By Dick Weiss, Philadelphia Daily News; October 5th, 1974
Ed Tepper waited patiently until there was another sold out exhibition hockey game at the Spectrum last month before giving a mock vote of confidence to his close friend, Flyers’ owner Ed Snider. “I told him,” the Wings’ owner recalled, “not to worry. That his sport would probably catch on, too.”
Tepper has always been enthusiastic, while building the new franchise in the National Lacrosse League this season. When he began eight months ago, he realistically projected the team would probably draw between “3,500 and 5,000 fans” at the Spectrum.
ATTENDANCE figures released this week showed the Wings averaged 8,719 for the regular season and slightly over 8,000 for a three-game final playoff with Rochester.
“We expect to have in the vicinity of 6,000 season tickets at the start of next season,” Tepper said. “We’ve already just about completely sold out the hardcore center sections.”
The NLL is growing. The Toronto franchise will move to Lacrosse-oriented Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N. Y., on Long Island, next season. Rochester might move to Boston and Syracuse to Madison Square Garden.
“WE WANT to move the sport into big-league cities,” Tepper admitted. “That’s our first priority. Can you imagine how much more an attraction it’s going to be if Rochester, the league champion, moves to Boston? It will be a Flyers-Bruins rivalry all over again.”
The league also would like to have all players and coaches living in their franchise cities.
“We want our players to be full-time employees,” Tepper said. “We’re willing to pay them a salary so they can live fairly well down there.” Most of the Wings’ commute from Canada.
NET GAINS: The NLL will start a month earlier and will expand its schedule to include 50 to 54 games next year. Playoffs will run two weeks earlier …
To Americanize the game further, the Wings will practice one week in Peterborough and two weeks in Atlantic City before the season …
The Wings’ first priority in the draft is to pick up two muscular defensemen — possibly from Western Canada.
