Stacked deck: despite a gorgeous oceanside arena and a winning team, what are the odds that minor league hockey can thrive in a town like Atlantic City?

Hockey Digest, April, 2003 by Chuck O'Donnell

ROULETTE, POKER, AND BLACK-jack are big in Atlantic City, but 11 what about hockey? The Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies hope it will be.

The East Coast Hockey League team is its second year of existence, but how many more will there be? Minor league basketball failed here. Minor league baseball isn't doing much better. Even live harness racing couldn't cut it.

Will this New Jersey resort town inhabited on most days by people solely looking for a 83.99 lunch buffet and a hot quarter slot machine be willing and/or able to support a hockey team?

"It's out of our control as players," says Bullies forward Jim Henkel, "but we hope it stays here for a long time. This is a great place to play. Convention Hall is on the Boardwalk, just off the [Atlantic] Ocean. It's a beautiful area. We had great support in our first year and we're hoping that will happen in the second half of this year.

"We get out a lot and meet people at a lot of promotions. We do a lot of that kind of stuff and sometimes you'll meet people who didn't even know we had a team in Atlantic City. They'll say, `I didn't know there was a team here?' I'm like, `Come on. How couldn't you even know that there was a team here? Gimme a break.'"

Those people should discover what they're missing. The workman-like Bullies got to the Northern Conference finals last season and have been in first place for most of this season.

They are Bullies more in name than style, so you won't find the Hanson Brothers or even the Hunter Brothers on this team.

The Bullies don't lull the other team--and the fans--to sleep with a neutral-zone trap or other Greco-Roman hockey tactics. This is a hard-charging, fast-paced team that generates a lot of offense, scores a lot of goals, wins a lot of games, and keeps Convention Hall rocking.

The team is also playing in one of the most unique surroundings in North America. First of all, Convention Hall sits along the longest boardwalk in the world, home to frozen custard stands, fortune tellers, arcades, fudge and taffy shops, a giant mall shaped like a luxury liner, and a dozen or so casinos. If you need a "I lost my #$@! in Atlantic City" T-shirt, there's dozens of souvenir shops up and down the Boardwalk.

Secondly, there's the unusual juxtaposition of ice and water: From the entrance of Convention Hall, you could just about chuck a puck into the Atlantic Ocean. As that noted Jersey poet Bruce Springsteen once said, the wind whips down the boardwalk during the winter, but on a nice day early or late in the season, you can spend all day on the beach, then walk right up to the Hall.

Oh, and if there was ever a selling point for the Bullies to try to draw people, how about playing in the same venue that hosts the annual Miss America Pageant?

The Depression Era building has hosted everything from the Beatles to Britney Spears to Sesame Street Live. It was the longtime home for the minor league hockey Atlantic City Seagulls, as well as a host of NHL games.

The New York Rangers beat the Ottawa Senators, 3-1, in the first NHL game at Convention Center on December 28, 1929. In fact, when the Rangers played the Seagulls in 1933 in a game to raise money for Depression-devastated families, 22,157 fans packed into Convention Hall. For a half century, it stood as the biggest crowd ever to witness a hockey game.

Convention Hall looks a little different since the Seagulls disbanded 50 years ago. Don't tell the Miss America judges, but just before the Bullies moved in, she got a major facelift.

"It's a unique building," says Bill LeConey, who covers the team for the Press of Atlantic City. "It's an old building with lots of arches. The architecture of the building itself is beautiful. A few years ago they spent $90 million fixing it up. Now you have this great modern arena inside, with the old historical touches around it. They blended the old and the new really nicely.

"The only thing is it seats like 10,500 for a hockey game and it has this high ceiling. It's cavernous, and when there's not many people in the building, it looks like it's empty."

There's the part that LeConey says "is mind-boggling." Despite the arena, the Boardwalk, the surf and sand, and the successful and entertaining team, Convention Hall has been mostly empty this season. At about the midpoint of the season, the Bullies ranked 20th out of 27 teams in the ECHL in attendance, drawing about 2,600 a game.

Thanks to a big late-season surge in attendance last season, the Bullies averaged 3,600 a home game. The team is hoping the same thing happens this season. The Bullies aren't the only Atlantic City team to face attendance problems.

On June 24, 2001, the United States Basketball League's Atlantic City Seagulls lost to the Maryland Mustangs, 126-99, to finish at 0-28--the worst mark in the 19-year history of the league. It turned out to be the last game for this franchise that had won the league title three times in the preceding years. At the end, about 100 people were turning out to see the team play in the Atlantic City High School gym.