Columnist Ron Kantowski: Thunder owners made bad choices long ago

Ron Kantowski's notes column appears Tuesday and Thursday. Reach him at ron @ lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

The most stunning development over the past weekend was not that the Thunder is on its way to folding, leaving town or going dark for next season, but that Thomas & Mack director Pat Christenson somehow is responsible for it.

That's like saying the guy who rented you a car is to blame when you wrap it around a pole.

Factions within the Thunder, the IHL and even the local media say Christenson is the bad guy for driving a hard bargain -- or no bargain at all -- when it came time for the hockey team to negotiate a new lease.

Whether that's true or not is irrelevant, only because this much is true: The Thunder and UNLV have not seen eye-to-eye on the lease since the franchise's inception.

So why didn't the Thunder just bite the bullet on its original Zamboni investment and build its own rink five years ago? Or why didn't it talk Mandalay Entertainment into doing the same last year, when the movie moguls came on board as co-owners of the Thunder and Stars?

Even after Arnold and George Clooney were paid for "Batman The Movie" the Mandalay guys still had to have a few nickels left over for hockey, didn't they?

"That's a question that somebody ... needs to ask," one club official agreed.

Instead of foolishly spending money on female goalies or disgruntled NHL holdouts looking for a cushy place to while away a contract squabble, the Thunder should have been investing in a home of its own and a full-fledged NHL affiliation.

That's the formula the Michigan K-Wings have used to become the IHL's second-oldest continuous running franchise.

The K-Wings play their home games in a closet (K-Wings Stadium seats 5,113), yet the Kalamazoo-based team has managed to survive for 24 years. They get a big assist from the NHL's Dallas Stars, who pay most of the player freight.

Triple-A baseball works the same way.

The Las Vegas Stars are considered the only successful pro sports franchise in Las Vegas' checkered history as a pro sports town. But were it not for the Padres' financial support and a sweetheart deal at Cashman Field, they'd be a distant memory, too.

In retrospect, other than timing the club's formation (either by design or dumb luck) to coincide with a low ebb in the UNLV basketball program when Rollie Massimino replaced Jerry Tarkanian as head coach, the Thunder front office simply didn't have a clue about how to make minor league hockey work here.

So once the novelty wore off, it only was a matter of time until the Thunder went the way of the Slinky or a Cabbage Patch doll.

Regardless of what Pat Christenson was getting for the rent.

* NOT THE ANSWER: Now the World Boxing Council wants to post judges scores after the fourth and eighth rounds of fights. Once and for all, the problem is not making the scores of the judges public. It's making the judges themselves more competent and/or honorable. A bad scoresheet is a bad scoresheet, whether it's posted on a scoreboard, run up a flagpole or kept hermetically sealed in a mayonaise jar on Funk and Wagnall's porch.

* NAILS ON A CHALKBOARD: Three excellent performers with not-so-excellent voices: Jockey Julie Krone, gymnast Kerri Strug, stock car racer Bill Elliott. If the first two ever did an interview together, they could use it at dog obedience school.

* TOUGH GLOVE: Former Kansas City Royals center fielder Amos Otis has a name right out of a Jerry Reed song. But here's a little-known fact about the former American League all-star: He used one fielders glove during his entire career, which lasted from 1967-84. "Back then, you were really lucky if you found a good glove," said Bob Clenhagen, who has spent the past 22 years making Rawlings gloves and mitts for major leaguers. "And if you did, you'd hang onto it."

* CAN YOU DIGGS IT? UNLV finally recruited somebody who can make free throws. Trevor Diggs, the shooting guard out of Kilgore (Texas) College who signed with UNLV last week, hit 87 percent of his charity tosses last season, which easily makes him the Rebels' best free-throw shooter. Last year, UNLV only had three regulars among its rotation -- Desmond Herod at 75 percent, Shawn Marion at 73 and Kevin Simmons at an even 70 -- hit a modest 70 percent from the stripe. Only one member of that trio (Marion) will be back next season.

* DOUBLE DUTY? If highly touted quarterback prospect Jason Thomas, formerly of Southern Cal, winds up transferring to UNLV, it could be a bonus for Bill Bayno's basketball program. Thomas, who stands 6-foot-5 and weighs 230 pounds, is said to be an excellent small forward who rebounds better than Liz Taylor. He was pencilled in to play both football and basketball at USC before injuring his ankle.

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