Broomfield teams named: Rocky Mountain Rage on ice, Colorado 14ers on hardwood

BROOMFIELD – Hockey is all the rage, and basketball is taking on new heights in Broomfield.

The Rocky Mountain Rage and the Colorado 14ers were the names revealed for Broomfield’s new minor league hockey and basketball teams, respectively.
The two teams are scheduled to play their home games inside the new $45 million, 6,000-seat Broomfield Event Center, which is under construction just off U.S. 36.

The Rocky Mountain Rage hockey team is scheduled to begin its season in late October 2006. The Rage will join the Colorado Eagles in the Central Hockey League and 16 other teams.

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The Colorado 14ers basketball team is scheduled to begin its season in mid-November and will join nine other teams in the Continental Basketball Association.

“We sought names unique to Colorado and wanted the names to capture the feeling and intensity of the respective sports. I think we accomplished that,´ said John Frew, who co-owns the teams with Tim Wiens. Frew and Wiens are also in charge of developing and managing the Broomfield Event Center.

Logo design
The logo for the Rage is primarily red and black and shows a fiery eye with a hockey stick as an eyebrow.

The logo for the 14ers (referring to Colorado’s many 14,000-foot mountains) is primarily gold and blue, with the word 14ers resembling a mountain and the Colorado state flag planted in the center.

Adrenalin Inc., a Denver-based branding and marketing agency designed the logos for both teams.

Meanwhile, the Loveland-based Colorado Eagles is continuing its effort to stop the new Rocky Mountain Rage team from entering the Central Hockey League.

The Eagles won a preliminary ruling in a legal case against the Phoenix-based CHL when a judge with the Superior Court of Arizona denied a motion by the league to dismiss the case in early January.

Since the announcement of the new Broomfield team last year, the Eagles have contended that the two teams are too close, violating its franchise agreement with the CHL.

The Eagles play their home games at the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland, which is about 35 miles north of the Broomfield Event Center, where the Rage will play. The Eagles argue that the existence of the Rage infringes on the Eagles’ marketing rights within a 25-mile radius. If one were to draw a 25-mile radius around the Budweiser Events Center and then another 25-mile radius around the Broomfield Event Center the two would overlap in the Longmont area.

The CHL argues that no contract has been violated with the addition of the Rage. The league believes both teams can co-exist and contends that the 25-mile radius rule applies only to the distance between both arenas, which is 10 miles beyond the 25-mile buffer rule.

If the CHL doesn’t stop the formation of the Rage, the Eagles want out of the league, said Ben Cohen, an attorney for the Eagles. Cohen said the Eagles will ask the judge to allow the team to break its license contract with the CHL and recover its fees as a possible solution to the legal dispute. The Eagles are in year three of a 10-year contract with the CHL.
“I think both sides are fairly confident in their position,´ said Steve Cherwonak, vice president of communications for the CHL. Cherwonak said the league believes that the nearby teams will create a healthy rivalry for minor league hockey in Colorado. He added that league expects the Eagles to fulfill its 10-year contract.

“We remain extremely open to any discussion that will rectify the situation,” Chernowak said.

Contact David Clucas at (303) 440-4950 or e-mail dclucas@bcbr.com.