Remember the Brooklyn Dodgers, Los Angeles Rams, Vancouver Grizzlies and Seattle SuperSonics? How about the Victoria Cougars of the Western Hockey League?
Any city that has lost a franchise, at any level, realizes nothing is forever in sports when you are dealing with owners willing to sacrifice often years of tradition in a particular market to pull up stakes and shift to perceived greener fields.
The sports world is also littered with proposed start-up franchises that never make it beyond the dream phase. Remember the Victoria Spiders, who never played in the International Hockey League, which no longer exists in its former boom-years format? There was also the minor-pro baseball Victoria Blues, Mussels, Capitals, not to mention the Canadian Soccer League and Victoria Vistas.
Now from that particular scrap heap of Victoria sports history, which includes Cougars WHL owner Rick Brodsky and former Spiders proponent David Pasant, has emerged a new breed of sports owner in the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ capital.
And these guys look to stay and stick. They just might. As a group, Graham Lee, Len Barrie, Alex Campbell Jr. and Russ Parker may be among the strongest collection of minor-pro and junior sports franchise owners in one market in North America.
Not many Junior 'A' hockey teams, if any other than the Victoria Grizzlies, are owned by people who also co-own a National Hockey League franchise. Barrie has been mercurial, to say the least, as co-owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Yet his ownership of the Grizzlies gives that club a sheen and stability that must be the envy of any ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Hockey League team.
Lee, of course, is the owner of the Salmon Kings of the ECHL. His RG Properties company is five years into a 30-year lease deal with the City of Victoria to operate Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre. RG is not going anywhere for at least another quarter-century and it will always need an anchor tenant for the Memorial Centre. That may mean a different alphabet soup at different times over the coming years, but it virtually assures the presence of either ECHL, AHL or WHL hockey on Blanshard Street for the next 25 years.
Pro baseball returns to the capital this spring at Royal Athletic Park with the Victoria Seals of the independent Golden League. Seals owner Russ Parker, the highly respected owner of the Regina Pats of the WHL and former owner of the Triple-A baseball Calgary Cannons, gives the Seals venture instant credibility.
When it comes to names in this city, there are few who don't recognize the Campbell brand. Alex Jr., whose occupation is businessman but passion is soccer, is the owner of the city's latest soccer franchise. The Victoria Highlanders will begin play in May at the new Langford City Centre Stadium in the Premier Development League, the amateur development circuit for the pro United Soccer League. Only PDL, you scoff? The unstated dream is to elevate the Highlanders to the pro USL to replace Vancouver when the Whitecaps are expected to move up to Major League Soccer (MLS) in 2011.
Whatever their aspirations with their Victoria teams, I wouldn't bet against either of these four Victoria franchise owners attaining their goals. This is a city with a tremendous reputation for hosting events and producing world-class athletes. But it also has a sometimes rocky and unstable history when it comes to sports franchises. That could be
changing.
