Feature: Everblades Built by Brush's Strokes, Vision

The following feature article on Craig Brush, who played collegiately at Cornell (1969-72) and was a member of the 1970 Big Red NCAA championship team in 1970, appeared in the October 18 issue of the Naples Daily News. The article can be accessed via the News Web site by clicking here.

By Angela Busch
The Naples Daily News

ESTERO, Fla. - From his office on the top floor of Germain Arena, Craig Brush can see it all.

He can see Florida Everblades veteran Ernie Hartlieb slamming rookie Mathieu Melanson into the boards. He can see the young boys tearing through the seats to find an errant puck. He sees maintenance workers pick up the place after a big game, sees fans march in with crazy foam puck hats and green and blue jerseys.

The Everblades partial owner/team president/general manager just looks down and sees everything. He always has.

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Brush saw this place 12 years ago when it was nothing but wild grass and swamps. Open land: quiet, peaceful. No Miromar Outlets, no Florida Gulf Coast University. Just space and a dream ... Craig Brush's dream.

He had to see it all in his head to make it happen. And what's going on now: a 10th anniversary season that began Friday night in the Blades' second game against the Mississippi Sea Wolves, nine years of playoffs, two jerseys retired before the game. A place forever in the hearts of Southwest Floridians -- Brush dreamt about all that, too.

He just didn't know it would come true.

That's the thing about dreams. We all have them. Some of us are just brave enough to make them come true. That's what Craig Brush did.

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Brush will be the first to tell you that he's no visionary. He just had a plan that "made sense," and he had the right people working with him to do it.

But it takes a visionary to see what "makes sense." Before Brush, others had come to Southwest Florida with glorious plans for sports franchises or other entertainment options. Nothing caught on. And hockey? Hockey was the last thing that was expected to succeed.

Brush and his business partners held their first press conference in late '97 to announce the building of an arena and the plan to bring an ECHL team to Southwest Florida. Brush told the media that 7,000 people would attend Everblades games.

"There were a lot of rolling eyes," he said. "They'd heard these promises before, and it had never happened."

But the Blades have averaged more than 6,000 fans per game throughout their past nine seasons. They nearly sold out both games this weekend.

Eyes aren't rolling anymore. Mostly, they're wide open.

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Hockey was in Brush's dreams starting as a little boy in Milton, Ontario. His dad, Dave, was a former goalie and hockey referee who taught Craig to love the game from a young age.

Born in 1948, Brush came of age during a boom for Canadian professional hockey, with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadians capturing 11 Stanley Cups between them from 1955-67.

It was in Milton, too, that Brush learned what it took to make his dreams come true, by watching his dad.

"My dad was a real organizer," he said. "He was active with the juniors team in town, and he raised money to build the arena in Milton."

Dave Brush never knew his son would follow in his footsteps, gathering support to build an arena that -- like the one in Milton -- changed its surroundings forever. But Craig, then just a boy, saw it could be done. And he never forgot.

- - - For the meantime, though, Craig Brush was focused on his future as a hockey player. After a few years in juniors, he earned a hockey scholarship to Cornell. In his second season there, Brush became part of one of sports' most magical miracles.

His Cornell team achieved something no college hockey team had ever done before and has never done since -- run the table for a perfect record, undefeated and untied. The 29-0-0 season ended with an NCAA championship win over Clarkson.

Brush played no small role on the team, despite his small stature.

"Craig was an excellent skater ... and he could sure put that puck in the net," remembered Brush's coach from Cornell, the legendary Ned Harkness. "He was small but fast. I always said, you can't hit what you can't catch."

Harkness remembers Brush well, and the two have stayed in touch over the years, through Harkness's stints as Detroit Red Wings coach and general manager, through Brush's successful career in insurance and his accomplishments in Florida.

Brush honored Harkness, now 86, by naming the Florida College Hockey Classic trophy, held at Germain Arena each December, the Ned Harkness Cup.

"I was very excited ... honored that it was done by Craig," Harkness said of the event. "You know, I'm very proud to have had (Brush) as one of my boys. He was a good boy in college, always had his priorities straight."

"I figured he'd be successful, because I always worked on kids to be the best they could. Not second-best. And Craig bought in to that."

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Brush was the best he could be at Cornell, but NHL scouts weren't biting on the wing who was shorter than 6-feet tall. Those were the days of knock-'em-down, drag-'em-out hockey.

So Brush spent a year in the Ontario Hockey Association senior league, scoring 10 points in 21 games. Then, he realized his career "wasn't going anywhere," and he hung up his skates and pulled out his insurance books for the next 10 years.

After all, Brush had a family to support now. He and his wife of now 33 years, Kyle, were married on Dec. 22, 1973. Their first child, Matt, was born the next year, followed four years later by son Tyler, and two years after that, by son Pat.

Brush's work ethic, learned through hockey, served him well as an insurance salesman, and later his organizational skills won him a promotion to manage a large number of employees and make millions.

But he missed hockey. He started getting back into it, slowly, coaching some youth teams in the Compuware program and joining a recreational league with former college players, and former Red Wings (NHL) in Detroit. They played every morning at 6 for about the next 15 years.

It was during that time that Brush met two people who would later become integral to the Florida Everblades: Carolina Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos and current Blades captain Ernie Hartlieb.

Then, Karmanos' only link to hockey was as co-founder of the Compuware youth hockey organization, which added the Junior A Plymouth Whalers in 1989.

Hartlieb was just 5 years old, still wobbly on his skates, a member of the Michigan Travelers hockey team.

Brush met both when his sons played with Hartlieb and Karmanos' son, Jason. Years later, after building a close friendship, Karmanos and Brush partnered up to buy the Everblades and fund an arena, along with Karmanos' original partner, Thomas Thewes, a part-time Bonita Springs resident.

Hartlieb's mom started cutting Brush's wife's hair. The families would stay in close contact as their boys grew up.

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Karmanos, Brush and Thewes bought the Blades together, but the plan was always really Brush's. He was the one who traveled around Florida in 1997, talking to area rink managers and convincing people to believe in his dream.

It wasn't always easy.

"It was a tough period that we went through there," Brush remembered. "I had 11 works-in-progress at that time, and nine of them were things I'd never done before."

He had just a year to finish the arena, build a brand-new team, hire a coach ... the list was long.

Brush kept track on the back of a legal pad. Each day, he'd write what percentage of tasks he had done. His to-do list was always too long.

But somehow, Brush and his fellow workers made it to Nov. 19, 1998 -- the Blades' first home game. The game had to be delayed 37 minutes because of the back-up on Interstate 75 full of fans trying to get to then-Everblades Arena.

The skeptics didn't have much more to say. And neither did Craig Brush. After the game, he took it all in with wife Kyle and his mom, Audrey, who had come down for the game.

Remembering it today, the normally stoic Brush starts to tear up. After all the success of that night, the realization of his dream -- Brush could think of only one thing.

"I just wish my dad had been there to see it," he managed, trying to gather himself. Brush's dad had died years before the season.

It's a side of "Mr. Brush" that his players and employees don't often see -- a moment of vulnerability from the man who always has everything under control.

But seeing Brush remember his dad makes him human. Despite all his success, Brush has had trauma, too. And the man who inspired him, who taught him how to be an organizer and a dreamer -- he lives on through his son at Germain Arena.

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Today, nine years later, Craig Brush's name is known throughout Southwest Florida. Blades fans know they can call him with any concerns they have about the team.

"Sometimes they're surprised to get a direct call back," he says, laughing.

Brush's name is also known throughout the hockey world. He has built a lasting hockey tradition here in Southwest Florida, both with the youth Junior Everblades and the ECHL Everblades.

His hires are loyal. Recreation rink manager Dave Kessel has been there since the beginning, and Blades coach Gerry Fleming is in his seventh year.

Famous among local media for his "coachspeak," Fleming changes when talking about his boss. Suddenly, he can't stop talking.

"(Craig) has had a tremendous influence in my life," he said. "I owe him a huge debt of gratitude. Thank God he was interested in me."

Brush hired Fleming in 2001 after Fleming had spent a year coaching the ECHL's now-defunct Tallahassee Tiger Sharks.

Today, the two serve as some of the only constants in a minor-league hockey world full of player call-ups and high turnover. They are a united front to their players, and Fleming said Brush's patience with him has affected the way Fleming coaches.

"I'm not so quick to judge. I'm a little more patient," Fleming said.

Another devotee is Hartlieb, the then-5-year-old from the ice rink whose mom still cuts Kyle Brush's hair.

Hartlieb, now 28, was the only one of four full-time veterans from '06-07 to return to the Blades this season. He said his relationship to "Mr. Brush" hasn't changed much since those years in Detroit.

"He's still Mr. Brush to me," said Hartlieb, who got his shot with the Blades after a surprise golf outing with Brush followed Hartlieb being cut from a European team in 2004. "I have a lot of respect for him. We all do."

That's clear, as all the Blades players continue to refer to Brush as "Mr. Brush," something Brush says he doesn't encourage.

"I guess it's just because I am so much older than them," the 59-year-old says, laughing.

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As each year goes by, and the Blades remain successful, Brush's dream becomes more and more entrenched in Southwest Florida.

"I sure hope the Blades outlive me," he said last week, saying he has no plans to retire anytime soon.

After all, how do you retire a dream come true?

Well, maybe that's too simple. Brush still stays up nights thinking about the Blades' Game 7 loss to Dayton last season in the American Conference Finals. For as much as it bothers fans that the Blades haven't won a Kelly Cup yet, you can bet it bothers Brush even more.

"I'm extremely competitive," he says. "I absolutely hate to lose."

But in the big picture, Brush's dream has become about as close to reality as it can get. Each day, as he looks out that office window, he sees an arena built for hockey but also suited for just about every entertainment event that comes to Southwest Florida.

He sees what he imagined, what he dreamed of, and he sees even more.

His perfect Cornell season, his sons' youth hockey careers that have now been replaced by business careers and families of their own. Brush sees the ice, he hears the sound of skates stopping and ice spraying to the surface -- a sound that has echoed in his ears since his boyhood in Ontario.

He sees his dad's dreams of an arena in Milton and how Dave Brush made it happen. He sees all the Blades fans: all the snowbirds and the lifelong hockey fans and the people who had never seen a hockey game until the Everblades came to town.

Brush would never give himself the credit. But everyone else says it without being asked.

"There probably wouldn't be much hockey here at all if it wasn't for Craig Brush," says Kessel, who admits he first thought the project was crazy when Brush presented it to him in 1997.

Fleming, Hartlieb, Harkness, even Blades fans who frequently criticize Brush -- they all say the same thing: it was Brush who made this all work.

Maybe it was inheriting his dad's ability to have an exceptional vision and turn it into reality. Maybe it was just a love for hockey that made Brush want to bring hockey everywhere.

The reasons how it happened are many.

But the important thing is that Craig Brush saw Germain Arena and the Florida Everblades when all anyone else saw was a swamp and a sport that no one in Florida cared much about.

As a near-sellout crowd flocks to Germain Arena on Friday night, and 22 players play out their dreams in Everblades jerseys, Craig Brush's dream is reality for more than 8,000 people.

And even if you're not a hockey fan, you've got to admire Brush's dream and what it has done for Southwest Florida.