One day not long after the tornado in Dayton a few bubs starting talking about Hara and what, if anything, might be salvageable. Kyle Wheeler mentioned someone had been to the arena and recognized the boards were in decent shape.  Wheels and Tony did an initial recon trip up there to evaluate the boards.  After an initial eval, it was clear the boards were in great shape and would be perfect for the CSHL. After receiving the news, I immediately began searching for the owner. 

A quick google search pulled up a local Dayton newspaper article about who purchased Hara, I reached out, coincidentally the company was represented by a local Cincinnati law firm.  I happened to know one of the lawyers at this firm.  We had a conversation and he set me up with his boss who was a partner.  The law firm negotiated on behalf of the owner...long story short...after a lot of back and forth they decided that it was too dangerous for us to enter Hara Arena.  On top of that, there wasn’t enough time because demolition was scheduled to start three days from my conversation with the firm. 

After expressing the league's intentions, the lawyer agreed to contact the owner again but said we would most likely have to pay for the boards and the removal once they determined the cost.  I  warned the lawyer what a pain/cost it would be for them to remove, package, find a buyer, sell and ship those boards.  It may end up costing them more than they can get for them, and I know their goal was to turn that site over as soon as possible.  I suggested that we provide the necessary insurance and legal agreements so we could remove and keep the boards.  In return, we provided them with a charitable donation receipt for the estimated value of the boards, some good PR, and some pro-bono hours for the firm helping our non-profit, as well as saving them the time/labor to remove and scrap the boards themselves.   They agreed which shifted our efforts towards the real work.  I was hands-off at this point with a 5-day old baby girl.

Tim and Justin worked out all of the logistics, mobilized the bubs, and successfully relocated the boards to Covington before the deadline.  I don’t want to miss any names, I wasn’t there, but from what I understand there were a bunch of bubs who dedicated their weekend to this project.  If we didn’t have everyone ready to go without notice we would not have been able to get these boards...Instead of carrying on their rich history, they would be in a dump somewhere.  Thank you to the guys who donated time, trucks, fuel, trailers, and tools!  This would not have been possible without your efforts.