After a ten year hiatus professional hockey returns to the Berglund Center and the Roanoke Valley next fall when the Roanoke Rail Yard Dawgs make their Southern Professional Hockey League debut. The team has already produced a logo, team colors and is selling season tickets and merchandise for a 28 game home schedule.
A consortium of owners that include the McGinn family of Ontario, Canada – three of whom have played in the National Hockey League – and local parties are in the mix. Team president Bob McGinn, a retired businessman from Toronto, is the team president.
McGinn said he was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for the team – call it pent up demand – when he helped unveil the team name and logo at the Berglund Special Events Center in mid-November. At least 500 showed up and many cheered loudly when the team’s logo was put up on a big screen. “I’m just over the moon,” said McGinn, “it’s fabulous.”
McGinn says the local owners “went into a room” and brainstormed a name for the team, coming up with several concepts they then forwarded to the McGinns. “We picked the Rail Yard Dawgs. It just kept jumping off the page and fit the community so well.” He also gave one of the first jerseys to former Virginia Lancers owner Henry Brabham – now wheelchair bound – who sat in the first row at the unveiling.
“I was shaking,” said McGinn, “I was more nervous doing that than doing my speech, but we need to honor the past.”
Brabham was also one of the founders of the East Coast Hockey League, also home to the defunct Roanoke Express. Now the key is to translate the enthusiasm at the logo and name unveiling into ticket sales. A throng at the table inquiring about season ticket packages was encouraging to McGinn.
The man who designed the team logo, minority owner Rob McDougal, used colors from the three NHL teams McGinn’s sons have played for to come up with the color scheme for the Rail Yard Dawgs. Those teams were the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Buffalo Sabres and the Carolina Hurricanes. The Mill Mountain Star also graces each shoulder of the team’s uniform.
McDougal took about five weeks to come up with a logo once the McGinns gave him the team name. “I knew that it had to be nasty,” he said of something called a Rail Yard Dawg. McDougal didn’t see his logo on jerseys and t-shirts until he showed up at the unveiling. “It was a bit overwhelming. I’m just blown away by the amount of people that are here. I can’t wait to get this city rocking and rolling.”
Long time hockey fan Julia Mooney, who dates back to the Express days, said she loved the new logo and name: “it represents Roanoke very good. It’s amazing to see all of these hockey fans coming out. I’m excited to see pro hockey back.”
Roanoke City Manager Chris Morrill was also surprised by the size of the turnout: “to see this amount of support for hockey is fantastic. I think it shows the excitement. You can feel it in the room. I hope that translates into good ticket sales.”
By Gene Marrano