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Originally posted by cMan2KellyCup
You know who I would LOVE to see come back? The winningest coach in Cyclones history... a man who knows what Cincinnati expects and has the background and knowledge to keep us all happy.... Ron Smith... we were Triple-A in his era and we had affiliations with Florida and Carolina, and he had 40-win seasons left and right while juggling his rosters with NHL teams who were, for the most part, sub-par... The only flaw in my idea is that he hasn't been seen in hockey since the AHL snubbed us 12 years ago... can you imagine, though, if they accepted the Cyclones and we had at least a few years of direct rivalry with the Mighty Ducks? Blood on the streets, I tells ya!

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Originally posted by dbc

judging by the criticisms of Skalde and his coaching that have filled this site for the past three years, there should be several excellent candidates among us who should send their resumes to the front office.

My guess though is that it will be someone who meets the requirements of the Nashville and Florida organizations rather than someone like Sims or Ruskowski. I would hope that they would have some NHL or extensive AHL playing experience because I think it is as important to have someone able to teach these kids what pro hockey is between the ears and not just x's and o's which are the same x's and o's these kids have been taught for years. Great example is Boston getting rid of the number two draft pick from three years ago Tyler Seguin because the coach and GM decided he hadn't learned what pro hockey was really about and what it took to compete consistently.

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Originally posted by Billy Mays

Haha, I love it. You are right all we heard on here is the constant bashing of Skalde & now it seems that was changed from Skalde bashing to Skalde praise. Those "experts" should put their hat in the ring.

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Originally posted by cMan2KellyCup

Donnie, I did not know that because Smith's ventures in the AHL never really crossed my desk while I was in college, and I didnt start giving a rats ass about the AHL OR the Ducks until the Cyclones took their break. Kinda makes me feel like garbage a little, which you do a lot to me, albeit most of it is unintentional... but nonetheless thanks for refreshing my memory, Encyclopedia Puck-tania... And please consider the fact that sometimes I can be sarcastic on these boards... see my blood on the streets comment and the Clones-Ducks comment for good examples.

I happen to agree with your summary on the events that put us in the ECHL... Mr. Kirchofer always came around schools and offered up free tickets to kids and that, while I was in school anyways, is how I was able to make it to games. He stopped doing that and I wondered why. About a year later I saw a story on the news when the Solar Bears beat us in the East Semis in the last season, there was another story that claimed the arena was going dead because he couldn't pull decent gate, but in my heart of hearts I expected IHL hockey in Cincinnati in 2001-2 for my senior year of high school... it stunned me at first that we were heading back to the ECHL but I didnt care in the end as long as there was hockey.

I blame the death of the IHL Cyclones on a lot of things... #1 the traffic headaches that occured when they started wedging in the ballpark (personally I was kinda pulling for the Broadway site myself). The nice walkway was gone and replaced by the threat that you could get run over and killed at any time, which around the end of 2000 was noticeable at an arena they never should have moved to in the first place, while the Ducks were stealing all our fans with free parking and cheaper tickets at the Gardens.

#2 factor in the fact that in my opinion the IHL should never have migrated west of the Mississippi. Commissioner Doug Moss placed the league in the west and pretty much a triple round robin format and expected minor league teams to travel from as far northeast as Quebec City to places like Long Beach, San Diego, Denver, San Francisco, Las Vegas, etc. That drowned payroll and drowned teams in debt quick, and Moss didnt do anything about it, so in ways I blame IHL management for screwing themselves. Cincinnati, Detroit and Orlando has bad ownership and no real marketing plan to keep themselves in the black either, and the cross country trips on a constant basis tied into their debt at the end.

The AHL and ECHL have been smarter since then about this. Both have made cross country trips nearly obsolete (East still has to play West in the final), the AHL is trying to get the Abbotsford team out of there so that San Antonio is their westernmost team, and the ECHL frowns upon scheduling inter-conference games, sans the necessity to play them in the finals. Plus it has allowed teams like the Cyclones to stay in the black, which made coming back from dormancy an easy decision when the AHL team failed at the Gardens... again, an arena we should have never left.

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