Cajun Fans Get Hot for Hockey

By John U. Bacon/Lafayette

When Ernie Parker and four partners decided to start a minor-league hockey team in Lafayette, La., five years ago, the nicest thing they heard was laughter. Now all they're hearing is cheers. The Louisiana Ice Gators (get it?) led the 28-team East Coast Hockey League in attendance their first four seasons, averaging 10,500 fans per game--more than the (nominally) Big League New York Islanders drew this year. Of course, the Gators are a winning team, at week's end up two games to none over the Peoria Rivermen in the ECHL finals.

It's an unlikely success that says a lot about the appeal of minor-league hockey and the unique civic character of Lafayette, the self-proclaimed capital of French Louisiana. Simmering amid bayous and mossy oaks in the heart of Cajun country, Lafayette (pop. 112,000) is the league's fourth smallest market--and hasn't seen snow or natural ice since 1988. Not surprisingly, two lesser hockey leagues considered Lafayette too risky. Says Jady Regard, the Gators' general manager and a Louisiana native: "Hockey has no business working down here."

Then why do so many locals feel they can't miss a game? Fan Gary Elliott, 56, has a theory: "Invite 10,000 Cajuns anywhere, serve 'em beer and tell 'em there's gonna be a fight, and they'll fill the place up." Chris Valicevic, 32, a fifth-year Gator, recalls that "when I first got down here, people would ask me if the fights were real. They figured we were doing some kind of TV-wrestling stuff. I asked them, 'Where do you think this blood's coming from?'"

The fights might have lured them in, but fans say hockey's speed and grace kept them coming back. "I'd never seen a game before, but we loved it right away," says season-ticket holder Cathy Borchalli, 37, a full-time mom. "It was fast. It was fun. It was wild. It was different!"

It was also foreign, at first. "Man, they'd cheer an offsides call!" says rink announcer T.D. Smith (who has taken to lighting his cigars with the propane torch the players use to curve their sticks). The club hired a stand-up comic to pull volunteers from the audience and demonstrate each penalty, from high-sticking to cross-checking. And in a place that had no youth hockey, Gators players held clinics and helped organize 15 youth teams.

The 20 Gators--nine of them from Canada--had to learn that if the local weather doesn't make you sweat, the cuisine will. The concession stands serve red beans and rice, jambalaya and Cajun sausage. (Alligator, served elsewhere in town, is banned at the rink. "Bad luck to eat your mascot," a server explains.) All the food is spicy: even the rink's martinis and Bloody Marys come with pickled okra and peppers. Says Gators coach Don Murdoch, a star right wing for the New York Rangers in the 1970s: "I went from Rolaids to Zantac pretty quick."

The Gators players became instant celebrities on the friendly streets of Lafayette. It helped that French is widely spoken here and that some players had names, like Arsenault and Melanson, that already filled columns of the Lafayette phone book. (Cajuns are among the few Americans who can correctly pronounce the French-Canadian names in a hockey lineup.)

The Gators' booster club, 106 families strong, assigns each player a "foster family" that is his host for the holidays and gives him an elaborate "care package" before each road trip. Several Gators have married local women. Others have refused trades or quit hockey altogether to avoid leaving--the second wave of Canadians to settle here, two centuries after the first. Corey Neilson, a Gator defenseman from New Brunswick, Canada, loves the warm weather, the food and the way the fans simply enjoy the game instead of critiquing it. He says, "It doesn't really get much better than this."

Even though the typical Gator earns only $11,700, plus a rent allowance, for a six-month hockey season, there has been a spirited competition among league players to win a berth in Lafayette--and keep it. That helps explain the team's excellent play: it posted a 43-18-9 regular-season record, including nine victories against its in-state archrivals. "We've had our way with them, and our fans take a lot of pride in that," Regard says. "People are learnin' to hate Baton Rouge and New Orleans all over again!"