The Central Hockey League is now owned by its member teams. No longer are member teams beholden to anyone but themselves. No longer can a corporate entity take the praise for success, or the blame for failure. This is how most strong business operations are set up, it is how most successful hockey leagues are operated.
The Central Hockey League has announced that it is now under the ownership and control of Central Partners, LLC, a collection of the franchise owners in the league. The CHL was previously owned by the Western Professional Hockey League Inc.
Rodney Steven has been named the interim Chairman of Central Partners, LLC.
In the next step of attempting to form security, the Tulsa Oilers have been sold. Tulsa had been looking to move to the NAHL or USHL for more than a year. Sources within the organization have informed TJHN that if not for this sale, that the team would have surely jumped to the NAHL next season or have folded.
Rodney, Brandon and Johnny Steven, who own the Wichita Thunder, have purchased the Tulsa Oilers from Jeff Lund. Lund has operated the Oilers the past 21 years. Lund will remain owner of the Oilers Ice Center and the Tulsa Junior Oilers, a tier three junior team in the Western States Hockey League.
While the ownership move looks to bring stability to the CHL, the question of long term league viability remains. The footprint is so large that travel costs will only continue to rise. Recent team foldings and switching to other leagues do not give other locations confidence in the CHL business plan.
As a member owned league, it also becomes easier for members to simply walk away from their ownership within the league. It would be rather hard to have an owner penalize himself for leaving.
Clearly the CHL is evolving, what it evolves into, we will all have to wait and see.
