Bees’ franchise confident entering fifth season of existence

HIDALGO — Minor league teams usually aren’t the most stable enterprises.

Many teams fold quickly, others move two or three times because of stadium or ownership issues unheard of at the major league level. So, as the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees enter their fifth season of existence, general manager Grant Buckborough has earned the right to be confident.

Buckborough, entering his third season as GM and fifth overall with the organization, remembers when the team was setting up in 2003, trying to get itself noticed in a “non-traditional” hockey market. Against a backdrop of palm trees, high school football and Mexico, a Double A-level hockey team was springing up.

“I never had any doubt this was going to work,” Buckborough said in his thick Ontario accent, one that is easily associated with hockey. “I wouldn’t have come down here if I didn’t think it would.”

Now, four years later, Buckborough is more confident of the team’s future. Even with two minor league basketball teams starting play this fall (the CBA Silverados and the NBADL Vipers), Buckborough said the Killer Bees have no reason to worry about where they will be five years from now.

“I’m already looking forward to the 10th anniversary,” Buckborough said.

“I think we’ll be in better shape then than we are in now.”

As for right now, the Bees are coming off their fourth straight season where they’ve drawn an average of at least 4,900 fans per game. While that is just a little better than half of the highest average attendance in the league over that period, the Bees did it in Dodge Arena, an arena that seats less than 6,000 for hockey, more than three times smaller than the Ford Center, home of the Oklahoma City Blazers.

Hockey, despite not having much of a history in the Valley, has advantages some sports don’t.

“Minor league sports here have a niche,” said Jim Lee, a professor of business and economics at Texas A&M Corpus Christi. “You go to Dallas for football and maybe San Antonio for basketball. You go here for minor league sports.

“It has a lot to do with the vitality of the sport. Hockey is a very fast and very active sport. It has some unique features.”

But some of those unique features, such as being played on ice, could hinder the growth of the sport in the Valley, Lee said.

“I still don’t think hockey is going to get any bigger in South Texas,” Lee said. “There’s no snow and hardly anyone skates around here.”

While that may be true, the Valley also attracts thousands of so-called “Winter Texans” trying to escape cold weather. Many of the Winter Texans are Canadian, although they do not make up much of the team’s fan base.

Buckborough said that “very few” of the team’s season ticket holders are Winter Texans, and that 200 to 400 of the fans at games are from areas other than the Valley.

“It’s not as much as we probably thought,” Buckborough said. “But there is a lot of support.”

Support of the team is one thing. Whether fans are supporting hockey, or just a team with the name “Rio Grande Valley” is something else. Because of the area’s scant history with the sport, the Killer Bees have had a philosophy that probably isn’t one a team in a more established hockey market would.

“If we were down here trying to sell hockey we wouldn’t be successful. We’re not trying to sell hockey. We’re trying to sell entertainment,” Buckborough said. “I think we’ve done a good job in that and that plays a big part in our success the last four years.”

The last four years, however, haven’t been too kind to the NHL. Four years ago, the NHL was still on a television network most people could find and was still a year away from the worst labor showdown in American sports history. Today, the NHL gets about as much attention as the Arena Football League and has dropped out of what was once considered America’s “Big 4” sports.

That doesn’t worry Buckborough, who said those factors don’t influence the direction of the Killer Bees.

“It’s a great sport that translates at any level,” Buckborough said. “It’s entertaining anywhere and that’s something that some sports can’t say.”

In terms of the Valley, however, Lee said the Killer Bees came into existence at a great time.

“They had great timing,” Lee said. “They came when a new facility was being built. They were just a part of the increasing quality of life here.”

While being a part of an increasing quality of life is a good thing, it may have some drawbacks for the Bees. Namely, winter competition.

Surprisingly to some, Buckborough sounded as if he was welcoming the Vipers and Sliverados to the Valley, even though they would add competition for the fans’ money.

“I don’t put much thought into it,” Buckborough said. “I hope both teams are successful.”

Lee, however, wasn’t so sure Buckborough should be so welcoming of more competition.

“I don’t know how long this is all going to work for all the teams,” said Lee, who added basketball has an advantage because more Valley residents are familiar with the sport. “It’s going to be very competitive with the new teams coming into the area.”

Brian Sandalow covers the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4436.