Last week, the Niagara Falls Reporter interviewed members of the six-person committee charged with deciding which of four competing operators will get the right to operate the city-owned Ice Pavilion next month.

Through investigation and analysis, including comparing the four competing operators who submitted responses to the city’s Requests for Qualifications (RFQ), the Reporter is prepared to predict, much like TV newscasters make election night predictions, that Gene Carella, longtime operator of local hockey tournaments, will be the next operator of the Ice Pavilion.

When we contacted Mr. Carella by phone, he declined comment.

The choice of operators was between Rink Management of Virginia, which offered a proposal to be paid to manage the Ice Pavilion, and three local operators who would pay the city rent. The local bidders are Mr. Carella, Corey Quinn, an insurance executive in Tonawanda, and Tony Attardo, the present lessee of the Ice Pavilion.

For the last 42 years, the city has owned the rinks in Hyde Park. Taxpayers have subsidized ice hockey in Niagara Falls to the tune of more than $7.1 million over the last 11 years. Annual operating losses have averaged $170,000. A $5 million capital improvement was completed in 2011.

With the lease of the present operators expiring this month, the Dyster administration put the Pavilion out to bid in an effort to lessen burdens on taxpayers and improve operations. Mayor Dyster said bidders and their bids are confidential until a winner is announced, which is expected July 18.

The Mayor’s selection committee consists of Maria Brown, city controller; Craig Johnson, corporation counsel; Dave Kinney, director of DPW; Donna Owens, city administrator; Dean Spring, director of purchasing, and the Mayor. Weighted voting was employed to select the winner.

“I can tell you this: financially there will be an improvement for the taxpayers over the previous agreement,” said Mr. Spring, who coordinated the RFQ process for the city.

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Gene Carella, a biology professor at NCCC, may be the best kept secret in the Niagara Falls tourism industry. The Niagara Falls native has brought thousands of tourists to the cataract city every year, a little known fact to most people here. For 20 years, he has run hockey tournaments, generally five per season, from October through March.

The hockey players in his self-created tournaments are children aged 7 to 17 who come from all over the United States and Canada. The trips include, of course, parents, grandparents, and siblings, about 15,000 every year.

The 5,000 to 6,000 hotel rooms he books every season for his tournaments compares favorably to the output of the Niagara Tourism and Convention Corporation (NTCC) for whose services hotel owners in the city pay 80 percent of their bed tax money.

The NTCC booked 5,248 rooms on their website in 2011. Most were during the busy summer tourist season when hotels do not need much help.

Mr. Carella brings his guests in winter when hotels are usually under 50 percent occupancy. About 65 percent of the teams are from out of town.

According to his website, www.niagaratournaments.com, Mr. Carella books guests at Niagara Falls, N.Y. hotels: the Sheraton, Holiday Inn, Four points, Quality Inn, and Days Inn, and not hotels in Ontario . He provides information about the Como , Hard Rock Café, and Third Street Liquors which advertise on his website.

Mr. Carella, in turn, advertises on hockey websites targeting U. S.  and Canadian markets. Utilizing the brand, Niagara Falls and a slogan, “We are more than just hockey,” Mr. Carella offers a hybrid hockey/winter vacation package that can include shopping at the Outlet Mall, Buffalo Sabres hockey games, the Hockey Hall of Fame and, of course, Niagara Falls.
When Mr. Carella has a tournament, the town is packed, a fact well known to the Reporter.

If an average family spends $1,000 on their hockey/vacation in Niagara Falls, Mr. Carella is directly responsible for bringing some $6 million in tourism dollars annually into the local economy, without taxpayer subsidies.
On top of that, his tournaments are played at the Ice Pavilion, bringing revenue to the city.