Aces Owner Discusses Season With AOB Part II

The last time around, Aces Owner Alan Friedman answered several questions on his team’s play this past season. This time around, in the second part of a phone interview that was conducted two weeks ago, the questions focused more on the strength of the EPHL and what the Aces are trying to do to reach more fans.

Aces Over Brooklyn: The organization played a big role in getting four players sent up to the ECHL this past season. Is that something you will be trying to do more of in the future?

Alan Friedman: Absolutely. We want to send up as many players as we can and if our coach can do it, we’d love to see it continue. Sure, having a winning record at the end of the season is great, but getting these guys up is what we want to do more of. If we do that, more people will want to come see us because they know they’ll be able to say that they saw these players play and they rooted for them in Brooklyn before they made it to the next level and the NHL. As an organization, this is our main goal.

AOB: One way the organization can do that is by striking an affiliation with an NHL franchise. Is that something you guys are looking into?

Friedman: I think it’s still a bit early in the ballgame to do that. We’re just going into year two and the way we have it set up, we’re very happy that we’re affiliated with the league itself. It’s been a big part of our credibility and we understand that not just anyone can get an NHL-affiliation. This is a strong piece of our puzzle as a whole.

AOB: The site has received e-mails over the last month from concerned fans wondering if there’s going to be a season next year. What are your thoughts on that?

Friedman: If I was a betting man, I’d put my money down on the line. Right now, we’re going to be expanding for the upcoming season. However, there’s no reason why we have to make any early announcements on this. Is someone going to be a bigger EPHL fan if we announce today that four new teams are coming on? It won’t matter unless these teams do come off the ground. So if you find out in July and August, you’d still be happy, right? I’m banking on there being many more teams this upcoming season.

AOB: So what you’re saying is there will absolutely be an EPHL season in 2009-2010?

Friedman: Absolutely. You can put everyone’s minds at rest.

AOB: Many fans during the season had problems attending games due to the location of Aviator in addition to the lack of public transportation. Is the team looking to help change that for the next season?

Friedman: I told you this before that I wasn’t in this for the money and if I was, I wouldn’t own a minor league team. I’m in this for the fun of it. Right now, we’re working on making it the most convenient for our fans to attend our games. The fans gave me and my family something special this year and next season, we will try and give back to them tenfold. We want to make them happy.

Photo by Patrick Hickey Jr.

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