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Hockeyville a rousing success for Marquette, Lakeview Arena

MiHockey Staff
Photo by Michael Caples/MiHockey
Photo by Michael Caples/MiHockey

 

By @StefanKubus –

MARQUETTE – It started as a pipe dream, a shot in the dark, a single hopeful essay among over 1,000.

But what it ultimately turned into, not even Fritz Hoenke could’ve imagined.

Hoenke was the one who wrote the winning essay to help Marquette be named Kraft Hockeyville for 2016. Now, Lakeview Arena has $150,000 to work with for arena upgrades and saw the Buffalo Sabres and Carolina Hurricanes battle in NHL preseason action, the first time the NHL has been in Marquette since 1954.

The Sabres ended up winning the preseason contest 2-0, but the story of the night was what happened off the ice, not on it.

“It feels unreal quite honestly,” Hoenke said. “Earlier, we were watching the practices and watching these world-class athletes out there shooting on our ice in Marquette in our little old arena. You just can’t believe it when you see it. I was thinking about it, the old adage is, ‘It’s a dream come true.’ The reality is, it’s not, because who would’ve ever dreamed this? We certainly wouldn’t have.”

Andrew MacIver is the rink manager of the victorious Lakeview Arena and has been at the forefront of the festivities.Relieved at the exceptional turnout, MacIver was the first to say that it took the efforts and support of the entire surrounding community to make it happen.

“Now that this all came together, it’s very relieving to see what this has become,” MacIver said. “It was a huge community effort. For the whole community to band together and come and help us out at this rink, to clean it up, to get the paint on the walls, to help us with the glass and the boards, get everything cleaned up, plus all the other systems that we had to do here, we’re kind of isolated up here in the Upper Peninsula, so we kind of rely on each other for services. A lot of people really took the time out of their days to help and get this place to what it needed to be for Hockeyville and it’s just been an absolute pleasure to have the NHL and NBC and all the crews here working with them.”

Even players from the Northern Michigan team – who play right next door inside the Berry Events Center – helped out, serving as ushers for fans throughout the sections of the arena.

“It feels good, I’ve been in Marquette for four years now and I’ve never seen so much excitement,” senior forward and Pinckney native Dominik Shine said. “It’s good to see and hopefully it carries over to our games, too. People love hockey here.

“The whole week we’ve had little kids running around in their jerseys and things like that. They get to meet us and meet some NHL players, and I think they’re all really excited about hockey this year.”

Buffalo Sabres forward Marcus Foligno – whose dad Mike was a former third-overall draft pick by the Red Wings and suited up for Detroit from 1979-82 – had played in tournaments in Michigan growing up, but never made it up to Marquette.

“It was awesome, kind of brings you back to your young days when you’d see pros and get pretty big-eyed,” Foligno said. “It was fun, everyone was greeting you on the way in, too, which was pretty exciting and nice to see. Everyone was pretty welcoming. Everyone said, ‘Welcome to Marquette” and it’s good to see the kids out here, too, the Marquette youth team. It’s good just to talk to them for a bit.”

It’s not just the game that the arena and community get to relish. The effects from Hockeyville will be felt for a long time, as there’s also $150,000 in arena upgrades to look forward to.

“The funding, that’s just more so an added bonus at this point,” MacIver said. “Really it’s just the mindset of this that was probably the best part. The $150,000, we weighed out a lot of options of what we could use this money for. Our first priority was No. 1, get this place game ready. With that said, the NHL did kind of assist us with some of the things we needed to do to meet their specs because it wouldn’t necessarily be something we had to spend our money on for feasibility’s sake. So some of the things we’re looking at are – some of our energy costs are huge, our operational costs are huge, just like most other rinks in the country. So when we’re looking at this $150,000, we’re gonna see what’s the most feasible way to allocate that toward projects where we can reduce our operating costs and keep hockey affordable for the community, the hockey, the figure skating, the public skating. If we can keep that affordable and keep this place going, it’s just going to be a huge economic driver for our community, it’s going to be a great recreational experience for all the users.”

MacIver added it’s probably the biggest thing that’s happened in Marquette in a long time, “if not the biggest.”

Hurricanes assistant GM Mike Vellucci, formerly with the Plymouth Whalers and a Michigan native himself, said it was special just knowing that the majority of the people in attendance likely haven’t seen an NHL game up close before.

“Well they never have probably, most of them, I’d probably say 95-percent of them,” Vellucci said. “And I was just talking to a gentleman here, he’s a Wings fan and watches the Blackhawks, and now he’s a Carolina fan so it’s a good way for us to grow our fanbase. And it’s a great experience for a young kid. He missed school today, he got to go out on the ice to meet the players, and the smile on his face was priceless.”