UTICA — A few of the Upstate opponents of the Utica Comets will get to know minor-league hockey’s newest team early in the upcoming season. The Utica Comets, the American Hockey League (AHL) minor-league affiliate of the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks, will begin their inaugural season visiting the Rochester Americans on Oct. 11 […]
UTICA — A few of the Upstate opponents of the Utica Comets will get to know minor-league hockey’s newest team early in the upcoming season.
The Utica Comets, the American Hockey League (AHL) minor-league affiliate of the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks, will begin their inaugural season visiting the Rochester Americans on Oct. 11 and visiting the Albany Devils the following night on Oct. 12, according to the team’s website.
The Comets will host the Devils for their home opener in the Utica Memorial Auditorium, locally known as the “Aud,” on Oct. 23. Utica will then host the Syracuse Crunch two days later on Oct. 25, the website says.
With Syracuse, Rochester, Binghamton, and Albany already as AHL markets, the Comets have ready-made rivalries without even “dropping the puck,” says Robert (Rob) Esche, president of Mohawk Valley Gardens, Inc. and the Utica Comets.
“We have a lot of areas around that are within a couple hours that … without even playing a game, you already have a rivalry,” says Esche, an area native and former professional hockey player.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced June 14 that Comets would relocate from Peoria, Ill. and play their games in the Utica Memorial Auditorium, which construction crews are renovating ahead of the upcoming season.
Mohawk Valley Gardens, Inc. operates the AHL franchise for the Vancouver Canucks, which own the affiliation. The operator is located inside the arena at 400 Oriskany St. West. in Utica.
Esche is among eight people who are partners in Mohawk Valley Gardens, he says. The partners also include Frank DuRoss, a long time entrepreneur and AHL hockey owner, according to Esche.
The partners established Mohawk Valley Gardens to handle day-to-day operations for the Utica Comets.
It has three subsidiary branches, including the Utica Comets, Orb Food and Beverage, LLC, and Garden Entertainment, LLC, Esche says.
The Utica Comets has 15 employees; Orb Food and Beverage employs four full-time workers and will hire hourly employees for more than 85 events; and Garden Entertainment, which is in charge of operations at the Utica Memorial Auditorium, has between eight and 10 employees, according to Esche.
The team has already started selling season tickets but won’t offer individual game tickets for sale until Oct. 1.
“We’re very enthused with our [season]-ticket sales,” Esche says.
He declined to offer a revenue projection for the Utica Comets, saying the team’s performance will dictate how much revenue it raises in sales of tickets, merchandise, and concessions.
Players will arrive in Utica on Sept. 23, he says.
The state’s investment in renovating and “modernizing” the 4,000-seat Utica Memorial Auditorium, was “critical” to the team management’s decision to move to Utica, according to the governor’s office.
The state announced $5 million in renovation work to enhance the Aud to meet professional-hockey standards and to improve the facility for use by the Utica College hockey program and its fans, the governor’s office said.
The bid process for renovations at the Utica Memorial Auditorium started following the official announcement on June 14. Construction kicked off in mid-July.
“That’s still going on now under a very aggressive schedule,” Esche says.
Poncell Construction, Inc. of Utica handled the demolition work on walls and partitions. National Building & Restoration Corp. of Utica serves as the general contractor on the project.
H.J. Brandeles Corp. of Utica is handling the mechanical aspects of the project.
With the renovation work, the facility will also be “more competitive” for other non-hockey events such as concerts, trade shows, and other athletic events, which will help spur economic activity in downtown Utica, the governor contended in his June 14 announcement.
Esche started his push to bring a minor-league hockey franchise to Utica in the middle of 2012, with the understanding he’d need to secure state funding to renovate the Aud and approval from the authority that oversees the Utica Memorial Auditorium.
“They [authority members] became willing and able partners and everything kind of meshed together seamlessly at the right time,” he says.
A native of Marcy, Esche attended Whitesboro High School but graduated from a school in the Detroit area before the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes drafted him in 1996, he says.
The Coyotes traded Esche to Philadelphia, where he helped lead the Flyers to the 2004 Eastern Conference Finals, only to lose to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning.
He later played with SKA St. Petersburg and Dynamo-Minsk in Russia and the SCL Tigers in Switzerland.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com