Alliedassault - Coming soon to Ottawa hockey: ice girls

[quote:81883]Coming soon to Ottawa hockey: ice girls

Wayne Scanlan
The Ottawa Citizen

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Now that the snow is here, the Ottawa Senators are inquiring about hiring some sexy shovellers.

Not for the Corel Centre parking lot, but the arena ice.

Behold the "Ice Girls," the Lycra-wearing, midriff-baring, shovel-carrying skaters who sweep up the NHL ice chips nine times a game, during three TV timeouts per period.

At least, that is the concept on Long Island. The notion of jazzing up a boring maintenance staff duty started with the New York Islanders, who recognized that stars -- players such as Alexei Yashin and Michael Peca -- can't, on their own, sell the team's product for 41 home dates per season.

When the chips are down, two pairs of attractive young women in Lycra suits, bare at the navel, skate onto the Nassau Coliseum ice to scoop up the snowy shavings with shovels.

As one Islanders fan described them to the Wall Street Journal, these are "cheerleaders with a purpose."

Television timeouts on the Island and in Dallas where the Stars play have taken on new meaning for fans in the best seats, or fans in cheap seats with good binoculars. Several other NHL teams have contacted the Islanders about their idea.

Though they aren't ready to make if official, the Senators are quietly putting together their own ice-girl plan and could have it ready in time to welcome the Islanders themselves on Nov. 30.

"We are looking at the idea right now," says Jeff Kyle, the Senators' vice-president of marketing, not wanting to "scoop" his own shovelling announcement.

An Original Six NHL fan, raised on Gordie Howe and Foster Hewitt, might wonder what has become of hockey in this country. First, music between whistles, then "Kiss Cam" on the scoreboard and now sexy ice maintenance crews wearing figure skates?

A few fans on Long Island have registered dissenting opinions on the ice-girl act, suggesting it is sexist and detracts from the game. The majority at the Nassau Coliseum simply say they pay closer attention when it's time to clean the buildup of snow in front of the nets and player benches.

There are tickets to move in a gate-driven league, and the Isles understand an age-old truth in business: sex sells. The Senators' ticket-sales challenges are well known. Expect the team to introduce the concept in a tasteful, fun manner.

"It all comes down to people's perception of entertainment value," Kyle says. "Entertainment at a hockey game involves more than the 60 minutes of play."

At a recent Senators game, fans took enormous delight in seeing Spartacat, on the scoreboard after one of his stunts, pull his costume head off to reveal head coach Jacques Martin underneath -- the usually staid Jacques Martin.

Hockey was the sport that didn't typically resort to the college rah-rah of football cheerleaders, though Kyle reminds us that former North Stars owner Norm Green introduced NHL cheerleaders to Minnesota after the league's first major expansion.

Baseball has its seventh-inning-stretch girls and baseline ball girls. Boxing is a throwback sport with its babes carrying the between-round cards in the ring. Leave it to the WWF to severely push the limits of taste when it comes to sexist gags.

Hockey has decided it needs to borrow a page from other sports, taking more chances with its in-game entertainment package than it has at any point in its history.

"It isn't easy to use the playing surface in hockey," Kyle says. "In basketball, cheerleaders can run right onto the court. In football, they're on the sidelines or on the field.

"It's not that we're trying to take over the game with this; it's a subtle way to provide added entertainment."

In this age of 57 channels (and nothing on), competition for a fan's attention, let alone his or her disposable income, has never been more fierce.

Not surprisingly, Ottawa 67's owner and promoter king Jeff Hunt not only knows about the Islanders' Ice Girls, he has already made inquiries about adopting them in the OHL.

The OHL doesn't have TV timeouts, so Hunt called OHL commissioner Dave Branch and asked him if the league would consider instituting "an ice-clearing break" during the first, second and third periods.

Branch declined. Hunt will be ready if he changes his mind.

"I would do it," says Hunt, "in a heartbeat."

Hunt credits the Isles for jazzing up the ice sweep, nine times a game.

"They have taken a mundane act and turned it into an anticipated event," he says. "That's what we're challenged to do every day in this business."

Hunt doesn't miss much when it comes to arena entertainment.

To the dismay of some hockey purists, he brought cheerleaders into the Civic Centre to make them part of the kids' carnival atmosphere at 67's games.

Riley the mascot, face-painting and post-game concerts (the band Wave is performing on Friday night) are all part of the mix in Hunt's turnaround success with the 67's. Spider-Man, dispatched by the Marvel comic book company, is coming to a 67's game on Nov. 17, a Sunday afternoon.

"The fan experience is made up of a lot of little things rather than one monumental thing," Hunt says. "I will get 7,000 to the game no matter what. Hopefully, with Wave here, there will be 9,000 and they'll come back another time because of the game they saw."

It's doubtful that patrons would buy Senators tickets just to see the Ice Girls when they arrive, but they will become part of the game atmosphere in the Corel Centre, an atmosphere that could use a spark.

Last season, when the Islanders introduced the Ice Girls, the franchise boasted 21 sellout crowds. Of course, it didn't hurt that, with Peca and Yashin in the lineup, the Isles reached the playoffs for the first time in eight years.

Early this season, with captain Peca on the limp, the Islanders have struggled. Not even the Ice Girls were up to the challenge of making an event out of a recent Florida Panthers visit. The game drew just 12,234.

Read previous columns by Wayne Scanlan at http://www.canada.com/ottawa
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