Orlando Rollergators Roller Hockey International

Orlando Rollergators

Roller Hockey International (1995)

Tombstone

Born: April 1995 – The Edmonton Sled Dogs relocate to Orlando, FL
Re-Branded: 
March 1996 (Orlando Jackals)

First Game: June 12, 1995 (L 9-4 @ Montreal Roadrunners)
Last Game: August 11, 1995 (L 10-6 @ Ottawa Loggers)

Murphy Cup Championships: None

Arena

Orlando Arena (16,500)
Opened: 1989
Demolished: 2012

Marketing

Team Colors: 

  • 1995: Black, White & Green

Ownership

 

Editor's Pick

Wheelers, Dealers, Pucks & Bucks

A Rocking History of Roller Hockey International
By Richard Neil Graham
 

Who won the first professional sports championship for the city of Anaheim? Which Roller Hockey International team owner posed for Playboy? Which RHI team’s logo did Sports Illustrated describe as looking like “a malevolent vacuum-cleaner attachment?” Which coach won two championships for two different teams in RHI’s first two seasons? Why were fans nearly ejected from the Oakland Skates’ arena for celebrating a hat trick?

Author Richard Graham takes you behind the scenes to show how Dennis Murphy created Roller Hockey International, and why Murphy might be the most unlikely, least known and most influential visionary in North American professional sports history.

 
When you make a purchase through an affiliate link like this one, Fun While It Lasted earns a commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support!

 

Background

Unfamiliar sport. Bad market. Dumb name. Late start. Out of state owners. Check, check, check, check and…check. The Orlando Rollergators of Roller Hockey International (RHI) reside securely in our One-Year Wonders file of ill-conceived and unlamented minor league teams.

The Rollergators joined RHI as a hastily organized entry in April 1995 just two months before the start of the league’s third season. Primary owner Dr. Richard Commentucci was the team orthopedist for the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and partner Slava Fetisov was one of the Devil’s top stars. Both men were consumed with the 1995 NHL playoffs while the Rollergators scrambled to get organized 1,000 miles away. The men were previously involved with RHI’s defunct Las Vegas Flash club, which folded after one season of play in 1994.

Like Vegas, Central Florida is a notorious graveyard for goofy start-up sports leagues. One notable exception was the Orlando Predators of the Arena Football League, a wildly popular club during the 1990’s which routinely sold out the Orlando Arena.  Orlando wasn’t big enough for two made-for-cable Frankensports. The fans voted with their pocketbooks: they preferred the Preds.  So did the managers of the Orlando Arena, who sensibly gave the Predators the prime weekend dates and gave the Rollergators the leftover garbage: a bunch of Monday and Wednesday nights.

1995 Orlando Rollergators Roller Hockey Newspaper Advertisement

Performance

Long-time NHL winger Walt Poddubny was the Rollergators coach. At age 35 Poddubny occasionally strapped on the in-line skates as well. Other than Poddubny, the only Rollergator with NHL experience was goaltender David Goverde who appeared in 5 games for the Los Angeles Kings several years earlier.

In ten home games in 1995, the Rollergators never cracked 2,000 fans in the 13,000-seat building.  The ‘Gators averaged 1,355 fans per game and finished last place in their division at 7-16.

Demise

Rather improbably, Roller Hockey International returned to Orlando the following summer.  New owner Norton Herrick had real money, unlike the ‘Gators guys. The real estate mogul previously tried to bring Major League Baseball to Orlando and was a rumored suitor for the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers at one point in the 1990’s. In addition to taking over the Orlando franchise in early 1996, Herrick bought 25% of RHI itself.

Herrick re-branded the Rollergators as the Orlando Jackals in March 1996. He sunk millions into the promotion of roller hockey and the Jackals and won the league’s Murphy Cup championship in his first season of 1996.  The sport was still a loser on the balance sheet, however.  For his passion and largesse, Herrick lost a reported $4 million on the Jackals over two seasons from 1996 to 1997.

The Jackals and Roller Hockey International both closed their doors in late 1997. After a year off, RHI returned to stage a final season in 1999 and then folded once and for all.

 

Roller Hockey International Shop

 

 

In Memoriam

Rollergators head coach Walt Poddubny died of a heart attack on March 21, 2009 at age 49. New York Daily News obituary.

 

Links

Roller Hockey International Media Guides

Roller Hockey International Programs

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Comments

One Response

  1. Alright, I’m going to tell you all a story, that I know I will get called out on…but my friends it is absolutely true, and if any of you know me, then you’ll believe me as I write this post…

    Back in 1993-94 I operated a small Double “A” minor league basketball team in Allentown, Pennsylvania – the 2nd incarnation of the Allentown Jets. This was at the time when basketball only had one minor league…the Continental Basketball Association or CBA and the Atlantic Basketball Association (ABA) was a great weekend minor league with six teams, four in Pennsylvania, one in Maryland and one in Delaware.

    I had been with the ABA pretty much since its inception and had acted as the league’s original Deputy Commissioner for the year before the games started. I was personally responsible, along with league president George Daniel (who is now the Commissioner for the National Lacrosse League) for recruiting three of the teams into the league (Pottsville, Scranton and Frederick, MD) as well as keeping my own team Allentown in the right direction. Not knowing too much about professional basketball, I began researching the original Jets and the league they played in, the Eastern Basketball Alliance (which reformed into the CBA in 1978). That led me into borrowing and then later purchasing a copy of Terry Pluto’s great book “Loose Balls” about the American Basketball Association. I loved that book and I loved the characters involved in it.

    Our year in Allentown was both joyous and sad. We drew great crowds (averaging around 2,500 patrons) for the first few games, and then the winter of 1994 came and destroyed us. Games were postponed, cancelled, or worse – played before small crowds who dared to come out in the bad weather. The team, while not quite on a shoestring budget, still didn’t have deep pockets to start with, so things began to get financially tough for the team.

    While looking for investors I had remembered that I had spoken to Dennis Murphy – thee Dennis Murphy, the original founder of the ABA to fill him in on our project and see if I could pick his brain from time to time. During one of our conversations he told me that a bunch of the guys he had dealt with from the ABA were in a new venture of his – Roller Hockey International, including George Mikan who was going to own the Chicago team! He said that even though he was busy with the RHI I could call him from time to time to talk. From that point on Dennis and I spoke about three times.

    During the near end of the season when money was getting tougher and tougher, I arranged to have a conference call with one of the owners of the team Mark Suter, our GM and Head Coach Billy Avant and myself with Dennis. He told us to call at 4 PM his time (which was 8 PM our time). We explained our problems trying to obtain investors and what direction did he think we should go. We were really seeing if he knew a deep pocket that might throw a few bucks our way. He gave us his opinions and thoughts, but not knowing the situation personally in Allentown he really couldn’t help us. Then near the end of our two-hour conversation he asked if we had heard of the RHI. I said I had, and I knew that the league was going into the second season. He wanted to know if we wanted to own a team in Allentown, PA for the 1995 season. I explained that even though I thought our market would be perfect for a RHI team, there just wasn’t an arena for the team to play in. Then he mentioned that he was looking for an investor to play in Orlando at the Orlando Arena and asked if we wanted to try to put a group together. I explained that even though the offer was tempting, our organization was in such disarray that I didn’t know the right people to put up that kind of money for the team. He understood and wished us luck and then before we hung up I said to him – half kiddingly, you know what you should call the team in Orlando, he remained silent while I gave him the name, the Roller Gators – you know like roller skaters, but Roller Gators, that would have a great logo to go with it (which they didn’t). He chuckled, “Roller Gators, that’s kinda funny. I like that, we might just use that,” and with that our conversation finished and we hung up. Less than 20 seconds later, Billy Avant looks at me and goes “Roller Gators, are you kidding me.” The Allentown Jets would eventually folded three months later in the summer, with only a few “tire kickers” looking to purchase the team.

    About a year later, my phone rings and it’s Billy calling from his home in Willingboro, NJ. “You are not going to believe what I just read,” he says. “What’s that Coach?” I asked. He replies, “The new roller hockey team that’s going to play in Orlando is going to be called the Roller Gators – can you believe that…the f***ing Roller Gators! You should sue for naming rights,” as he laughed.

    So point blank blame me for the f***ing Roller Gators. They changed the name the next year, but to me it they should have kept it, because it was original.

    That’s the story and it’s all true.

    Just an aside; that was the last time I spoke to Dennis Muphy. Mark Suter and I are still friends, in fact we even had lunch together today, the day I’m writing this – we were even the Best Man at both of our weddings and Billy was a groomsman for both of us. My good friend and brother Coach William Avant died in 2008, the weekend I was away at a reunion for a baseball team that I worked for. Billy taught me one lesson in life that I share with you… “If it don’t make dollars, it don’t make cents (sense).” And as for me, well after almost 20 years of being out of minor league sports, the siren song has be calling me back – I’ve dabbled a little in independent league hockey, and this past summer I was the GM of a minor league football team here in Allentown and now I’m talking with a basketball league to do some consulting and recruiting for new teams. But think about it for a second; that could have been my team: THEE ORLANDO ROLLER GATORS!

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