THE FRONT ROW with BRUCE BOURQUIN, Sept. 12, 2014

Waiting to become the Coeur d'Alene Icehawks starting next season, the Cheney Icehawks, who will play at the Frontier Ice Arena in Coeur d'Alene, are itching to hit the ice as an expansion team, part of an eight-team Tier III junior hockey league consisting of 16- to 20-year olds.

THE ICEHAWKS, with players from Coeur d'Alene, Post Falls and Hayden comprising roughly two-thirds of its roster, play their first exhibition game at 7:15 p.m. tonight at Frontier Ice Arena against the Tri City Outlaws. Tickets cost $5. There will be another exhibition game at 7 p.m. on Saturday against Wenatchee, also at the Frontier Ice Arena.

The Icehawks will be renamed the Coeur d'Alene Icehawks in the 2015-16 season.

The regular season debut will be at 7:15 p.m. next Friday night at Frontier Ice Arena against the Vancouver Vipers. Tickets for the game will be $8 for adults, $5 for students, military and seniors and youth ages 6 and under are free.

The Icehawks' head coach is Tysen Azevedo and the general manager and co-owner is former Coeur d'Alene Lakers head coach Brian Moon, who are in charge of the 25-man roster.

"The way it came about, the Northern Pacific Hockey League wanted to expand the league," said Icehawks owner Luke Griffin, a former business owner of Benchmark Inc., which he and his wife Cyndi are in the process of selling. "Most of their teams are on the coast, from Eugene up until Vancouver and they wanted to expand east, so they put us and the Wenatchee team in place."

SOME OF the local players include defenseman Michael Daddato of Post Falls and Griffin's 19-year-old team captain and son, forward Derek Griffin, of Coeur d'Alene. Some other players to watch for, Griffin said, are forward Bobby LaRue of Spokane and goalie Leo Breton of Toronto.

"This would be like Class A ball in baseball," Griffin said. "This would be the entry level of junior hockey. Most kids will play right through their midget year, which will be 14 or 15 years old and then they'll go into junior hockey. Kids come out of playing youth, if they're good enough, they'll come out into Tier II, but most players will come into Tier III and work their way up. Tier III, you age out at age 20. If you haven't been picked up by a Tier II or Tier I team by the time you're 20, pretty much by the time you're 19, you're pretty much done."

There will be a 42-game season, with 21 home games, and the top four teams will make it to the playoffs. The winner will play in the USA Hockey national tournament.

The league will consist of Cheney, Wenatchee, the Tri-City Outlaws, Eugene Generals, Vancouver Vipers, Tacoma Knights, West Sound Warriors and Bellingham Blazers.

Cheney will also play two of its games - on Oct. 17-18 against Eugene - iat Eastern Washington University in Cheney. The regular season ends on Feb. 14. All games will be seen live on a webcast on http://fasthockey.com and fans will have to pay $7.95 per game to watch them.

THE WHOLE point of bringing this team, Griffin said, is to help draw more local interest to hockey, especially since the Coeur d'Alene Lakers last played in 2009, right around when the Frontier Ice Arena's roof caved in.

"This is a business," Griffin said. "Kids are being traded, kids are being cut, pretty much the whole year."

Griffin, who started his business in 1992 and lived in Riverside, Calif., is from Newport Beach, Calif. His partners, including Brian Moon and his wife Gayle and Cyndi, see potential in the Kootenai County area that has more than 144,000 residents.

"I think Coeur d'Alene will be a great market because a lot of fans love hockey," Griffin said. "There are a lot of Coeur d'Alene folks who go into Spokane to watch the Chiefs and the Braves play. To have another junior-level team that plays in Kootenai County, I think it'll be tremendously popular. These kids are good players, they wouldn't be on our team if they weren't good players and they're all hungry, all looking to move up. Our coaches will in turn talk about them to Tier II teams, to colleges. Colleges are the big thing; most kids want to move on. We create a database and we'll reach out to the colleges they like and we'll keep folks appraised of where they're at."

GRIFFIN SAID he will try to make sure players are prepared for the realities of playing hockey after the youth level.

"When kids come out of youth hockey, it's everybody plays," Griffin said. "Everybody makes the roster. It's more rec-type stuff. When you come into juniors, everybody knows it is a business and you've got to earn your way into a spot, it's extremely competitive. Emotionally, kids have a hard time with it. It's so dog-eat-dog, what we try to do is prepare them for moving into the next level."

The Cheney Icehawks - or soon to be renamed Coeur d'Alene Icehawks - will try to be the dog who eats, versus the other way around.

For more information about the team, log on to their website at: http://cheneyicehawks.com

Bruce Bourquin is a sports writer at The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2013 or via e-mail at [email protected]