Not just Spokane's team

Just like a player on the 1-yard line, the Spokane Shock are attempting to stretch their reach as far as possible to achieve their goals.

"We really don't see ourselves as a city of Spokane team," Spokane Shock majority owner Brady Nelson said last week, in an interview at the Shock practice facility in Spokane Valley. "We view it as a Spokane/regional team. I know we've got a lot of North Idaho fans and season ticket holders. And we share most of the same or all the same television stations. It's been a very good relationship."

That reach will bring the team to the Coeur d'Alene area next spring for a "Practice in the Park," including a walk-through and a chance to get out and meet their fans.

"We're trying to get more of a community push going this year," Spokane Shock Director of Public Relations and Marketing Ryan Eucker said. "We did it last year and players did a walk-through (at Riverfront Park in Spokane) right before a game and this year we're trying to do something different."

Of the season ticket holders, the Shock have 120 accounts from North Idaho, with some ticket accounts for up to four seats apiece. After last year’s walk-through at Riverfront Park, the team intends to bring at least one — if not two — to Coeur d’Alene this spring.

Other locations for walk-throughs include Riverfront Park and Northern Quest Casino in Airway Heights and will be finalized and announced at a later date.

“I think the biggest thing for our organization as a whole is that we perceive ourselves as being the professional sports organization in this area,” Eucker said. “We’ve also got the Chiefs and Indians, and not to take away from the professional aspect of what they have, but most of their players are just kids.”

The Spokane Arena, where the Shock host their home games, seats 10,770.

“We just wanted to get out in the community more,” Nelson said. “We want to let those people that don’t want to come all the way out here (to Spokane) know what we’re all about. It’s almost like a road show and we’re going to be out more in the next few years.”

Players from the Shock range from the Pac-12 and SEC to the Big Sky Conference.

“Some people don’t realize the prospects and talent we bring in,” Eucker said. “A lot of them see us as a feeder league, and we’re not going to deny that by any means. But we’ve got players from Oklahoma, South Carolina and some other SEC schools.”

Erik Meyer, a standout from Eastern Washington University, started last year’s opener for the Shock before getting injured, and has re-signed with the Shock for next season.

“I think it’s huge for us to have a player from the community on the roster,” Nelson said. “We got lucky with a player like Raul Vijil. He was from Eastern Washington and was here for five years and was great for us.

“We were lucky at a point where the old version of the AFL was put on hiatus and we kept him for another year. Then we joined the AFL and kept him another two years.”

Receiver Adron Tennell, who played at Oklahoma, was caught off guard when he arrived in Spokane.

“I did not know anything about Spokane when I found out I was going there,” Tennell said. “I thought it was Washington, D.C., but not ’til I got there that they told me it was in Washington state. I was like, ‘oh man, they didn’t teach me that part in high school.’”

A native of Texas, Tennell said the weather also wasn’t appealing.

“Once I got here it was cold,” Tennell said. “Really cold. I was like ‘what did I get myself in to?’ I’m from Texas and wasn’t used to the cold they had in Spokane, but it started to grow on me.”

Spokane played in the af2 from 2006-09, winning championships in ’06 and ’09 and won ArenaBowl XXIII in its first season in the AFL after joining in 2010. The Shock lost in the first round of the 2011 playoffs. Last season, under first-year head coach Andy Olson, Spokane finished 10-8 and missed the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.

“It was a rollercoaster season,” Olson said. “We did a lot of good things and we did some things I can learn from. I feel very confident that we can make improvements, but if you’re not winning, you’re not working hard enough. But I definitely think we can improve this coming year.”

With the new collective bargaining agreement, teams are able to sign players to multi-year deals, instead of one-year contracts like in previous years.

“Going into the 2013 season, we can sign up to five players to three-year deals and as many two- or one-year deals as we can,” Nelson said. “With one-year signings, players can sign an extension following training camp. You’ll see a lot of our rookie guys come in on one-year deals with an option to stay longer.”

“It’s huge for us,” he added. “It removes that feeling of ‘man, just when I get to know the guy, he’s gone.’”

Nelson added that bringing in other talents with local ties, whether from Washington or Washington State, could help draw interest from fans.

“We could sense it the first couple of years when we had a few Washington and Washington State players,” Nelson said. “Not that the other (area colleges) don’t bring in the fans, but they (WSU and Washington) have got bigger fan bases. If there was a Washington State quarterback that was a star and somehow didn’t make it in the NFL, like Alex Brink or some of those guys from the CFL, it would be huge.”

Kurt Sigler, formerly of Coeur d’Alene High and Eastern Washington University, is one of the few area players to have played for the Shock. Sigler was a member of the Shock’s inaugural team that won the ArenaBowl.

Interim Idaho football coach Jason Gesser received interest at quarterback from the Shock.

“We tried to get him when he was with the Utah Blaze,” Nelson said. “He was sitting behind Joe Germaine and I tried to work out a trade for him. I told them they weren’t going to play him and wanted them to send me him. That would have been huge, but it wasn’t going to happen.”

Should a player opt to move on to a Canadian Football League or NFL roster, they can do that also.

“If any player on our roster has a chance to move up, they’re free to do that,” Eucker said. “Essentially, the contracts we make are purchasing their rights while under contract in the AFL. If a situation arises where a player can go play in the CFL/NFL, they can do that — but technically, we still have their rights for the length of the contract if they return to the league.”

“We probably average 2 to 3 players a year making it to the NFL for the entire league,” Nelson said. “In our seven years, we’ve sent over 30 players to the CFL. Sometimes they bounce back and fourth, but we’ve had a good track record of helping guys land bigger deals in the CFL.”

In previous years, players were paid $200 per game in the af2, with a $50 bonus per win. That increased to $425 per game in the AFL with a $75 win bonus.

This year, all players receive $800 a game — but no win bonus.

Spokane opens the 2013 season with three straight road games at Cleveland (March 24), Chicago (March 31) and Iowa (April 5) before its home opener on April 12 against the ArenaBowl champion Arizona Rattlers.

As part of the new CBA, teams may offer to put players into team housing, where if they decided to live in those apartments, the team deducts the rent from their paychecks. They could also opt to choose their own housing, as well as help find them part-time jobs.

“We’ve always helped find guys work if that’s what they want to do in the offseason,” Nelson said. “They can come out to the practice facility anytime they want. We really want to make it as easy on them as possible. For some of these guys, this is their first job outside of college. Some of them are just trying to figure out where to go and what to do, and we just want to make it as painless as possible.”

While the AFL considers each player an employee of the league, the Shock actively go out and try to recruit players.

“They’ll assign players to the individual teams,” Nelson said. “We still recruit our own players, but as far as the transaction process, the AFL views them as an employee and they assign them to us.”

This year, players will go to a combine where teams can evaluate them.

“Our general manager (Ryan Rigmaiden) and director of player personnel will go out and recruit,” Nelson said.

Former Shock stars Isaiah Trufant of the New York Jets and Greg Orton of the Denver Broncos are in the NFL.

Nationally televised prime-time games on Friday and Saturday night will be shown on the CBS Sports Network, replacing a previous deal with the NFL Network.

All of Spokane’s home games will be broadcast on SWX again this year.

“It’s only going to help grow the game,” Nelson said of the national TV games. “For us, it adds legitimacy in markets that don’t have an AFL team and see a city like ours packing the house every night. It’s been great for that and is good to show the country more about the area.”

They’ll also try to start games at 7 p.m., instead of the occasional 8 p.m. starts from last season.

“It just started to become too difficult,” Eucker said. “It was just too late. Our attendance stayed pretty consistent, but the input we were getting from season ticket holders made us want to make a change. We’re just trying to make it more accessible to families and the younger crowd.

With the Chiefs hockey and Shock season overlapping, the schedule depends on when the Arena is available.

“It really depends on availability,” Eucker said. “Our seasons overlap a bit and with concerts and other events and it affects the ability to make our schedule. We’re trying to be more consistent this year and wanted to make the push for more 7/7:30 p.m. games and be more consistent.”

As far as playing another outdoor game — like they did at Joe Albi Stadium in Spokane in 2011 — it won’t happen this year.

“We’re switching a lot of things internally with promotions and doing game give-aways and sponsor interactions,” Eucker said. “The game was more of an experience and a tester for us. But the fields aren’t made for outdoors. We really got lucky it didn’t rain. It did while we were cleaning up, but had it during the game, it could have ruined the field.”

“I loved it,” Nelson said of the outdoor game. “It was an awesome experience, but it was so much work. It was really fun and we had a really good response and we’d love to do it on a regular basis, but it really takes a lot of work and planning to make it happen.”

Nelson added that if they wanted to do another outdoor game in 2014, they’d have to start the planning in the next month.

“Our strategy has been that we’ve built a reputation over the past seven years,” Nelson said. “We’ve had players that have told us no, but have came back and said yes and really like coming to play here. With the new contracts, it’s only going to continue to do well for us. What we’re best at is finding young talent and grooming them to get better — and now we can only continue to do that.”

“I really love Spokane,” said Tennell, who will be back in 2013. “The fans, community ... overall, everything is lovely about Spokane and I wouldn’t want to play anywhere else. I think — well I know — we have the best fan support in the AFL. I wish I could thank every one of them or get a chance to hang and chat, but I know that is unlikely. I always call Spokane my second home. Me and my family love it there.”