Bill Broderick
Battle Creek Enquirer
Published 12:29 AM EDT Oct 26, 2019
Hockey fans throughout the area came to downtown Battle Creek to find out what all the buzz was about regarding the new professional hockey team in town.
The newly-minted Battle Creek Rumble Bees played their first-ever game on opening night of the inaugural season on Friday before a home crowd excited to see hockey back in town.
“It’s pretty cool that hockey is back,” said Battle Creek’s Geoff Riggs, wearing a Red Wings jersey in his first game as a Rumble Bees fan. “It’s pretty exciting. It makes me want to put on my skates and go out there and skate. I ain’t skated in years, but they got me excited just watching.”
The final score wasn’t what the home team wanted to show its new hometown fans, though, as Battle Creek lost to the Danville Dashers, 7-1, at The Rink. Both teams were opening their Federal Prospects Hockey League season and are scheduled to play Saturday night as well to finish up the two-game series.
Battle Creek fell behind early, 4-0, and Danville ended up scoring five goals on the power play. Patrik Zilak and Justin Brausen each scored twice for the Dashers.
Rumble Bees coach Clint Hagmaier wasn’t ecstatic with the result, but explained his young team is still coming together and their best hockey is in front of them.
“Great atmosphere tonight, we appreciate everybody coming out,” Hagmaier said. “We hope we showed them a little something tonight, but we did want to play better. But we know it will be a process. We are young, we want to stick to the process, continue to learn. We’ll be back in the next game and be a little bit better and then still better each time out.”
Vincent Susi scored the lone goal for the Rumble Bees, putting himself in the history books for getting the first tally in franchise history.
“A lot of firsts tonight. A lot of guys played their first pro game, first game for this franchise. And Vinnie Susi scored the first goal ever for the Rumble Bees, so that’s going to be something he remembers,” Hagmaier said.
With nearly 700 in attendance, Rumble Bees general manager Adam Stio said he also would’ve liked a different result for the opener, but added the community is the big winners as pro hockey is now a part of the Battle Creek sports landscape.
“Great crowd, lot of support from the town. A lot of people coming up and saying thank you,” Stio said. “We would have liked to put a win up on the board, but I think for the city, I think we got a lot of people’s attention and there is a lot of buzz out there for this team.
“We only got one goal tonight, but to hear the building roar when we scored is probably the greatest satisfaction I had since starting this project back in July.”
Bill Broderick can be reached at bbroderi@battlecreekenquirer.com or 269-966-0678. Follow him on Twitter:@billbroderick.
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