Arena trustees: Two groups want to bring pro hockey in Portland

Photo / James McCarthy Trustees for Cross Insurance Arena in Portland, which lost its professional hockey team last May, announced Wednesday that two groups have expressed interest in bringing an ECHL hockey team to Portland.

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Two groups have expressed interest in bringing an ECHL professional hockey team to Portland, trustees of Cross Insurance Arena announced Wednesday.

The Portland Press Herald reported that trustees have been authorized to begin negotiating with the two groups with the goal of reaching a tentative lease agreement with one of them to present to the ECHL’s board of governors by June.

The newspaper reported that the two groups are:

National Sports Services of Topeka, Kan., whose CEO Bill Davidson has owned and operated several minor league hockey and baseball franchises.
Spectra, the management firm contracted to operate Cross Insurance Arena that is a subsidiary of Philadelphia-based Comcast Spectacor, which owns the Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers were the NHL affiliate of Portland’s former American Hockey League team, the Maine Mariners, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Portland has been without pro hockey since the AHL’s Portland Pirates announced in May 2016 they would relocate to Springfield, Mass.