NHL's Devils saw talent in Checkers' president

Skilled puck handlers and goalies aren’t the only talent the Charlotte Checkers send up the hockey chain.

Jeff Longo, team president the past five years, on Wednesday leaped to the NHL. He accepted an offer to become the New Jersey Devils’ vice president of marketing and community development.

Statistics often are an easy way to measure a player’s success.

Ditto for front office types.

Longo, 33, left the Checkers in better shape than the franchise he inherited. Attendance, corporate revenue and charitable contributions increased all five years. He didn’t do it alone, but like most successful leaders, built a strong staff that helped him do it.

And how many executives do you know who’d accept a Mohawk haircut during a game, to raise money for charity?

Longo did it last season, with the image of him getting sheared up on the Time Warner Cable Arena screen between periods.

He, like most of the Checkers front office, was accessible to fans. They’d listen to concerns and requests. Some were unreasonable, of course. But Longo listened.

“When you have 6,000 in people the building, you can’t make them all happy,” Longo said, laughing. “But fans are what drive our ideas. If we didn’t want to do it, we wouldn’t be in the concourses listening.”

The Checkers moved uptown three seasons ago, after stagnant attendance at Cricket Arena (about three miles away). It was a move that saved the franchise, created new fans that could walk from uptown homes and businesses, and no doubt added stress to Longo and staff. They weathered it, and now have a solid ECHL franchise in perhaps the league’s best arena.

The NHL deal happened quickly, Longo said.

“My wife and I had no plans to move out of Charlotte anytime soon,” he said. “We talked a few years back about the only way we’d leave was to go to New Jersey, my home state, or Boston, where she’s from. The job that came along was the perfect opportunity.”

“It’s bittersweet. I won’t be part of the next step of the great things this franchise will do, but I will be working for a great NHL organization.”

- Cliff Mehrtens