To the editor: Toledo is at the top of the ECHL

4/10/2018
Toledo Walleye forward Shane Berschbach (10), center, celebrates scoring a goal against the Fort Wayne Komets on April 6.
Toledo Walleye forward Shane Berschbach (10), center, celebrates scoring a goal against the Fort Wayne Komets on April 6.

As the Com­mis­sioner of the ECHL, we rec­og­nize some­thing spe­cial is hap­pen­ing in Toledo. Dur­ing my vis­its to your city, I have ex­pe­ri­enced first­hand the in­cred­i­ble Wall­eye fan­dom. It is elec­tric!

Con­grat­u­la­tions on a re­mark­able Toledo Wall­eye hockey sea­son! An in­cred­i­ble 28 out of 36 reg­u­lar sea­son sell outs, 7,578 av­er­age fans per game, 102 per­cent ca­pac­ity for Hun­ting­ton Center. The league has taken no­tice and cel­e­brates Toledo’s con­sis­tent level of achieve­ment.

Year af­ter year, Toledo con­tin­ues to raise the bar. The fer­vent sup­port of your FINat­ics sea­son ticket hold­ers, spon­sors, and group en­ter­tain­ment puts Toledo at the top of the league. Play­ers and coaches rec­og­nize the priv­i­lege of play­ing in front of a con­sis­tently sold out arena. Toledo fans give the Wall­eye true home ice ad­van­tage!

We saw this pas­sion and com­mit­ment dur­ing the first ECHL out­door hockey game with Win­ter­fest in 2014. Be­cause of your tre­men­dous com­mu­nity sup­port, the league is ex­cited for Toledo to host the next pre­mier event, the 2019 CCM-ECHL All-Star Week­end pre­sented by ProMed­ica.

Toledo has a long his­tory of be­ing a great hockey city and the ECHL looks for­ward to be­ing a part of Toledo’s bright fu­ture.

BRIAN MCKENNA
Com­mis­sioner of the ECHL

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Create smart al­ter­na­tives

Toledo Pub­lic Schools should be com­mended for try­ing to find ways to re­duce the sus­pen­sion rates (April 6, “TPS touts al­er­na­tive to out-of-school sus­pen­sions”). Stu­dents who fight, steal, have a weapon, pos­sess drugs, ha­rass, or in­tim­i­date other stu­dents and teach­ers need to be dealt with us­ing ap­pro­pri­ate mea­sures.

Couldn’t Keith B. Jor­dan, Sr., co-founder of JLJ Vi­sion Outreach — a TPS part­ner to help re­duce Toledo’s sus­pen­sion rates — come up with some­thing bet­ter than, “They may be taught to count to 10 be­fore they ex­plode”? Or, “We also do a lot of jour­nal­ing”?

What is JLJ Vi­sion Outreach charg­ing to come up with these “orig­i­nal” ideas? I’m bet­ting the class­room teacher has bet­ter strat­e­gies than these.

NAN ZAWISZA
Ore­gon