Barry Soskin was a hockey player before he got into team ownership, though he doesn’t brag about his skills.
“Talent skips a generation, and my kid’s really good,” he says. “I’m a high school player, and an everything-else wannabe.”
Soskin, who lives in the Chicago area, owns a sporting goods store, holds commercial and residential real estate investments and has started a number of businesses over the years, some more successful than others. He recalls having drinks with his business buddies in 1989 when the idea of buying a sports team came up.
Class A minor league baseball seemed promising at first, but buying and owning a team seemed too expensive. Soskin was attracted instead to the East Coast Hockey League, in part because the league had a salary cap.
He says his involvement in the ECHL included a stint on the expansion committee when several teams settled along the Interstate 10 corridor including the Baton Rouge Kingfish, who arrived in 1996 and split in 2003.
“They all did great, and they all faded away,” Soskin says.
Soskin is co-owner of the new Baton Rouge professional hockey team, which officials revealed July 13 will be named the Zydeco. The minor league expansion team has signed a three-year lease with the Raising Cane’s River Center, and everyone involved hopes the relationship lasts much longer than that.
He has been an owner of various teams over the past 25 years, including the two-time ECHL champion Toledo Storm.
“What I bring to the equation with all these teams is my business sense, and I’m a hockey guy,” Soskin says. “I want to see the fights, the hard hits, the creativity and speed. What I want to see, everybody else wants to see, too.”
Read the full story about Soskin, the Zydeco and the future of hockey in Baton Rouge from the latest edition of Business Report. Send comments to editor@businessreport.com.
