Every story has a beginning...
The road to the UNO Community Arena saw its beginnings long before the first puck was dropped at the Omaha Civic Auditorium in 1997.
To tell you the truth, I'm not altogether sure the general public was really paying attention. I know I had read bits and blurbs, but I certainly didn't see how things were evolving at the time. It's the benefit of hindsight, I suppose.
As much as the vision started with proposals for the redevelopment of the Ak-Sar-Ben property, it started years before when the Omaha Knights left the city, leaving a void in the city's sports landscape.
Club Hockey at UNO
The Omaha Knights had folded. Their league (the CHL) was in limbo. By all accounts, fans of the sport were left to wonder whether they'd get to watch high-level hockey in Omaha again.
UNO Athletics (under the direction of Athletic Director Don Leahy) fielded a club hockey team in the immediate aftermath of the Knights' departure — a team that played 14 games at Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum in 1975-76.
(Omaha University had a club hockey team during the 1940s that played in the Amateur Hockey League.)
Mike Kemp (who was only 23 at the time) was the coach of the club team, and he had high hopes they would move up to the varsity level for the 1976-77 season (either Division I or Division II, the latter held championships from 1978-84 and 1993-99).
Omaha World-Herald writer Jerry Fricke addressed the state of hockey in Omaha in a column published on April 21, 1976:
"Coach Kemp, whose club team finished with an 11-14-2 record, has been recruiting and arranging a schedule with the idea that UNO will go varsity.
'If we don't go varsity, I won't be here,' Kemp said. 'Most of the games I've arranged are with varsity teams, and they won't play us unless we have a varsity team.'"
OWH research also shows that a non-profit group had been set up to help raise money for scholarships for the club players.
"Varsity" UNO Hockey did not become a reality in the 1970s, and the dream was put on hold. Every so often an errant mention of UNO possibly starting a varsity hockey program would surface, but it wouldn't happen for another 20 years.
The Heat is On!
A spectator-brand of hockey didn't return to Omaha until 1986, when a USHL franchise formed in Omaha.
The Omaha Lancers didn't come out of the chute with immediate success (they were 0-48-0 in their inaugural season), and they initially played at Hitchcock Ice Arena in South Omaha (which sat 900 for hockey).
But Lancer Hockey changed the Omaha sports landscape in a profound way during the intervening years.
When the Lancers did finally take the ice for the first time at Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum in December 1987 (a single game during the 1987-88 season played there), 4,000 tickets were pre-sold, according to Omaha World-Herald reports. Ticket prices: $4 and $3.
When 28-year-old Omahan Ted Baer (and his father) bought the franchise, more games were played during the 1988-89 season at the Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum. Baer was a fixture during his tenure, and could be seen walking around the arena during games in a jersey and blue jeans.
Ak-Sar-Ben Executive Director Don Drew said in an Omaha World-Herald article on May 27, 1988, that the Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum had "the best ice surface west of the Mississippi."
"The quality of the ice, the arena, and the excitement of players realizing they will play before large crowds is very important," Drew said. "It should help make the Lancers a better team. I've heard people talking about hockey. Hockey is a big, big game in this town."
Baer moved all home games to the Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum for the 1989-90 season. The organization also made a coaching change, and hired Frank Serratore to take the reins.
(Serratore is currently the head coach at Air Force. He'll bring the Falcons to Omaha this October for UNO's debut at the new arena).
Before long, the Lancers became known for packed houses and on-ice success.
I have fond memories of attending games at the Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum. It was old, musty and smelled like warm beer, but it was a wonderful atmosphere for hockey, and still stands as one of the great sports experiences in Omaha.
Sure, there were beams that obstructed the view from certain seats, and the pitch and angles were kind of wonky. But the rough-and-tumble fans made it an experience.
As important as Baer's purchase was for the future of hockey in Omaha, an inkling came in the summer of 1988 that Aksarben's future was in limbo.
The Future of Aksarben
In 1988, the Douglas County Board of Directors had their sights on purchasing the Aksarben property so that they could build an arena and convention center using revenue bonds.
That July, the Ak-Sar-Ben Board of Governors rejected the proposal.
According to OWH articles at the time, horse racing on the property wasn't generating the sort of revenue that the Knights of Ak-Sar-Ben wanted. Other forms of gaming were eating into the revenue that horse racing had previously generated.
For those not familiar with the Aksarben property's historical place in Omaha's history, here is a bit of background from the July 17, 1988 issue of the Omaha World-Herald:
"The Knights of Ak - Sar - Ben, a nonprofit civic organization dating to 1895, opened a race track in 1920. Ak - Sar - Ben has sponsored Thoroughbred meetings each year since 1935, except for 1943 and 1944. Ak - Sar - Ben (Nebraska spelled backward) also sponsors a rodeo and a 4-H show, provides big-name entertainment, has more than 47,000 members, and calls itself 'the largest civic organization of its kind in the world.'"
As interest in horse racing waned in the late 80s (competition came across the river in Council Bluffs from casinos and greyhound racing), the buzzards started circling, eyeing the prime Aksarben real estate in the city's center.
Vast acres lay in wait for what would eventually become a mixed-use development (and the home of UNO's "Pacific Street Campus")...
Next Week: The Arena Origin Story (Part 2)
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