SPORTS DAILY: Another plot twist in Demolition ‘soap opera’

Barring something unforeseen (and when does anything like that happen in minor league hockey?), the Dayton Demolition will play at Hara Arena tonight.

The puck for the first home game since New Year’s Day is scheduled to drop at 7:30 against the Danville Dashers, all indications are.

Oh, and in case you missed it, the team has a new owner.

“The Dayton Professional Hockey Team is now under an ownership group based out of Chicago, Illinois and spearheaded by Joe Pace Sr.,” the Demolition announced on Twitter.

Players Brett Wall and Chad Bennett spoke highly of Pace while making blueberry muffins on a Dayton television show Wednesday afternoon.

“Guys are kind of excited to see what’s next,” Wall said as he poured mix into a pan.

The show’s host, a bubbly blonde, said she was also excited. Then she used the words “soap opera” as she rattled off all the hockey teams — Bombers, Ice Bandits, Gems, Demonz, Demolition, etc. — to call Dayton home in recent years.

Previous Demolition owner William Dadds, whose financial struggles led the team to seek refuge for one game at a recreational ice rink in Centerville, had been at odds with the Federal Hockey League over such rudimentary requirements as paying game officials.

“We tried to help him the best we could,” FHL commissioner Don Kirnan said. “We haven’t been informed about most of what he’s doing. We find out about the same time everybody else does.”

So, as the FHL confirmed in this terse press release on its website, for at least the second time in Dayton hockey history, a league essentially has separated an owner from his franchise.

Dadds, who brought the Demolition here this season from Massachusetts, where they had been the Berkshire Battalion, seemingly had lassoed an investor and stood poised to start fresh. At least that was the message recently conveyed by Hara, which had welcomed him back.

“Bill Dadds is firmly in the ownership position,” Karen Wampler, the building’s director of marketing, said just last week. “He has found some much-needed capital and is fully committed to pushing this thing forward.”

Guess not.

So now the job of keeping Dayton hockey alive falls to the new ownership group headed by Pace. According to the tweet, Pace “brings a hard-working, positive and upbeat attitude that will be contagious to players, management, and most importantly the fans and the community of Dayton.”

Pace plans to “keep professional hockey at the legendary Hara Arena!” the team also tweeted.

The more things change for the Browns …

Just when you think the Browns have moved on, here comes their 2013 defensive coordinator into the picture.

Not that bringing Ray Horton back should be construed as a negative development by any means. As coordinators go, he certainly can’t be any worse than Jim O’Neil, who was swept out with the Mike Pettine regime.

It’s just amusing that Horton should turn up again after being swept out two years ago with the Rob Chudzinski regime, which was given one season to work miracles and, shockingly, couldn’t.

In Cleveland, regimes come and go, and sometimes they bump into each other.

Meanwhile, the new head coach, Hue Jackson, hired some of his old cronies to be offensive assistants on Wednesday, and they all might benefit from the return of receiver Josh Gordon, who officially applied for reinstatement after sitting out the 2015 season with a substance-abuse suspension.

About the Author