The Columbus Stars were a minor league professional ice hockey team that folded before the midway point of their inaugural season, of 2004, in the United Hockey League due to economic problems. The Stars had 21 home games, which drew only an average of 973 people per game, the lowest of all minor pro ice hockey teams, and was 2,000 less than the UHL average. The Ohio Expo Center Coliseum which they played in had a capacity of 5,676. Despite leading the Eastern Conference of the UHL at the time of its demise the team's final game had an attendance of only 732.
The team was owned by Joe Milano Jr, who also ran a restaurant. Denis Leary was offered a one game contract to play with the Columbus Stars. He would have been paid the standard one game salary for a player ($300) and an undisclosed percentage of the ticket sales from the game would have been donated to his charity, Leary Firefighters Foundation.
Columbus Stars players included:
- Evan Cheverie
- Craig Hillier
- Scott Levins
Famous quotes containing the words columbus and/or stars:
“Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called “silent poetry,” and poetry “speaking painting.” The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,
The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,
And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves,
Are shaken with earth’s old and weary cry.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)