AMARILLO,TEXAS -- Wednesday proved to be a bad news, good news day for Randy Sanders, the owner of the Football Venom and Hockey Gorillas teams.
First the good. The indoor football team has secured a playoff berth and won a division title with 5 games left in the season. This Saturday, the snakes battle first place Arkansas. A second straight tough opponent.
"We secured the division. As a reward we took them out and had special bags made for with the Venom on them. We wanted to hand those out today and give them a little bit of how much we appreciate them and this is a good way to do this," said Sanders.
He went on to talk about how much the team is enjoying the Indoor Football League.
"The deal with the IFL is we're enjoying the league its more cost effective, it fits here and we got 25 teams we deal with now and also getting to deal with the Texas teams is a big deal."
Now to the bad news. The face of hockey in Amarillo is going to change and quickly. The Gorillas are about to exit stage left and coming in will be a new league.
Over the next few days, it will all come out. A release by the city says Thursday, a new long term hockey tenant, its ownership and management and a new league will be introduced.
Apparently, the North American Hockey League is coming to town. It's a junior league, similar to the Amarillo baseball team of the 1990's that played in the Jayhawk League.
Following that release, Gorillas owner Randy Sanders announced the Gorillas will cease operations this coming season. Sanders has been unable to secure local and other investors. He will hold his own press conference Friday afternoon to explain his situation and what's taking place and perhaps where the Gorillas franchise will call home in the future.
