Chill Factor

Paitson, David. Chill Factor: How a Minor-League Hockey Team Change a City Forever. New York: Sports Publishing. 2015. Print.

First Sentences:

The numbers on the scoreboard were breathtaking, a sight to behold:

Columbus 3, Chicago 0

We're a mere ten minutes into the first period of our regular-season National Hockey League debut and we're pouring it on the Blackhawks -- one of the league's Original Six franchises -- blistering the nets with three goals in a span of just over two minutes. The scoring spree sends the stunned fans into pandemonium. I am exhilarated beyond belief.

"Welcome to the NHL, Columbus!"

Description:

Maybe a book about ice hockey, especially a minor league team that lasted only a brief time in Columbus, Ohio, will have a limited audience. How many people even want to read a review about this small franchise, much less dive into the book? Those who brush off this book make a sad mistake because this is a fun, interesting, and enlightening history about both this quirky team and more importantly the unique marketing plan and innovative promotions that made the team a success.

David Paitson in 1991 was the President and General Manager (at age 31) of the newly-formed Columbus Chill in the minor league East Coast Hockey League. The team was described as "a brilliant meteor flashing across the northern sky, spectacular and beautiful and then gone in an instant. But its impact will last forever." How this team came into being, achieved immediate success, and then moved away are related in Paitson's fascinating Chill Factor: How a Minor-League Hockey Team Changed a City Forever.

Formed in August 1991, the Chill had two months before their opening night's game to change the public's disinterest in a pro team, much less an ice hockey team. Paitson and Marc LeClerc from Concepts Marketing Group decided to go big with in-your-face ads targeted at the 50,000 Ohio State students nearby, as well at the any young hipsters looking for some new excitement. 

Early ads placed in the OSU student newspaper and a Columbus independent weekly definitely gained attention:

• Sure, you may think hockey is a violent, perverted example of male machismo. But for only $5, what's your point?

• Assault somebody, in life you get five years, in hockey you get five minutes. Is this a great game or what?

• A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. And if that means busting some chops once in a while, so be it.

From the start the Chill were marketed as a fan experience. It was reasoned that the committed hockey fans would come out no matter what, but people who knew little about the sport needed something exciting to attend the games, enjoy the experience, tell others about it, and ideally want to return. 

So the Chill marketers used Bill Veeck (owner of the St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians, and Chicago White Sox) as their irreverent guide to off-beat promotional activities. This was the man who let a 3' 7" player go to bat, dynamited disco records, created exploding scoreboards, and brought Satchel Paige in to majors at age 42. In short, Veeck did anything to provide entertainment, and the Chill followed his footsteps.

What did Paitson do? Well, anything and everything, including:

• Have fans use giant slingshots to propel frozen Cornish  game hens into the goals on the opposite end of the rink for a cash prize;

• Offer "Low Dough Carload Night" and charge $10 per carload of fans (one group had 11 people packed into a Chevette);

• Bring in the Laker Girls dance team for an intermission show, which coincidentally happened on the day of Magic Johnson's HIV announcement, giving a huge spike to media interest in the cheerleaders and the Chill;

• Hire white limousines to drive up on the ice to deliver the Chill players;

• Buy a Zamboni ice-smoothing machine that was so old and unmanageable that the first time it was used the operator was booed off the ice and quit on the spot;

• Run a contest to find a singing fat lady, then let her stand behind the opponent's bench to sing when the game was out of the opposing team's reach (i.e., "It's ain't over 'til the fat lady sings").

• Make a one-night team name change to "The Mad Cows," complete with a giant inflatable cow, spotted uniforms, and a rink nicknamed of "The Meadow of Death;"

It helped that the first coach of the Chill, Terry "Rosco" Ruskowski, was himself a colorful former player and coach. Always highly quotable, he was on record for saying:

• [regarding one Chill player] Is he tough?....He couldn't lick his own lips;

• [to a referee] Sir, can I get a penalty for thinking?...No? Good, because I think you stink tonight;

• [on one of his inept players] He'd foul up a two-car funeral procession down a one-way street;

• My wife asked me if I loved her more than hockey....I said no, but I like you better than baseball

Paitson also reveals the historic behind-the-scenes environment and forces that opposed the Chill. From the Columbus Fairgrounds management which continually double-booked the ancient rink (an action which prevented the Chill from playing playoff games at home), to Ohio State University officials who built their own arena and refused to partner with any downtown facility to share sporting events, Paitson often found his team just minutes away from failure. 

But the Chill did succeed. Paitson and the team showed there was a tremendous interest in hockey as the franchise built two additional rinks in Columbus (the first minor league hockey team to own and operate its own arena) and created one of the largest amateur learn-to-skate programs in the country.

And the team did not disappoint on all fronts, getting to the playoffs in their third year despite averaging 43 penalty minutes per game in a 64-game season. Paitson offers a boatload of fascinating stories about this team. 

• A Chill game was dubbed by a local newspaper as "Mardi Gras meets high sticking." 

• The Chill once scored a goal when a broken stick blade went into the net rather than the puck, but the referee mistakenly called it a goal which gave them the game. 

• Jason Taylor was suspended 41 games for hitting an opposing player in the face with his stick - while the opponent was on the bench!

• Once, the coach was so disgusted with his team's poor play that he put the entire team on waivers (trading block) after the game. 

• The Chill goalie made 69 saves in a 9-8  double overtime loss. 

• Two players got into a fight - during the warm-up prior to the referees even being on the ice.

Such unexpected excitement led the Chill to sell out an incredible 83 games in a row, a record that may never be broken in minor league hockey. Eventually, based on the Chill's success, Columbus landed an expansion National Hockey League team, the Columbus Blue Jackets. In nine short years, the Chill paved the way for the formation of the Blue Jackets, building a new downtown arena, and fostering the "billion dollar, 75-acre mixed use development" in the Columbus Arena District.

It's a great story, fun to read, and historically fascinating. This real life Slap Shot team provided plenty of entertainment in the 90's and Paitson keeps that same pell-mell excitement alive in Chill Factor. Great for any hockey, marketing, and history fan.


Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Falla, Jack. Home Ice

True stores about one man's love for home ice skating, rinks, and the people who make and skate on them, from Gretzky's family to a completely enclosed professional backyard rink with scoreboard, Zamboni, and boards. Delightful writing and look into the world of informal pleasure skating. (previously reviewed here)

Home Ice

Falla, Jack. Home Ice: Reflections on Backyard Rinks and Frozen Ponds. New York: Viking. 2001. Print

First Sentences:

My backyard skating rink is important because it connects me with people I love.

Since I first built it seventeen winters ago, the rink has been a bridge to family and friends, a road back to the frozen ponds of my New England childhood, a lens through which I've watched my children and their friends grow up, and an arena wherein I've battled the encroachments of middle age.

Middle age is winning.

Description:

[This review is dedicated to my son who took up ice skating early and needed a place to practice. Without him, there would be no backyard rink at our house or late-night, 14-degree maintenance by me. Also, it is dedicated to my wife who put up with skated feet tromping through bushes and gardens looking for lost pucks, as well as my constant fretting about weather reports as I waited for the necessary 4+ days of freezing weather to flood the rink. Believe me, I can be a real bore about that!]

I know, I know, it's only September. Summer is still in its waning days, the colors of fall are on their way, and winter's cold is a distant, looming nightmare for many people. But September makes me dream happily of freezing days, bitter nights, and glorious ice. 

I am dreaming of my backyard ice rink. Only 32' x 16', it was located for seven years in our small backyard in temperate central Ohio. It was a rink too small for great skating, with house windows temptingly close for easy breaking, and located in a climate zone with madding weather that freezes late in the winter and thaws way too early.

But like Jack Falla in his wonderful memories, Home Ice: Reflections on Backyard Rinks and Frozen Ponds, during those short years I heard the siren call of the cold and tried to answer it by creating an icy microcosm for our son and his friends. Why does a Los Angeles native like me do this? Because there is nothing better than hearing kids skate, shoot pucks into the boards, collide, laugh, and then warm up by our fire pit with hot chocolate. I can think of no better way for children, preteens, and everyone else to interact with their fellow humans in the spirit of fun without worrying about appearance, sex, coolness, or rivalries. Backyard rinks rule!

Jack Falla in Home Ice explains this joy and personal fulfillment that comes with creating, maintaining, and using a backyard rink. He describes his early efforts, often flooding the neighbor's yard and his own basement. A sportswriters for Sports Illustrated, Falla wrote a short piece for SI in the 1980s about his home ice rink. Surprisingly, he received more comments and letters from readers about that tiny item than his feature article on the Stanley Cup playoffs.

He began to write more articles and reflections on home ice rinks, memories of skating on frozen ponds, and the people who enjoyed these spots. These articles and a few new ones are now compiled in Home Ice. 

Falla interviews pro skaters who grew up on ponds or small outdoor community rinks. These pros conclude that today's players all have more powerful slap shots because they grew up using inside rinks with boards. Pond hockey players had to chase errant pucks for long distances on the lake or buried in snowbanks. Controlled passing and shooting, albeit softer, was the trademark of the old pond hockey pro.

Home Ice also takes us along on a road trip with Falla as he explores the rink built by Walter Gretzky, Wayne's father, in a climate so cold he merely had to pile snow into barriers, then turn on a lawn sprinkler all night to fill in the depression. (Every other rink requires solid boards to hold the water/ice in place.) Gretzky remembers curing Wayne of leaving his hockey sticks, pucks and other stuff on the ice at night. He just turned on the rink sprinkler all night until the equipment was covered with water and frozen onto the surface.

Falla's family is deeply involved with the rink. His wife Barbara, who he met while skating, feels "anyone can love summer, but to love winter you have to carry your sunshine around with you." His family skates together, with friends, and alone, each helping maintain the ice by shoveling te ice clear of snow. The most dishonorable act is to come to the ice to skate without first helping shovel the rink.

Falla himself feels the calming strength of skating and shooting pucks when under stress or after the death of his mother. He finds it is a "good  and blameless thing to do when the world fills with confusion and goodbye."

Episode after episode revolves around relationships with the ice, the quiet nights, checking the local pond for ice strength (and falling in), the perfection of black ice, the frenzied pick-up games (including Barbara who goes into the boards hard with her stick up), and the sadness of the dismantling of the rink at the end of the too-short season.

It is fabulous book to bring back childhood and family memories of cold, ice, and skating. For those like me growing up in warm LA, it brings me back the pleasure of my own small rink. For others, it will show a world of cold that is welcoming, not threatening. Falla's goal for the book was to provide for his readers what my rink has so long provided for me -- joy, warmth, and light."

For me, he has succeeded. But I sincerely hope you read this small book for yourself and get a sense of this wonderful world of rinks, ponds, and outdoor skating. It is a delight you must at least read about. Who knows? Maybe you will be building you own rink someday, or at least taking the opportunity to skate outdoors on black ice.

Happy reading.

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Falla, Jack. Open Ice: Reflections and Confessions of a Hockey Lifer

More wonderful stories of Falla's experience playing, writing about, and otherwise experiencing hockey, including his 25 year quest to build the perfect backyard ice rink.

Orr, Bobby. Orr: My Story

With an honest voice, Bobby Orr narrates his life story and passion for hockey at every level. Not a tell-all book nor a vanity project to promote himself. Orr is a solid storyteller with in-depth reflections about the people and thrill of playing hockey at the highest level.