MSL NOTEBOOK / JOHN GEIS : Sockers to Play Hide and Seek With Arena for Playoff Dates

With a month remaining in the season, the first-place Sockers have begun looking into weekend dates for the postseason.

They’re not finding many at the Sports Arena.

As is usual in the spring, several prime dates have been booked by non-sporting events. Already closed are Friday and Saturday, April 24-25, as well as the second, third and fourth weekends in May.

The Fridays and Saturdays which remain open are April 10-11, April 17-18 and May 1-2.

There is an added hurdle this year: the Gulls, the Arena’s other tenant, figure to make the International Hockey League playoffs.

Both the Sockers and Gulls end their seasons Saturday, April 4, and playoffs in the Major Soccer League and the IHL are expected to commence the following weekend.

The scurrying for weekends already has begun.

“We don’t have priority, per se,” said Randy Bernstein, Sockers’ executive vice president/general manager.

The Sockers have leased the Arena since 1980, but the Gulls, in their second year, currently are owned by arena management.

“We have equal access to Arena dates,” Bernstein continued. “We will work with the Gulls on securing dates--there’s going to be a lot of jockeying.”

And a lot of disappointment. The Sockers are all but assured of home-field advantage in both the semifinal and championship series, both of which are scheduled for seven games.

The Sockers would like at least two weekends for each series, but only three weekends remain open and the Gulls, too, will be bidding for them.

“Hopefully,” Bernstein said, “the Gulls and Sockers will be on the road at different times.”

Can it be that the April 15 deadline for MSL teams to submit their letters of credit already has been pushed back?

According to a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a group that owns 20% of the St. Louis Storm has been given until April 30 to decide whether it will keep the franchise alive by purchasing the 80% owned by San Jose businessman and team founder Milan Mandaric.

“The league gave us a deadline--the end of April, in or out,” Dr. Abe Hawatmeh, a St. Louis urologist who heads the minority group, told the paper.

Since he started the Storm prior to the 1989-90 season, Mandaric has maintained his intention to sell it to local interests.

Both Mandaric, who intends to buy a West Coast expansion team for the 1993-94 season, and Commissioner Earl Foreman insist the deadline remains April 15.

“It’s just a total mistake,” Mandaric said. “The deadline is still April 15.”

The situation likely will go down to the final day, be it April 15, or 30, because the current group simply does not have enough financing, even though Mandaric’s asking price is relatively meager.

“Nothing more than it would cost me for an expansion team,” Mandaric said.

Expansion fees are believed to be $250,000, but special bargain arrangements have been made in the past.

It is ironic the Storm is experiencing the most doubt concerning its future. Averaging some 9,500 per game and expecting at least two crowds of up to 14,000 in the final month of the season, the Storm leads the MSL in attendance.

“It’s been building for three years,” Mandaric said. “And now people are responding despite the team not winning on the field.”

Because revenue losses have declined in each of the Storm’s three seasons to an expected $300,000 this year, Hawatmeh estimates the team will be able to break even next season.

To keep it afloat, however, Hawatmeh must attract new investors.

“He can’t do it himself,” Mandaric said.

Last week stadium manager Bill Wilson was running down a long list of improvements planned before opening day of baseball season: air conditioning in the visitors’ locker room, a new entrance sign, a new flag pole behind the right field fence for the Canadian flag, a new hot-weather lawn, among others.

Sockers Coach Ron Newman, who was in attendance at the weekly press conference, then asked if the soccer goals were still around. Wilson answered yes.

“Well, now that you’re doing the place up a little bit,” Newman said, “We might be tempted to come back.”

A team of former Sockers scored a 6-1 victory over a team of South Bay all stars from the Friendship League.

An estimated crowd of 1,500 at the University of San Diego watched as Cha Cha Namdar scored three goals and Jean Willrich set up three others.

Other scorers included: Ade Coker, who had a goal and an assist; current Socker and ringer Thompson Usiyan, who scored a goal; and organizer George Katakalidas, who had an assist.