Berry Tramel: A new ice age in Oklahoma City

Walking around the Cox Center, with newly frozen ice sporting American Hockey League logos, I got a little excited.

I’m always a sucker for the old Myriad, a 38-year-old building that has held up wonderfully. And hockey rinks, especially from a lofted view, always look glorious.

A celebration spirit flowed through the arena Tuesday when Bob Funk Jr. and the Edmonton Oilers announced that hockey will return to Oklahoma City next season after a year hiatus. That celebration will mushroom in early October, when OKC makes its AHL debut.

But what then? Will the hockey revival flourish or crash? Will it resemble the Renaissance Blazers of 1992 or the out-of-gas Blazers of 2009?

Will the Cox Center bristle with big crowds, maybe even a few 13,000-seat sellouts, or will those bright red seats magnify the thousands of unsold tickets?

Maybe it will come down to nothing more complicated than this. Just win, baby.

Funk and Ricky Olczyk, assistant general manager of the Edmonton Oilers, talked a good game Tuesday, and you’d expect no less.

Olczyk played college hockey at Brown, graduated from the Cornell Law School, spent two years with the National Hockey League players union, ran a consulting firm for six years and now is the Oilers’ director of hockey legal affairs. This is no low-brow outfit.

Olczyk tossed out terms like "world-class hockey” and "great hockey market” and the Cox Center’s "ambience.” Can’t argue with any of the descriptions.

The hockey on display in the AHL absolutely will trump the reborn Central Hockey League.

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