Varying styles, same goal for leaders

When the Spokane Chiefs named their leadership team this week, they covered a range of personalities.

Jeff Lynch, the vocal but steady forward, was selected as captain. The team also named three assistant captains.

Lynch’s brother, defenseman Jason Lynch, is cut in the same mold as his sibling. Then there are the more quiet types: center Chad Klassen and defenseman Joe Logan.

Not coincidentally, each says he is “consistent” and “hard-working” and (pardon the cliché) leads “by example.” Those are qualities the Chiefs could certainly use after a spotty 2004-05 campaign in which there were whispers about rifts in the locker room.

Up front, Jeff Lynch and Klassen were locks as 20-year-olds who wore A’s last season.

“I was hoping it would turn out that way, kind of expecting it, and I’m excited,” said Klassen. “I hope I can live up to the expectations of being an assistant captain.”

The captains are expected to provide advice to their teammates on and off ice, especially for younger players. They are also responsible for convening, when necessary, a “kangaroo court” to hand out nominal fines to players who do things such as forget legal documents for border crossings.

“Luckily, we didn’t have to do that too many times last season,” said Jeff. “We’ve got a good leadership group in the dressing room.”

On the back end, Logan (19) and Jason Lynch (18) are being counted on to anchor a defensive corps that was thinned last season by injury.

Logan said he and his teammates need to be more resilient this season.

“If we go out and have a bad first period, the guys need to know how to come out and overcome that,” said Logan.

All of the players acknowledged the privilege of wearing a letter.

“I feel very good about it, and I’m willing to take it on,” said Jeff Lynch, who has also been a captain at the Pee Wee, Atom and Bantam levels. “The goal is more playing my heart out and trying to improve my skills. The letter is more just a bonus.”

The biggest surprise of the group may have been Jason Lynch, a tremendous raw talent who has worked the past two years to refine his skills to the status of NHL draftee.

“It’s a tremendous honor to wear it with a great organization like the Chiefs,” said Jason. “It just shows that anyone who has a great work ethic can achieve anything they want.”

The youngest of four brothers to play with the Chiefs, he looks forward to continuing the family tradition.

“I’ve always looked up to him,” Jason said of Jeff. “It will be exciting to be on the inner circle and observe from the inside, not the outside.”

Conroy sighting

Former Chiefs coach Al Conroy has landed in Texas and has been training for a new career in the oil industry.

As part of the orientation, he found himself on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico two weeks ago (after Hurricane Katrina and before Rita). His courses are being taught in Houston, and he was one of the millions of people fleeing the area last weekend.

Reached by cell phone after his safe arrival in Dallas last Saturday, Conroy said “Whatever you’re seeing on TV (about the evacuation), it’s 10 times worse.”

It took Conroy 19 hours to travel roughly 240 miles.

He and his passengers took back roads, where travel was still at a stop-and-go pace. Almost every gas station along the way was dry, and one of his friends behind him on the road waited two hours for gas only to have the pump run out after one gallon.

Opener update

The Chiefs report that ticket sales for Saturday’s home opener have been strong and the game has the potential to be largest opening-night crowd in the last five years. The last opening-night sellout was in 2000, against Tri-City.

The new capacity for the Arena for hockey is 10,366. It was formerly 10,571.

The team has removed some lower-level seating adjacent to the visitors bench for a new ice-level area limited to those age 21 and older.

Team officials stress that tickets are still available for Saturday and the final attendance number will be dependent on walk-up sales. The Chiefs plan to honor “local heroes” (police, fire, military) and members of the community, including Spokane youth hockey players, before the game.