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Mar 26, 2022
Photo by Joe Lovell Executive director Denny Magruder, second from left, and public address announcer, second from right, are given commemerative 30th anniversary Nailers jerseys during Friday’s game against the Kalamazoo Wings.
WHEELING — Change is a key aspect of minor league sports. Players, coaches and even entire franchises themselves are almost constantly on the move.
That’s part of what makes the Nailers’ 30 years in Wheeling so impressive. Founded as the Thunderbirds in 1992-93, the Nailers are the oldest continuously-playing franchise in the ECHL.
The team has been celebrating its 30th anniversary all season, periodically wearing throwback Thunderbird alternate jerseys and ahead of their “Throwback Night” game against the Kalamazoo Wings Friday night, the organization threw a surprise party to celebrate two of the men that have been there since the very beginning, executive director for WesBanco Arena Denny Magruder and public address announcer David Flatley.
“I’m totally surprised, I had absolutely no clue that these folks were doing this,” Magruder said after discovering the party inside the bowels of the arena Friday afternoon. “The big thing (to celebrate) is 30 years of hockey.
“We’re the oldest continuously-playing franchise in the ECHL with the most players having gone to the NHL.”
Just the day before, the team had its 67th former player debut in the NHL with Hayden Hogdson recording a goal and an assist for the Philadelphia Flyers in a 5-2 win over St. Louis.
“It’s unbelievable, never did we even dream of this in year one,” Magruber said. “That doesn’t happen often in minor league sports, to keep the same franchise for 30 years.”
It was in that first year that Flatley was brought on as the PA announcer. He quickly became known as “The Voice of the Nailers”, a role he’s been in ever since.
“I think I’ve done probably around 1,100 or 1,200 games,” Flatley estimated. “In that time, I’ve been sick a few times, been out of town for a wedding or had a conflict, but over the years, I’ve only missed 15 games or maybe 20 at the very most.”
A 25-year old in 1992, Flatley was already working as the public address announcer for Wheeling Park’s football and basketball teams and he said he had to beat out 10 other applicants for the Nailers job.
“They didn’t really advertise for (the position) because they knew the word would get out,” Flatley recalled. “They had four or five exhibition games that year and they had 11 people that tried out.”
Flatley said it came down to him and one other person and he won the job full-time mostly through attrition.
“They narrowed it down to me and one other guy and that first season they were going to split us up and have us do half and half. But the guy I was working with kept giving up games and I just kept scooping them up and then in the last part of the year, they basically said they’ll go with me full time for everything moving forward.”
Fast forward 30 years and Flatley said one of his favorite things now is talking to adults who attended games when they were children.
“What’s really unique about it is the fact that the kids that were coming here when they were six, seven, eight-years-old that are now 25, 26, 27, or older, they stop me and talk to me about my mannerisms,” he said. “They always say, ‘I remember when you were saying that when I was a little kid’. That’s the really cool thing about it.”
Fans of Flatley’s mannerisms shouldn’t worry, as he has no intentions of stopping anytime soon.
“I’ve always said that when it stops being fun, or people cycle out and I don’t have friends around me anymore, I might look (at retirement) at that point,” he said. “But right now, I’m not interested in stopping.”
And hearing Magruder talk about it, it doesn’t sound like the Nailers will be stopping anytime soon either.
“I just think the Ohio Valley is a different place to live, it really is,” he said. “We see it when we have catastrophes, we see it when we have celebrations, they support each other. This is absolute evidence of that.
“We’re the oldest franchise, in the smallest market and with the most players going to the NHL. It’s a tremendous achievement for this team…It’s a tribute to the community.”
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