Nailers Roller Coaster Ride Hits Downturn
Attendance Problems Spark Fear Of Wheeling Losing Team

From the penthouse to the outhouse - that's how Wheeling Nailers assistant general manager Mark Landini describes the roller-coaster ride that has been the short history of the team.

In the fall of 1992, a hockey team known as the Carolina Thunderbirds relocated to Wheeling, W. Va., bringing the four-year old East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) to the Ohio Valley.

Things could not have started out better. The T-Birds came roaring out of the gate, fans flocked to the locally dubbed "Thunder Dome," and head coach Doug Sauter related perfectly to the blue-collar fans. The Thunderbirds were the best team in the league over the course of the regular season and reached the finals of the Riley Cup. They averaged nearly 4,700 fans per game, only 300 below Thunder Dome capacity, and tops in the ECHL.

The next two seasons provided more of the same. The Thunderbirds nearly averaged a complete sell-out during the 1993-94 season, and brought 4,800-plus per game to the arena the following season en route to winning their second regular season championship.

They made an early exit in the playoffs that spring, however, bowing out in the first round, and general manager John Kish felt a shake-up was needed. Sauter was fired, and replaced by Kish himself.

"People in Wheeling didn't understand the move," said Landini, who has been with the team since 1992. "Sauter was the first coach they city knew, the first hockey coach the city ever had, and Wheeling really embraced him. When Kish replaced him, it became kind of a good-guy/bad-guy thing. What the fans didn't understand was that Kish was just as important to the team's early success as Sauter was - he built the talent on those teams."

Then the hammer really came down. Prior to the 1996-97 season the team decided to change its name and logo, much to the dismay of the die-hard fans who had taken so well to the Thunderbirds only four years earlier.

"The T-Birds were our team," said Don Ryan, a Wellsburg resident who attends five or six games each season now, compared to the 20 or so he attended in the mid-'90s. "We identified with them right away, with the coach, with their attitude. We were the ones who called the Civic Center the Thunder Dome. Then they changed things on us and it wasn't quite the same. The Hammer Dome? Come on."

The Thunderbirds became the Nailers, the Thunder Dome became the Hammer Dome, and Tom McVie became the coach. Attendance plummetted to around 3,600 per game - a drop of 32 percent from just three seasons earlier.

The Nailers have not had a winning season or a playoff appearance since 1997-98. Interest in the team has faded - attendance now averages less than 2,400.

Even Mario Lemieux's brother Alain, the Nailers seventh coach in seven seasons, hasn't put more fans in the seats.

"We still have the die-hards who believe in us, but the possibility of leaving is a concern, absolutely," Landini said. "We think we can get it turned around on the ice, and if that happens, then the attendance is bound to pick up. But we have to start winning first."

Things have been looking up since the first of the year - in February, the Nailers were riding a seven-game unbeaten streak that put them back into the playoff race.

Still, Landini shakes his head when he thinks of the "good old days" - only a few seasons ago.

"It's hard to believe how quickly things can change. It causes you to second guess all the things that happened since then, the big changes as well as the small ones. We were the best team in the league for two of our first three years, and tops in attendance all three," he recalls. "Now, we're the worst team with the worst attendance. The penthouse to the outhouse.