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:
“These were the sounds that issued from the wigwams of this country before Columbus was born; they have not yet died away; and, with remarkably few exceptions, the language of their forefathers is still copious enough for them. I felt that I stood, or rather lay, as near to the primitive man of America, that night, as any of its discoverers ever did.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is when we try to grapple with another man’s intimate need that we perceive how incomprehensible, wavering, and misty are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)