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STARRINKS.COM MARCH.APRIL.2016 / 17 With the Crimson Tide near us, it's a real challenge, though. Everybody wants to be like the Crimson Tide and everybody wants to play football. "The second challenge here is a lot of people don't know that we have an ice rink in the Birmingham area. The facility we have is a fantastic facility. It's two full sheets of ice. Full NHL size. The main rink seats 3,500 people. The practice arena seats about 500 people. It's a really nice facility. The challenge is that not enough people know we actually have it." Turning the (Crimson) Tide In an area of the country without deep hockey traditions, the Pelham Civic Complex leads an undermanned effort to grow grassroots participation in Alabama. Its two ice sheets are 40 percent of the year-round ice sheets in the entire state, with an arena in Huntsville also housing two sheets and another in Montgomery supporting one. Of course, the University of Alabama- Huntsville is home to a strong up-and- coming Division I hockey program. But for the folks in Birmingham that's more than 115 miles away. The Nashville Predators are the closest NHL team — a 200-mile, three-hour drive away. This tasks the staff in Pelham with growing ice sports in the Alabama's largest city without having much in the form of local role models for its young athletes. "It's difficult in that the kids don't get the same experience as if a profes- sional team was here," Hudson said. "The Crimson Tide's hockey team (at the club hockey level), when they play against Auburn and they play against some of the school's other rivals, the place fills. The kids almost treat that like their professional hockey team. The experience they get from the Crimson Tide, the Frozen Tide as they're called, it's a pretty good one. It would help, though, if we had an NHL team in the area." Kraft-ing a Plan As much as the NHL routinely discusses expansion, Alabama hasn't been in conten- tion for a big-league hockey team since the Birmingham Bulls disbanded in 1979 after an unsuccessful three-year run in the World Hockey Association. This leaves Pelham scratching and claw- ing to attract any large events that it can to bring top-level hockey to the area, even for a single weekend. "The biggest thing for us is to try to open the door for more possibilities of hockey development, Pelham Civic Complex Director Danny Tate said. "That's truthfully one of the big founda- tions that has been missing in this area for the facility to grow. I went and got the SEC Championships hosted here a few years ago. I put another bid in on the ACHA national championships, which we hosted last year. We're definitely trying to move in the direction of exposing the population around here to the best pos- sible hockey that we can, so that we can develop interest." Perhaps the most ambitious campaign that Pelham has undertaken is submitting a bid to be Kraft Hockeyville USA 2016. , Continued on page 18 "PEOPLE IN THE SOUTH TAKE THEIR SPORTS VERY SERIOUSLY. WE MIGHT NOT BE THE BIGGEST HOCKEY COMMUNITY IN THE WORLD. HOWEVER, THE PEOPLE WE DO HAVE IN OUR PROGRAMS ARE THE MOST PASSIONATE PEOPLE ABOUT THE SPORT THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN."