida this year (championship over Memorial Day weekend) will take home more than pride and prize money. The winners will get to sport championship rings to show of their championship!



Other PIHA news and notes:
-Interesting in working for PIHA-Gateway? Internship programs are on the way!
-A promotional street team will soon be formed as well to help promote the league. If you are interested send an email to pihagateway@gmail.com and I will get you more information.
-Join the PIHA-Gateway Mailing List! The weekly newsletter will have coupons for games, special promotions, chances to win some great prizes, and all kinds of information and pictures about PIHA-Gateway! Send an email to pihagateway@gmail.com with your name and email address!

-Dave

Mystery Photos, James Lambert

I wonder who put up the cool Pythons photo on the PIHA webpage today? Not too many people have access to the site and I'm not sure who is keeping a secret archive of pictures, but I'd like to see them! Speaking of pictures, Chris Milligan will be 'releasing' his photos from the first few games to me very soon. I will make sure the pictures are posted so everyone can see them and put them up on their Facebooks and Myspaces. I've seen some of the shots and he is a GREAT photographer. I know various people have been taking photos throughout the games (parents, etc.) and some videos as well. If you have photos let me know! Photos are not only fun, but they have some great league purposes as well. One of the goals is to get photos of players decking out the rinks so fans know who the players are wearing the PIHA sweaters. Look at for Chris at some of the upcoming games with his brand new photography equipment. By the end of the season he should get get most everyone photographed!

Kudos to James Lambert. For those of you who do not know James, you should. James has done a great job organizing and doing PR for UMSL roller hockey. Click on that link to see some of his awesome work. He is a whiz at writing game recaps and also can dazzle with the video camera (and editing as well). Just wait till he gets his new video camera! James is very busy and he volunteers his time to the league and I thank him for that. He is extremely dedicated to the sport and it will pay off for him in the long run. You can find James often behind the scenes. He is usually at most PIHA games with his own score sheets doing extremely accurate stats (as we all know *sometimes* the 'official' scorers screw up haha). All PIHA-Gateway videos that you have seen on Youtube are a product of the media mastermind.

Other news and notes: Soon some new merchandise will be available at the rinks..more details to come. Numerous PIHA players tore it up at NARCh Winternationals in Phoenix (Tour St. Louis Junior Team won the gold with a host of PIHA players, D1 Mission Empire Snipers won the gold with Greg Thompson and Tommy Bruce, Pama Cyclones won pro with JP Beilsten. Pretty cool to see that on each of the teams that won three of the top divisions (Junior, D1, Pro) PIHA-Gateway Players were on them. I've seen the new Roller Hockey Magazine and it will be sweet. The Growl and Lunatics up east got some new clips of their games so check them out.
College nationals will be in St. Louis this year.

-Dave

Reply to PRESS

Any kind of press is awesome. Always a couple of things that are off but it looks great. I wish she had put in the PIHA website www.thepiha.com. She is working in a larger ongoing article as well. There will be a ton more press coming soon: Check out St. Louis Magazine next month! Also, we are working on having some TV cameras out at the Pythons home opener on January 27th. -Dave

PIHA Gateway PRESS

Check this out: riverfronttimes.com STLog. There is blurb in there on January 18th (today) about PIHA-Gateway. The RFT is a younger 'edgy' newspaper in St. Louis that also does some great online work. Here is a copy of the article: And Speaking of Hockey…
Filed under: Sports
In any other town, starting up a professional inline hockey team would have taken at least two years. St Louis, however, turns out to be an inline hockey hub. “It’s random,” says David Garland, a Washington University grad who has helped to organize the league. “Every state has it, but here there’s a real history of success.”
There’s a strong high school program and a prestigious college team at Lindenwood University that has won the National Collegiate Roller Hockey Association Division One title four years in a row. In fact, in those four years the Lindenwood squad has only lost one game, to Meramec Community College. “A huge upset,” says Garland. (Loyal RFT readers already know Lindenwood’s reputation as an obscure-sport juggernaut.)
St. Louis once was home to a professional inline hockey team — the Vipers, who played back in the 1990s. But they were trying to fill 20,000-seat arenas, and even inline-hockey hubs have their limits. The current league, the Gateway Professional Inline Hockey Association, has five teams and more modest ambitions. Games are played at privately owned rinks that seat about 500; tickets are $5 and kids under eight get in free. (For a schedule, visit the league’s MySpace page.
Garland says games have been drawing crowds of 400 or so. “It’s hard to explain to other people how cool it is,” adds Garland, who’s been hooked since he was thirteen. “Ice hockey players love it because it takes skilled players and showcases them, as opposed to in ice hockey, where there are these big goons who just go around and hit people.”
Inline hockey is less violent than ice hockey (no full checking is permitted) and halftime shows have included paper airplane contests.
“At the last game, there were 50 kids wanting to get things autographed,” reports Garland, who plays for the Southside Snipers. “It was a little ego thing.”
-Molly Langmuir

Where are we going?

I have to say this first year of PIHA in St. Louis has been really exciting for me and the players, fans, rinks are pumped as well. This is really all a learning process for everyone to see what works and what doesn't. We decided to bring the league here without an offseason of planning (meaning we literally decided to do this, had meeting after meeting, and made sure it got done). This of course took a TON of time right off the bat. I think a lot of people don't realize how much work it takes to pretty much bring in a league from scratch and it has been a great collaborative effort.

There was a laundry list of things to be done: Decide tryout format, book tryout dates, make sure players knew about tryouts, had people running tryouts, had proper registration forms, create the schedule, name the teams, design logos, get tickets printed, plan a 300+ person draft party, get a web presence going, get our spot on the new PIHA spot, develop a comprehensive plan to get sponsors for the league, inform the St. Louis community about the league, come up with creative entertainment for fans, etc. etc. That list is just a few things I thought of from the top of my head...the list could easily be quadrupled.

It has been cool to work with so many people (and different personalities!) that really care about this game and are helping to form the future vision of our sport. People like Charley Yoder, Ron Beilsten, Perry Turnbull, Jeremy McCoy, Rob Ferrara, Tammy O'Rourke, Rick Matteson and Ian Mackie. What we are trying to create here is a redefinition of what people think about when they hear the words 'inline hockey'.

What do you think about when you hear the words inline hockey (seriously please leave a comment)? We all love the sport in whatever capacity: Playing, coaching, reffing, managing. There are people that are very passionate about this sport. That being said, there has been a problem with inline hockey being disorganized: Players getting dressed two minutes before game times, no coaches on the bench, fourteen different jerseys, whatever. Of course this is a generalization, but we are trying to establish a PROFESSIONAL image.

What is a professional image? A professional image can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. To me it means games extremely well organized (starting on time, matching jerseys, anthem playing, starting lineups, pumping music) and players (and refs/owners/coaches) looking and acting professional (in dress code, respecting the game, thanking fans for coming, helping to promote the game, taking themselves seriously). We have some really awesome personalities in the league and it is cool to see the guys taking this seriously. This of course doesn't mean not having fun, because everyone out there is involved in hockey because it is fun. It is not like cleaning your room or doing taxes. There are other elements of professionalism more from the business side (a little more boring so I'll keep it brief) which includes an organized business plan, future plans, a strong media presence, keeping Internet sites updated, attracting fans, and delivering what we promise.

Without making this insanely long, I want to finish on why PIHA is a great thing and will build in the upcoming years. Simply, PIHA helps out everyone who helps the sport. Players get to play in a professional, competitive environment with cool perks such as a Championship in Florida. A lot of our teams get little special treats too which are a nice touch such as Gatorade and snacks after games (seems like a little detail, but it is all about the details). Additionally, it is pretty cool to have little kids coming up and asking for an autograph. Sure, it is a little bit of an ego-trip and it is great to see little kids that love the game. They don't care if you are making $1 or $1 million dollars! Owners get a chance to open their rinks up and get more people interested in inline hockey in the building. For example, with the correct marketing, all PIHA games will be packed with players and potential players! With the right business planning and growth, owners (who put up the money for each team to get this going), owners will also see PIHA as a profitable venture besides a 'good deed' (sponsorships, merchandise, ticket sales, etc.). But this league is really about generating new interest in our sport. Little kids are key to bring into the game. We are not at the numbers that peaked in the 90's. My goal is to destroy these numbers in the upcoming years by bringing in the little guys into the sport. The little guys get excited when they come out to the games (big players, autographs, skates after the game) and they also want to play in PIHA. Unlike the NHL, (.000000000000000000000000001% chance of making it), PIHA is actually an ATTAINABLE GOAL for these little guys. They will stay in the sport and there are plans to get new kids in the sport as well. Fans win because they get to come see something that is exciting, affordable ($5 a ticket and children 8-and-under free) and get great access to players. Also, with four teams in St. Louis...a rink is never too far away (just wait till Highway 40 construction hah). Finally, and this is something that will be built with time, companies/corporations can benefit from PIHA through sponsorships, advertising, and being involved in a family-oriented environment. The goal of PIHA is not to have 1,000 fans in a 10,000 seat arena but rather PACK 500 people into a 450 person rink!

All of the above benefits will change over the upcoming days, months, years but the overall goals are embedded in the culture of this league and the game itself. Mistakes will be made and so will improvements. I would love to hear your thoughts, suggestions, comments, etc. You can either leave your name or not when you do so.

Key Questions:
What do you love about inline hockey?
What do you hate about inline hockey?

You can reach me anytime at pihagateway@gmail.com

-Dave

PS Go Blues who killed the Ducks tonight 6-2 and the Cardinals have the All Star game in 2009! I hope everyone had fun at NARCh last weekend (too much work so I couldn't go) but I've heard it was great!

Welcome to the blog!

I've never really tried blogging before, but I thought it would be a good idea to share some insights about the Pro Inline Hockey Association's Gateway Division. There are a TON of things going on behind the scenes as we try to build this league to get better and better in the future. If you wanted to know more than just the scores and scoresheets, this will be a place to find that kind of information. Whether it is a funny story, a new idea, a mistake, rumors, or thoughts it will be all be posted here. I changed the comment setting so please feel free to honestly comment! If you have a suggestion or a way things can be done better, let me know. If you like something, let me know. I appreciate any input because this league is about everyone: Players, rink owners, fans, little kids, etc. This blog will not really follow too much of a format but instead will pretty much be 'stream of consciousness' but I can guarantee that will be updated often! -Dave