Trustees of the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland are scheduled to meet next week to review four proposals for returning professional hockey to Portland.
The board of trustees’ strategic development committee — comprised of Joe Gray, Jon Jennings, Sue Witonis and Dale Olmstead — is scheduled to meet Monday in a closed-door session to review four proposals submitted by this week’s deadline. The full board of trustees will then review those proposals at a March 8 meeting.
The Portland Press Herald reported that the groups proposing a return of professional hockey to Portland are likely to be affiliated with the ECHL (formerly known as the East Coast Hockey League), which is a developmental league for the American Hockey and the National Hockey League. Â
The ECHL now has 27 teams in 21 states and one Canadian province, the newspaper reported.
Portland has been without a professional hockey team since last May, when the American Hockey League’s Portland Pirates departed for Springfield, Mass.Â
