Pete Robinson, president of the Gardens and of the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, in the annex skating center. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

        The loss of two major tenants in three years forced operators of the Cincinnati Gardens to come up with a new pitch: Focal point of hockey in Greater Cincinnati.

        That meant youth hockey, high school hockey and minor-league professional hockey. It meant spending $1 million to renovate an unused annex to provide more ice time.

        Without the Cincinnati Cyclones since 1997 and the Xavier Musketeers since 2000, the Roselawn arena has used those rentals to keep making money when some predicted it might not survive.

        “We're not looking anyone in the eye and saying we're raking it in, because we're not,” said Pete Robinson, president of the Gardens and the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, the American Hockey League team that is the major tenant. “But we have a long-term plan.”

        Like its counterpart downtown, the Firstar Center, the Gardens is looking for a niche in a national arena marketplace where many facilities without major-league sports tenants are struggling.

        Officials at both the Gardens and the Firstar Center said they will increase marketing efforts to try to draw whatever customers they can.

        “The key to this business is booking and marketing,” said Doug Kirchhofer, head of the company that owns both the Firstar Center and the Cyclones. “The real value that management creates is on the revenue side of things.”

        Facing a money-draining Cyclones team, the Firstar Center is looking for an equity partner that might manage the arena.

        The main difference between the two: After a renovation in 1997, the Firstar Center has nearly $30 mil lion in debt on its books, while the 51-year-old Gardens is debt-free, Mr. Robinson said. That means profits from concessions and sponsorships help to keep the Mighty Ducks above the break-even point.

        That allows the Gardens to turn away minor-league teams that would like to become tenants but would not contribute to profits, Mr. Robinson said.

        “We think it's bad busi ness to be supporting an entity that cannot make it,” he said. “We would rather have less going on here, but supporting hockey as much as we possibly can.

        “ ... Really, this is a transition year for us. We've gotten into more of a grass-roots business.”

        That includes all kinds of hockey. Moeller High School plays some of its games on the main rink, and the ice at the former annex is booked nearly solid from October through March, drawing rent of about $200 per hour.

        Tenants at the annex, now called the Mighty Ducks Skating Center, include recreational leagues organized by the Cincinnati Area Hockey Association. The facility opened in late 1999.

        Kenko Corp., the private company controlled by Mr. Robinson's family, has owned the Gardens since 1979.

        Xavier opened its on-campus Cintas Center last year.

        This year, the main arena will host about 80 dates, about 20 fewer than when Xavier was playing its men's and women's basketball games there, Mr. Robinson said.

        Attendance at Mighty Ducks games is running about 4,300 per contest, down about 700 from last year, Mr. Robinson said.

        Since the Cyclones left, total attendance at the Gardens has dropped dramatically. In 1997, the arena paid $55,141 in admission taxes to Cincinnati.

        Last year, it paid $31,888, a drop of 42 percent. The tax is 3 percent of each ticket sold, with the first $1.05 exempted.

        Those figures do not include most tenants in the skating center.

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