Skip to main content

Port Huron Hockey: Flags (2005-07)

OUR COMMUNITY! OUR TEAM!


     Port Huron got another shot at UHL hockey after the Beacons skipped town. The league awarded an expansion franchise to a non-profit organization led by local businessmen. The idea was that hockey teams struggled in Port Huron because the teams were owned by out-of-towners that were out of touch with the community.
     The new team would be called Flags, in honor of the original franchise that played in the IHL from 1962-81. They brought back the old logo and the Red Wings-like jerseys. At first, it looked like this team might have a shot at success. Their two-year existence, however, would disprove those hopes.

     The Flags were around while I was in the middle of mid-tier and student teaching, so I really didn't have any time for hockey games back then. I did make it to one game, and here's the program.

2005-06 Regular Season--Flags vs. Motor City
     Despite the fresh start, the new team, and the high hopes, the reality was that this was the third team in Port Huron since 2002. If the Flags planned on being successful in the long run, they really needed to hit the ground running and make as few mistakes as possible in their inaugural season. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be, as they made several key blunders that cut the legs out of the franchise.
     The first big mistake was their choice for head coach. The Flags hired Paul Willett, a long-time minor leaguer who had no head coaching experience. Even worse, he was in the middle of a sexual harassment lawsuit. Willett and GM Herb Hammond put together a weak hockey club that stumbled to a 20-32-5 record before Willett was let go. Defenseman Kam White took over, and the Flags ended up going 23-47-6, second-worst in the UHL. Despite the awful record, the Flags saw a surge in attendance, as the team averaged 2387 per game, the highest number since the Border Cats.
     The Flags were bad all over. As a team, they scored a pathetic 191 goals, worst in the league. Brett Lutes led the team in scoring, with 23 goals and 53 points. He was the only 20-goal scorer on the team, though Brad Mehalko managed 18 goals.
     It wasn't much better on defense. A porous defense made life miserable for Flags goaltenders, as the team allowed 327 goals, second-worst in the UHL. Despite the awful defense, the Flags only used two netminders, Scott Hay and Jeremy Symington. Hay took the brunt of the abuse that year, playing 58 games and going 18-34-3 with a 3.96 GAA. Symington made it into 32 games, going 5-13-3 with a 4.46 GAA.
     This program is from the only Flags game I made it to, a March game against the Motor City Mechanics. Kam White's crew lost, 2-1, in a shootout, just one of many losses that year.

     After a tough first season, the Flags hired former ECHL coach Stan Drulia for Season Two. Drulia did the best he could with a financially-strapped organization, guiding it to a 29-37-10 record and playoff appearance. However, the Flags were blown away by the first place Muskegon Fury in four straight in Round One. Attendance dropped back under 2000 per game, as the Flags averaged 1938 in their final season. After unsuccessfully attempting to find a new owner for the 2007-08 season, the Flags suspended operations.

     Naming a new team after a successful former team doesn't guarantee success. Sometimes, it works like gangbusters (IE: Flint Generals), sometimes it fails spectacularly (IE: Saginaw Gears). While the UHL Flags weren't as big a bomb as the UHL Gears, they didn't come close to being as successful as the IHL Flags were. Whether it was hiring a coach with a sexual harassment lawsuit, icing poor hockey teams, or even naming a former mayor the PR Director (who had no experience in that job, btw), the Flags were never long for the hockey world.
     I remember, after the second season, I drove up to Port Huron to look for a Flags jersey. I was looking for a replica, but after seeing that replicas had cheap, stamped on logos, I ended up buying Kam White's road gamer for $125. When I asked the lady at the desk if the team was coming back in 2007, she smiled and said "Well, we're trying." The Flags folded two weeks later. I like to think my $125 helped pay the electric bill.
     This program is a nice one. Lots of color pictures and articles about the old Flags, the current team and player bios. Plenty of advertisements as well. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Port Huron Hockey: Flags/Wings (1962-81)

Now, on to Port Huron.      Port Huron has had a long, yet checkered, history of pro hockey. The most successful franchise, by far, was the Port Huron Flags (also called Wings for a few years) of the IHL. The Flags were, for the most part, a competitve team on the ice, making the Turner Cup Finals seven times and winning the Cup on three occasions. For three years, (1971-74), the franchise was a farm team of the Detroit Red Wings, and sent numerous players on to the NHL in it's existence. However, the team had problems drawing big enough crowds. While the Flags lasted for nearly 20 years, former GM Morris Snider later admitted that the franchise could have folded three years before it actually did, due to declining attendance. I've found some Flags/Wings programs online over the years, and here's what I have. 1963-64 Regular Season--Flags vs. Windsor       1963-64 was the second year of existence for the Flags. After missing the playoffs in their inaugural cam

Fort Wayne Komets (1967-68, IHL)

1967-68 Regular Season--Komets vs. Des Moines Oak Leafs      1967-68 was the sixteenth season of Fort Wayne Komets hockey, all in the IHL. The team was coached by Ken Ullyot, who had been with the franchise since 1958. The Komets played      Having lost to Toledo in the 1967 Turner Cup Finals, the Komets slipped to fourth place in '67-68. While Muskegon ran away with first place, the battle for the second-fifth slots was hotly contested. Fort Wayne finished 30-29-13, their 73 points one ahead of Toledo and just five behind second place Dayton.      The Komets were also in fourth place in offense, scoring 282 times that year. Fort Wayne legend Len Thornson led the team with 38 goals and 97 points. Three others, Bob Baird, Randy Gates and Merv Dubchak, joined Thornson in the 30+ goal club. Three others scored at least 20 goals.      The Komets had the second-best defense in the IHL that season, allowing just 272 goals. Fort Wayne used three different goaltenders that year. Rob

Flint Generals yearbook (IHL, 1973-74)

     I recently bought two yearbooks from the Flint Generals of the IHL. This one is from the 1973-74 season. It's a 40-page book, all in black-and-white, and on glossy paper. Each player for that season has a full page photo and a short bio. The statistics and a team photo for each Generals season are included. Stats for every player that wore the "blue and gold" are listed in the back of the yearbook. Flint Journal sportswriter Len Hoyes added an article previewing the remainder of the 1973-74 campaign.       One thing that Hoyes noted in his article was about attendance: "With all of their problems, the Generals were still attracting fans at a rate of 3,950 per game. Attendance was down slightly, but Flint's percentage rate of almost 100 percent remained the envy of minor league hockey." (Hoyes, 1974)      The original Generals were a popular team for most of their existence, and attendance only bottomed out when the region's economy tanked