Ottawa Loggers

Roller Hockey International (1995-1997)

Background

The Ottawa Loggers were a professional roller hockey team that careened about Canada’s capital city for two summers in the mid-1990’s. The Loggers were part of Roller Hockey International, a summer-time league that attempted to cash in on the in-line skating boom of the 1990’s. At its peak, the league fielded 19 franchises across the U.S. and Canada in 1995 and broadcast games on ESPN2. But ultimately the media and corporate sponsors declined to take the league seriously and RHI made a bunch of rich guys slightly less rich before collapsing in 1999.

Horn Chen’s Ottawa Odyssey

Ottawa’s original owner, Horn Chen, was one of the league’s wealthier owners and also one of its most experienced from a sports management standpoint. Chen was a reclusive but prolific sports investor from Chicago. He reportedly had a particular fondness for ice hockey and baseball, but he also owned teams in the Continental Basketball Association and Canadian Football League (CFL) during the 1990’s. Chen acquired the rights to put an RHI franchise in Ottawa on the heels of purchasing the CFL’s troubled Ottawa Rough Riders franchise in early 1995.

Chen’s two-year ownership of the Rough Riders was deeply odd. Former Rough Riders fullback Darren Joseph told The Ottawa Citizen (12/12/2015) that Chen drove up in a limo during training camp in 1995 to address the team, rolled down his window, and then drove off without ever stepping out of the car. Chen never attended a single Rough Riders game. At the end of the 1996 season, the historic franchise folded after 120 years of operation.

Chen’s support of the Loggers and RHI was even shorter-lived.  But you really couldn’t blame him. The Loggers played at the old Ottawa Civic Centre, which had no air conditioning. The 1995 team was competitive under head coach Jocelyn Guevremont, a former Vancouver Canucks and Buffalo Sabres NHL defenseman. The Loggers claimed 5,207 average attendance for a 12-game home slate, which ranked 4th among 19 RHI teams in attendance in 1995. But the fact that the Loggers reportedly lost over $300,000 on a paltry budget of just $600,000 (Ottawa Citizen 1/31/1996) bolsters the earlier claim by Citizen hockey writer Rick Mayoh that the team gave away most of those tickets for free (Ottawa Citizen 8/12/1995).

Chaos

Chen walked away from the Loggers in January 1996. Roller Hockey International immediately awarded a replacement franchise for Ottawa to a pair of young men, 23-year old Govindh Jayarman and 24-year old Justin Magnan who owned a collegiate house painting business. The duo got as far as announcing the awkward new name of the Ottawa RHI franchise – the “Rolar Bears” – before reportedly bouncing a check and seeing the franchise revoked. Chen subsequently sold the club to Rochester, New York businessman Michael Clary instead.

The 1996 Loggers were truly awful. The team finished with far and away the worst record (3-22-0) in the 18-team RHI. In a bizarre twist, owner Michael Clary fired former Ottawa Rough Riders executive Phil Kershaw from his General Manager role in midseason in order to replace him with Jayaraman and Magnan, the two young house painters who briefly controlled the Ottawa franchise six months earlier.

The Loggers at least had air conditioning in 1996. The team moved into the brand new $170 million Corel Centre, home of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators. The Loggers claimed the 2nd best attendance in the league at 7,103 per game, which seems rather suspect considering the grim circumstances that the team operated under.

The End

The Loggers geared up for a third season of in-line hockey in the spring of 1997. RHI contracted from 18 teams in 1996 to just 10 prepared to continue in 1997. The Loggers intended to move back to the Ottawa Civic Centre to cut expenses. But owner Michael Clary failed to cover expenses for the team to travel to Montreal for the season opener. RHI officials then revoked the franchise and issued a new one. Commissioner Larry King (ex-husband of tennis great Billie Jean King) assigned Phil Kershaw to run the new team.

If you’re keeping score at home, Kershaw was the original Loggers GM who tried to help two inexperienced house painters buy and relaunch the team as the Rolar Bears, saw that fail, hooked on with a new owner, then got fired by that new owner and replaced by the house painters of all people, and was now back for a third try at making Roller Hockey go in Ottawa.

Because deposed owner Michael Clary owned the rights to the Ottawa Loggers name, Kershaw swiftly re-named the team the ‘Ottawa Wheels’ in June 1997. In inspiring fashion, Kershaw told The Ottawa Citizen that he settled on the name ‘Wheels’ because it was “generic” and “it also matches the sweaters we’ve received from the [defunct] San Diego Barracudas.” (Ottawa Citizen 6/13/1997). The Wheels finished last in their division with the worst attendance in the league in 1997.

RHI suspended operations at the end of the 1997 season. After sitting out a year, the league returned in 1999 for one final season – mercifully without Ottawa – and then folded for good.

Downloads

7-20-1995 Loggers vs. St. Louis Vipers Game Notes

6-23-1996 Loggers vs. Orlando Jackals Game Notes

Links

Roller Hockey International Media Guides

Roller Hockey International Programs

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