Hope for New Contract Between IceMen and City Fading as Deadline Looms

With the extended deadline to agree on a new contract quickly approaching, Evansville city officials are expressing doubt a new deal with the IceMen will get done in time to keep the team in town.

Back in November, IceMen owner, Ron Geary, released a statement stating there was a real possibility the 2015-16 season would be the final one for the team if a new lease agreement for the Ford Center couldn't be negotiated with the city.

According to Geary, the current contract saw the IceMen paying the highest amount of rent of any team in the ECHL (reportedly $650,000 annually) when the median range is around $152,000. City officials countered that statement claiming that built in rebates based on attendance, concessions, etc., within the contract brought the price down to "effectively zero".

The City submitted a proposal back on November 18th that would lower the team's as well as remove revenue sharing and other subsidies the city provided the team. The proposal would have reduced the team's rent from about $11,000 per game to, at most, $1,000 per game according to Evansville Redevelopment Commission President Randy Alsman in a statement to the Evansville Courier-Press.

The last reported proposal between the two sides came on December 18th when the city submitted their version to team. According to Alsman, they never heard back from the team until yesterday (January 5th, 2016) when the team submitted a counteroffer. The City put together a response to the offer Tuesday afternoon, putting the puck on the IceMen's side of the ice, so to speak. Alsman told Zach Evans of the Courier-Press that he is "no longer confident about how things will go."

Today's deadline is the second time it's been extended from it's original date of December 1st. They granted an extension to December 15th, then another to today (January 6th). If a new deal isn't reached, and the deadline isn't extended again, both the IceMen and the City have admitted to having contingency plans in place with the team admitting to exploring other cities to move to and the City courting other teams to move into the Ford Center.

Let's hope all this talk is simply posturing by both sides, a deal will be reached, and IceMen hockey will be in Evansville for a long time to come.