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Saginaw Spirit Honor Their Millionth Fan By Mike Thompson
His support for the Saginaw Spirit, however, requires extra effort. First, there’s a 50-mile round trip from his Midland home to TheDow Event Center for each and every home game. And Chatland even follows the young team on occasion to road games in Michigan and Ontario. The Spirit honored Chatland as their 1,000,000th fan during a home game on Nov. 28. “What I really enjoy the most about hockey is the speed and the excitement,” says Chatland, who played pickup games well into his adult life. “There’s action galore, and the real key is watching a hockey game live, especially in a place like TheDow where there’s not a bad seat in the house. When you see the action live, then you appreciate how quickly the players skate and pass, and how accurate their shots are.” Craig Goslin, Spirit co-owner with Dick Garber, says the franchise actually reached the 1 million mark in the season’s third game, but that the celebration was saved for Thanksgiving weekend in order to signify a “thank you” to the mid-Michigan community. Spirit executives counted only regular season paid attendance, not freebies or exhibition games. To achieve 1 million admissions early in the franchise’s eighth season, this means the Spirit have averaged nearly 4,000 fans per contest, one of the top figures among the 20 junior teams in the Ontario Hockey League. Furthermore, the Spirit not only have survived the tough economy of the past two years, but they have helped the economy. A Saginaw County Convention and Visitors Bureau study measures the team’s annual economic impact at more than $11 million in spectator spending, Event Center revenue and job creation. Goslin notes that the Spirit’s charitable foundation additionally has gifted more than $400,000, for purposes such as free tickets and merchandise for participants in activities such as Special Olympics and Boys & Girls Clubs.
A New Hometown Hockey Team Barry Chatland, who retired six years ago as a Dow Chemical marketing and communications leader, was as happy as a kid in a candy store (or at a hockey game) when he learned in 2002 that Saginaw had landed a franchise in the Ontario League. He had been among many Dow Canada employees in Sarnia, Ontario, who were transferred to Midland back in 1995. For many of the transferees, one of the departing pangs was to lose access to the hometown Sarnia Sting hockey team. But seven years later, they suddenly had a new home team. Prior to the Spirit’s debut season, Chatland and two of his co-workers showed up early at the Event Center to purchase a combined six season tickets, and they received the choice seats they desired in Section 16's lower level behind the team benches. “During the first year, we shared the tickets and took turns,” Chatland recalls. “One of us might take his wife or a buddy, while someone else stayed home that night. But I enjoyed it so much, me and a buddy (Doug Snoddy) decided the next season that we wanted to have our own tickets. Since then, I’ve gone to every home game, and sometimes to the road games.” Barry Chatland’s wife, Vicki, is an occasional companion, even though “she’s not as big of a hockey fan as I am.” (That would be difficult.) Nowadays, he enjoys occasionally bringing his 8-year-old grandson, Anthony Bianco, who is a Mite League player in Midland. “He’s not a bad little player,” Chatland boasts, “and he absolutely loves going to the Spirit games. He’s met all the players, and Tyler Murovich is his favorite. He has a jersey and hat signed by Tyler, an autographed picture taken with Tyler, and all of that.”
Spirit Draws Regional Support Base For Chatland to commute from Midland, with friends and family, is not unusual. Craig Goslin says a team study indicates that Saginaw County provides 53 percent of fans, but that Midland County is home to 26 percent and Bay County 16 percent. Another 3 percent attend from Genesee County and 2 percent from elsewhere. The Spirit, as an expansion franchise, lost far more often than they won during their early seasons. Goslin and Garber maintained a solid operation for ticket sales and promotions and greeting fans, but there were frequent changes in general managers and coaches. However, the Spirit made a surprising postseason playoff run last spring under Todd Watson, and this year’s performance again is better than hockey analysts had predicted. “Those first few years were pretty tough,” Chatland says, “but Todd Watson has brought a lot of stability. In making him both the coach and the general manager, the owners are basically handing him the responsibility to build this team.” Chatland says the team’s on-ice improvement represents the final link. As a marketing executive in his own right from his Dow Chemial days, he admires the manner in which fans are treated to nonstop entertainment, even between periods when the teams are in the locker rooms. He also notes that the Event Center’s 37-year-old Wendler Arena is top-notch, compared to other facilities in some of the Ontario towns.
Outgoing Local Owners Leadership starts at the top, Chatland says. “Garber and Goslin have been two of the finer owners in the league, in how they’ve been involved in the local hockey community and in the community at large,” he says. “I remember a few years back when the Spirit finally made the playoffs, and the first two games were scheduled up in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Dick and Craig were both up there at the Soo, looking for the Saginaw Spirit fans and coming to talk to them. They easily could have stayed up in the press box, but they came out to meet and greet. They’re not invisible owners. They’re involved owners.” And if all goes well for the next seven or eight years, Barry Chatland may one day also become the Saginaw Spirit’s 2,000,000th fan.
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