JustAGuy

I remember when they said the Jackals were going to become community owned. This idea was floated around in Johnstown to save the Johnstown Chiefs. It didn't happen but Elmira sold it but didn't do it that way. It became a board of 20 businessmen who either owned their business, were vice presidents at their companies or the president. How I know this? I was related to one. All these guys were, were buddies of the chamber of commerce(if not even directly involved)it was a bunch of people who had no business being involved with a hockey team outside of they were business people but it's not like they knew jack about hockey. I never asked about the parameters of how it functioned but I highly doubt these guys had to spend a dime of their own money on the operation. This was I think the last year of Freeman run tenureship. It seemed like a token to get on the good side of the community.

The L is def another shady operation. They don't pay taxes or didn't for months? Now I think within the last couple of months they think they have the right to tell folks where they can and can't park create a reason but won'tjust be honest that they need more revenue from things like parking. Although they have zero right to make a demand that nobody park in said area. That's up to much higher powers. The idea itself might be an alright concept but it is interesting how they just got up and running in an old church to have a venue like that. I'm not sure what kinds of bands they have there outside of this country stuff. But I'm not a music follower anyways truthfully for the most part.

A government will never be transparent with you. Especially if being transparent does them no favors. If our tax dollars have ever been going to this place then it's an epic failure. If the equipment doesn't work. Even if you get a guy like Donner who is probably a multi millionsire(I believe he was one time a part owner of the Rochester Americans and Knighthawks) if you have to pump a few hundred thousand to make the arena operable then pay for utilities you won't even last. Sounds like he got screwed a bit. Even if he's lying the ice equipment down there has been shit for well over a solid decade. Not to mention the ice itself had that ring issue in like 2009 or 2010. The ice never looked the same. The only thing I can see them doing is trying to sucker money out of the public. I'm surprised they backed out on bulldozing the place. I wonder what changed that course. Bulldozing would be a mafia style move and every criminal hand would get out of this. They must get a tax write off on this joint. It's never profited it's the only reason why I could think they don't wanna tear it down in the end. Not sure this county has much to write off anymore with all the old empty unoccupied buildings downtown.

Jon Lovitz is nothing worth seeing but I guess the original attempt was more than Roberto Nichols ever dd. The Freeman years brought in squat and whoever else owned before that. The beginning years they brought some stuff in initially then it basically all stopped. I don't count free graduations for CCC and Chemung county high schools as entertainment. Donner did at least bring in lacrosse. Maybe basketball is the ticket but the welfare bulldogs were a criminal enterprise franchise that nobody wanted to go to the ghetto Southside YMCA to see play.

It's funny to me how hush hush this truly all is. So the IDA is putting together a management team(this eludes to the management team not necessarily existing) leaving the question are they involved and forming it directly? I feel like it's just a really cute spin on recycling old things. There is a part of me that feels for Dnner if the rumors are true that when he got in the equipment abs arena was in poor condition. Although Robbie Nichols made the same type of claims. So either there is some validity or everyone just recycles the same scam. The IDA expecting every new tenant to pay everything for them but have the means to make all the repairs necessary is quite an absurd demand. It's as dumb as them saying....anyone who buys this joint has to pay for all the debt racked up by Freeman and Afr and whoever else ran the Jackals years after Freeman. Maybe Robbie Nichols was right that it's all politics I wouldn't deny that idea. I have no idea what these people really want.

The government doesn't care about you or what you want. They give you social programs as breadcrumbs to keep the dumbed down masses quiet. This is also why they give you entertainment like the arena, sports and music and blah blah blah. So we all know the arena pays no taxes. Do any of these people sitting on said board? Do the politicians? I'd bet no no no and no. If they do probably not as much as they should.... A serious question for the masses is why do you play ball? It's bad enough they have us in the slave force spending most of our waking time doing something we wouldn't want to do if we weren't paid just enough to continue. But why pay taxes? If the whole community decides this year not to pay taxes they wouldn't do shitttttt. Why? Because there are more of us than there are them. They know this at the state, national and global levels. This is why they always keep us divided. The easiest way to divide apopulous is by race and gender though. But they still can do it with little things they call politics. Here in little Elmira an arena is a big divisive thing. I think everyone could agree if we could make it work it would be beneficial. But we can't make it work. Not that the local government isn't intentionally making that happen or anything. But they are reaping the benefits of the ruins it's been. Dudes owning businesses or being say Santulli getting to sit on an advisory board overseeing it all. I wonder why Santulli botched the alleged arena deal of 2017. He was old as dirt by then and heading out the floor but what did he stand to gain? When he retired did he get to keep his post or was it shifted over to Chris Moss?

Are any of these people still on this said board? Does it still exist??? Nice to see old man Santulli was on it. The guy quoted as saying the county doesn't wanna be in the arena business? Yet he was directly connected to the arena power structure. No conflict of interests there. Hmm....Tom Freeman. The guy they later gave the arena to then he gave it back? Not a rocket there at all..... Haha I can't help but laugh that the ultimate sellout Johnny Pothead Jr was on there though. He sure made out with the sale of that company. That board is all snakes all the time though.

I remember they used to do high school basketball in there every December for a tournament on a Saturday. Well it wasn't a tournament but a bunch of local schools playing each other. Even had PA teams. Granted now that corning and Elmira merged their schools there are now less schools around to make that happen? Think they did high school wrestling too? The year I graduated and the years around it the high schools graduated there but I don't think they paid a dime to do it. I think every high school in the County did it except for Edison and ND(probably cause they are private) I'm not a fan of country music unfortunately that redneck shit rules around here. Tag's is garbage and the guy is a horses ass but they used to bring in some rock and alternative tickets. The arena has done old foggiest like Bob Dylan. The only thing they ever put on that I had interest in seeing was Staind and that was eons ago in like 2005 or 2006 or whenever it was.

I guess we will never really agree on it. Not that I care either way I do hate living in this shithole area that has very little to do but a lot of crime, drugs and welfare. Of course it hasn't turned a profit but at this juncture who cares. This county has a lot of dead and decaying buildings that are standing and offer nothing but painful memories and a waste of space. Now that the local government is in control that won't happen. They can play Afrs old game and now benefit. They had a bum that asshole Freeman who just up and ditched it and handed it over to these Clow s for free. Nevermimd that bozo has a conflict of interest with the airport but the buddies of the guy Adore that clown. He was supposed to be the savior. He was worse to happen for that place than Afr or the IDA just about.

Didn't they claim Freeman was gunna do that the day hw took over? Never happened.

Well it's not so much being dazzled as it is having multi billion and money to piss away. I guess that would be the bottomline big thing. I think it's not about hockey in general but it's quality hockey. This league is like a beer league pickup on a Wednesday.the Jackals would get decent attendance until the whole thing became so God damn political

Quite different though to get 50,000 drunks to watch phish so to speak or however many it was for example. With all the cp sites and so forth you have the space. Nobody is gunna come to a 4K spot unless you play them handsomely. There is a big big difference. The Glen has existed for decades and has had big things way before Printup. Summer Jam and so forth. They had the Nascar race before him. It was an interesting guess or thought though

Interesting thought. But Printup isn't a local so it would be very strange. Printup is a guy who has worked for Nascar for a few tracks. I had no idea they owned the Glen. Probably the only reason it still operates and gets a race. He said when he retired he wanted to spend more time with his family. I don't think he has any real roots here but he did run for that silly congressional race or legislature awhile back. Got creamed but he did run. I guess I wonder what a guy with a career in NASCAR would know about the arena business or why he would even want to get into it. It just doesn't add up unless he owes one of these goons some kinda favor.

LMAOOOOOOOOOOO. The shit show continues. The FPHL and IDA are going to share a team???? There is no known actual tenant or physical person going to be running the arena but the IDA magically wants to be involved???apparently getting lacrosse back??? All this if Steve Donner isn't involved? Color me one to think Steve Donner isn't the problem. Maybe a part but the IDA is a bigger constant problem then him. The same IDA that has a member saying they would eliminate Sperr park(not that it means anything to me)to get a stupid travel truck stop by the airport? We don't need a travel truck stop. Only locals go to the airport here really. Mark Margeson is a joke and WETM having their sports guy praise him for transparency is hilarious. I did root for failure with Tom Freeman but I'm really hoping this fflops.these bozos have no clue. Nobody wants FPHL hockey. They didn't ith Robbie handing out freebies and they didn't with Donner's hype. If they really are he'll bent on going all in the least they should have done was take on the SPHL or try for the ECHL again. The FPHL is not gunna attract a mass audience.

The arena to me is just a symbol of the times and the area itself. Crumbling, decaying and dying a slow inevitable death. Arena or no arena Chemung county and Elmira like most cities in America were headed towards being toast anyway. I can't say I truly care at this stage in my life what happens to this arena. I'm looking toward trying to leave this place and never looking back as I'm not a huge fan of this area and never would have asked to have been from here. That being said this thread to me is a trip down memory lane I suppose. I'm too young to say when this joint was coming that I cared about it from a fiscal standpoint. I'm at the point in my life now where I don't care about the so called burden because the whole societal system is just a house of cards built to collapse. The debt situation should show you that as is. But when this joint was built I was just a kid close to my teenage years but not quite a teen. It was sort of a mythical fairytale to me. We got this arena it was something new and unimaginable. Living here you knew this county was a dump and people loved clinging on to the glory days but you knew they were long gone and never returning. Your little city got this big entertainment building and you got a hockey team that was playing nationwide against other cities with similar populous or even somewhat fairly bigger. It started out with a bang. The first 4 years they made the Finals twice and had good chances to win a championship. We literally had a top 10 minor league hockey franchise in our own backyard. Something hard to imagine. Then came some tough times as the landscape changed and the elites manufactured banking crisis recession that destroyed our generation went down. The Jackals fought back and ended up moving to a bigger league with teams in markets with top tier pro league sports teams. The year the arena shit became a thing was the second best season in Jackals history. They won the ECHL's Eastern Confrrence Regular Season Title. They finished I think 2nd or 3rd in the league standings and I believe beat the team in a series at the arena here who won the regular season championship cup. That team also had NHL veteran Craig Rivet on it. I was always amazed how he stayed loyal to the franchise and finished out the year. I never would have blamed him had he decided to bolt. A bunch of rumors that year from the lights going out to the team maybe not even finishing the year to even the wild one that the Jesuit price who owns the Sabres was maybe going to buy it all. That team lost in the 2nd round of the playoffs, 2 rounds short of the Finals. That sucked but an amazing year. It was the last year I decided to give a shit about the team or go to games. After that year I only ever have been back for 1 game but it was a free wine and dine type experience so whatever. It was the perfect final year. The only thing that ever missed with the Jackals franchise to complete the unbelievable mythical fairytale was the fact they never ultimately won a league Chamionship But for 13 years before the stupid government and the friends of the Chamber of Commerce helped their clown buddy Tom Freeman get the arena we had a playoff team for 10 or 11 of those years and almost won a couple of championships. Not bad for one of if not the smallest city with AA or higher pro hockry(the only cities that may have been smaller were Wheeling and Johnstown)

What junk are they pulling off now? Apparently the overlords of the IDA had some kind of a meeting today with some employees and season ticket holders. Wow they had 46 season ticket sales lined up? What a snoozer. Nobody is interested in beer league hockey. But they refuse to acknowledge that. Nobody was going to enforcers games prior either. So employees are saying Donner hadn't been paying them. Hmm....seems like the same song and dance as usual over there. People hearing hockey is coming back but the doors are locked and nobody is running the joint. They even interviewed local community cherished hero Robbie Nichols. He made the remark that the county has said before they don't want to be in the arena business. Robbie has ran the joint but he doesn't have the money it would take to actually operate it on a full term. I also remember the Nichols Jackals years well. It's no different then what's going on at the Dunn. The seats are magically filled but I'm sure there are a ton of freebies being handed out. The cliental that showed up to jackals games quite a few looked like questionable backwoods pennsyltucky folk. I know Robbie worked in a few towns before coming here so probably had connections to beg certain acts to come here. At the end of the day the Nicohls years felt like a great mirage. The only thing that stumped me a out today is how did that slug Mark Margeson seriously get the IDA Chairman gig? Just as shady as the people he's replaced.

At the same time Elmira probably would have fallen into the abyss anyways I suppose. Does anyone really think corning would be what it is without that damn fortune 500 company propping it up(although if you look through the tea leaves more and more it seems like they try to push little corning behind as they have stuff in China and what not)I believe last year they were looking at putting a plant out in Phoenix Arizona. But Elmira has nothing like that. I'm not old enough for the days of the great flood but from what I've been told by the elders around me they've never really put effort in trying to fix most of the city back up or anything that was damaged and all that.

I did recall an article mentioning once that back in the 90s they were looking at a different location(I believe it what was used to be a Tops Supermarket) on the Southside as an arena site. They didn't list what year or anything of this juncture in the article. Nor did they give any names that were interested jn that project at that said time. Would location make any difference? Probably not. But I've always been fascinated on how these guys at the time hooked up with Afr. Elmira wasn't his first rodeo but they found him and he was willing. Why? But it sure feels like this was a pre-planned as the nonsense going on with the PGA Tour and LIV golf right now. The idea and deal seemed done way before time came that it officially came to fruition. The idea of an entertainment facility may have been a good one but it was piss poor execution all the way around.

I find it amusing though I have no idea what group was coming to town but that concert sold all of 223 tickets for 1400 bucks. I believe it was a concert slated for this month. So it was nowhere near on track of selling. Probably would have struggled to sell 1,000. This arena isn't that big but it sounds like they struggle to sell tickets to things. I'm not sure if there's a legit fiscal answer to the woes of this joint other then you need someone with deep pockets who is willing to take the blows fiscally but I doubt anyone like that lives near these parts. That place has likely never turned a profit even in the Jackals golden years but the local government didn't care about that back then....

It would be a good place to house drug addicts and homeless people. Let people with problems have free reigns to have them. I would rather tear down the prisons before this place. Housing people for drugs the CIA makes billions off of benefits nobody but the government.

I wonder why citizens in this world are so obedient. Maybe it's the worthless education system, hell I don't kknow.but it does blow me away. We live in a world where the government can screw up at all levels with no repercussions. We pay taxes endlessly and pay for our God given rights of food, shelter and water. We are the only species that pay to live on this hellhole so called planet. The buffoons running the shit show are at an all you can eat buffet racking up the debt never intending to pay it back but tell you we must fight the good fight and attempt to pay it off. We are all in debt. In debt to whom exactly? There is a site out there where you can look at the debt clock in live time. It's both sad and amusing. Each erson in this world is debt, you're in even bigger debt if you're a citizen taxpayer. Nobody in the world without an agenda tied to the fallacy could explain that to make any sense.

The 50s were definitely before my time haha but I did not have any idea they considered a Ford plant here. Granted by now it would have more than likely been eliminated I suppose. I forgot all about the name STED. Southern Tier Economic Development. Whatever happened to that group? They were the big name when Afr was taken to court. Nw it's the CCIDA doing all the maneuvers. I guess if I had to be honest I feel like every city big or small in this country is run the same. Even if some of them appear to be beautiful it's a few snakes who have power and control everything and run them into the ground. With deep pockets you can hide some things but even a city like NYC is a hellhole with cockroaches and rodents running rampant. Our societal system is a house of cards. The debt is a hilarious fiasco. It goes up every second of everyday and a citizen is a debt cost and if you pay taxes you're even more of a burden. It's all funny to me. It all feels like one big shit show. The arena is just our small town introduction. You could never have an investigation because these people won't investigate themselves. They buy off the Freemason politicians to keep them quiet. It's like all these dopes who really believe Hillary Clinyon or Donald Trump would ever see jail cells. The people who "fund" or "support" them won't overthrow them because they are just as guilty as they are but they do grunt work behind the scenes so you don't know their name.

I find it hilarious as shit that the almighty IDA overtakes this joint back but they won't respond to the community or the news about how people get refunds for things. You could say that is the job of Steve Donner but is it really? They pulled the plug on him. It seems like they want to play God but be exempt from all the responsibilities it entails. I also find it funny that the IDA has kicked Donner out but he is trying to get another hockey team for this winter. Nice gesture but who the he'll is running it? We know it won't be him. If they kicked him out why would they bring him back? We know it won't be the IDA. Why don't they just have an auction? Wasn't the rumor years back that they would auction this joint off or were trying to?

The IDA is nothing but a public mafia operation at this juncture. The arena has always been a hilarious operation to me. Every politician associated with this place always got out at just the right time. Whether it be the two original kingpins Hughes and Iraci or Tom Santulli to even that clown Mike Krusen. He was better off losing the county executive race but had he wn they probably would have found a way to sweep this place under the rug. I always laughed at the public hate they forced on the Afrs. I'm not saying the Afrs were saints by any juncture but it's funny to me that ever since itcame under local control its no different then when they ran the show. Except at least the Afrs gave us hockey and usually good hockey at that. Now you're lucky if in a given year there will be hockey. I always fund it puzzling how Tom Freeman got a pass from the community. People said that guy was a billionaire. If that's true he's no different than any other billionaire nationally orglobally. Surewecould blame Afr but you have to blame the politicians and IDA. They all made the deal. It wasn't until this joint ended up in court that anybody found out who actually owned it. The IDA has always owned it and never paid a dime. I remember when Freeman got it and they decided to have the hockey team be a community entity only it was pure bullshit. The community responsible was nothing more than 20 "business" people who were nothing more than buddies of the chamber of commerce. Dudes who had no business running a hockey team and knew very little about it. Ask me how I know...let's just say I was related to one. It was never really revealed how Freeman got rid of it all other then everything ended up with the county. The dog and pony show later like 2 or 3 years. Then it was the spring of the year emperor Santuli was retiring. Allegedly they had a buyer. To the point of a press conference and a name drop and media attention. Then a month or so later it's like it never happened and we never found out why. Back to square one. They kept telling us they didn't want to be in the arena business. Yet here's are they don't wanna sell it and they want whoever buys it to buy it with sll the debt racked up by every other owner. I remember when they were first touting selling this joint. They said they had quite a few offers even with those who have NHL experience yet it's like 6 or 7 years later and no sales even close. They had someone running it. They just can't be happy. These guys were doing better than Robbie but it didn't even matter. This place us a classic example of your local government claiming they care about you yet they do the same thing the non local guy was doing from day one. Once all the local politicians were on the let's get rid of Afr train I knew the jig was up and I jumped sides on that. If you were a fan back in the day I think you would share the sentiment of I would take the years of Afr running the building back in a heartbeat. Yes the arena was in ruins but let's not act like with local care they've ever improved shot. Classic case of we were all better off not knowing the inside info on this place.