Columnist Tim Graham: Don't worry: Stars won't skate away

Tim Graham's column appears Thursday. His media notebook appears Wednesday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4078.

The Las Vegas Thunder has decided to pack up its pucks, leaving us with one legitimate pro sports team.

Fingers have been pointed all year as the Thunder and the International Hockey League failed to extend the team's lease with the Thomas & Mack Center.

Ken Stickney, the most visible member of Mandalay Sports Entertainment, which owns the Thunder, pointed his finger at T&M director Pat Christenson after Christenson turned thumbs down on the hockey team last week.

The fans point their fingers at Mandalay Sports for not properly marketing the team and putting a poor product on the ice the last two seasons.

Now all we have is the Las Vegas Stars.

Mandalay Sports owns that team, too. But don't be alarmed.

The rolling Thunder does not translate into shooting Stars.

"It's the same ownership group," Stars general manager Don Logan said, "but they're so different. The Stars are a totally different mind-set. With baseball, you've got a formula that works."

The Stars never will have to worry about finding a place to play, and the game markets itself. The Thunder had neither going for it as soon as the hockey novelty wore off.

"Baseball is baseball," Logan said without trying to sound like James Earl Jones' "Field of Dreams" character. "Baseball endures -- in spite of all the stupid things we do as an industry. There's a thread that always runs through baseball and society."

That's why the Stars always will work here and the Thunder did not. The national pastime provides room for error. The Thunder found out -- often -- blunders aren't easily forgiven in a sport still trying to gain mainstream acceptance.

"We took too long to learn that," said Logan, who doubled as the Thunder's vice president of sales and marketing.

With the Thunder about to skate, Logan looks forward to the Stars becoming a more efficiently run franchise. No longer will Stars and Thunder employees suffer from schizophrenia after trying to sell baseball one day and hockey the next.

"It's tough to serve two masters," Logan said. "Now we can focus our attention to make the Stars bigger and better. I think it'll make it easier for everybody."

One area the Stars need to improve is attendance. Since the team was established in 1983, the population of Las Vegas has exploded, while average attendance has remained virtually the same.

The Stars averaged 4,878 fans their first year and 4,800 last year.

"People come to baseball games for entertainment, a soda, a beer and a hot dog," Logan said. "Every 7-Eleven, every grocery store, every bar and local casinos all have that. And if you pump 10 bucks into a video poker machine you might hit a royal flush.

"And we haven't been good for a long time."

Logan claims this year's team has the most potential since the late 1980s, when Sandy and Roberto Alomar, Joey Cora, Bip Roberts and Carlos Baerga were here.

Ten years from now, Las Vegans still will be able to compare Stars players to those of today.

Just as they'll compare Las Vegas' next minor-league flop to the Thunder.

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