Name change in Kamloops

From The Daily News of Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2007 . . .

The Kamloops Blazers should have new owners by week’s end, at which time the WHL franchise also will get a new name.
Once the final paperwork is completed, the franchise’s official name will become the Kamloops Blazers Hockey Club Inc.
River City Hockey Inc. (RCH), the five-man group that is purchasing the franchise from the Kamloops Blazers Sports Society, is in the process of changing its name.
“I didn’t see any reason to keep the River City Hockey name,” Vancouver businessman Tom Gaglardi said Monday. “It is sort of like, who is River City Hockey?”
Gaglardi, who will own 50 per cent of the club and serve as governor, added: “We’re now the Blazers. We’re not someone else.”
Former Blazers players Shane Doan, Jarome Iginla, Mark Recchi and Darryl Sydor each owns 12.5 per cent.
The name River City Hockey came about, Gaglardi said, at least in part because of his father, Bob, who was born and raised in Kamloops.
“My dad has always joked about River City,” Tom explained. “I always remember him saying, ‘There’s trouble in River City.’ This was before the Blazers (problems).
“I would ask, ‘What’s River City?’
“He would say, ‘That’s Kamloops.’
“When I thought about what we were going to call this thing, I said, ‘Let’s call it River City Hockey.’ ”
And now, well over a year after that name took hold, it is being retired. Still, Gaglardi said, it more than served its purpose.
“When we were pursuing the team, I couldn’t call us Kamloops Blazers,” he said. “But it’s like a monicker now — everyone seems to call us the RCH guys.
“Now we’re the Blazers and we are going to call ourselves the Kamloops Blazers Hockey Club.”
The change also means the end for the River City Hockey website, something that went up earlier this summer.
“There’s no reason to keep the website,” Gaglardi said. “We’re going to put pertinent information on the Blazers’ website. We’ll have one website — which, by the way, we’ll improve.”
Gaglardi said the deal should close this week.
“Stuff is being couriered (today),” he said. “If it all comes in and everything goes fine, then we’ll close Wednesday. If not, Thursday . . . maybe Friday.
“There’s no hurry to close on any particular day. It should be done this week.”
And once the deal is completed, the work will begin.
“An old guy who worked for our company for 40 years has a great line,” Gaglardi said with a chuckle. “He goes, ‘I kind of feel like a mosquito at a nudist camp. I kind of know what to do, I just don’ t know where to start.’
“That’s how I feel. That’s exactly how I feel. Every direction I look . . . there is lots to do. There’s not any direction I look in that there isn’t lots to do.
“But it’s going to take some time.”
JUST NOTES: The Blazers, beaten 3-1 by the Hitmen in Calgary on Sunday, took Monday off and will be back on the ice today. They next play Friday when the Kelowna Rockets make their first visit of the season to Interior Savings Centre. The Vancouver Giants are here Saturday night. . . . Iginla, whose Calgary Flames didn’t play Sunday, took in the Blazers’ game and stopped by their dressing room. . . . Prince George Cougars assistant coach Wade Klippenstein was clipped $500 by the WHL after getting tossed from a game Saturday in Swift Current. . . . The Portland Winter Hawks and Seattle Thunderbirds were each fined $250 after their goaltenders engaged in postgame fisticuffs Saturday in Seattle. Portland G Kurtis Mucha came out of that with a three-game suspension, so you know who was deemed responsible. . . . For more on the WHL, visit gdrinnan.blogspot.com.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca