Many top players make serious money

      Players won't get rich in the International Hockey League, but they can earn a nice living.
      There are 57 players in the league on IHL contracts making $100,000 or more, including three on the Thunder, according to a salary report. There are others in the league making over that amount, but they are on NHL contracts.
      The league's highest-paid IHL player is Orlando center Hubie McDonough, who earns $243,000. Others in the top 10 are Chicago's Rob Brown ($180,000), Milwaukee's Tony Hrkac and Grand Rapids' Pokey Reddick ($150,000 each), Chicago's Wendell Young ($135,000), Orlando's Allan Bester ($132,000) and San Antonio's Lonnie Loach ($130,000).
      The following players earn $125,000 each: Patrice Lefebvre of the Thunder, Steve Maltais of Chicago, Don Biggs of Cincinnati, Michel Mongeau of Milwaukee, Todd Richards of Orlando and Jesse Belanger and Stephane Beauregard of Quebec.
      Thunder defensemen Chris Dahlquist and Kerry Huffman make $110,000 each. Defenseman Jeff Serowik is the team's highest-paid player at $158,000, but he is on an NHL contract with the Chicago Blackhawks.
      -- SPIDERS MOVE -- The suspended San Francisco Spiders franchise announced a conditional move to Victoria, B.C., for the 1999-2000 season.
      Owner David Pasant sus- pended operations after the Spiders lost more than $6 million in 1995-96, their only year of operation.
      Pasant's deal is with Pilot Pacific Development, which has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the city of Victoria to build a 10,000-seat arena complex.
      Pilot Pacific would get 50 percent equity in the franchise, and Pasant would get 50 percent equity in the arena. There will be three full-sized rinks in the complex, a themed restaurant, a large pro shop and a sports bar.
      "I think this will be a sensational market for the league," Pasant said. "It's a smaller city than we've been going into, but from a logistics standpoint, there is not a lot else there, and I think the people will support this in a big, big way. We're going back to the roots of the game here, and I think it is going to be accepted wonderfully."
      The move is subject to four reachable conditions. First, the British Columbia legislature will have to amend municipal acts that will enable the city to lease the arena site to the developers under a 45-year tax-exempt lease.
      Also needed are a master agreement between the city and Pilot Pacific, financing and approval of the IHL board of governors.
      Pasant said groundbreaking would probably occur in September.
      -- MONTREAL FRANCHISE -- The league may also add another Canadian city. Tony Acurso, a Montreal businessman, has expressed interest in building a 10,000-seat arena in suburban Laval and putting an IHL franchise there for the 1998-99 season.
      The league is aware of Acurso's interest, but said no formal application for a franchise has been made.
      Cleveland owner Larry Gordon, chairman of the board of governors, said he hoped the league could place a franchise in Montreal or one of its suburbs.
      "One of our priorities has to be further developing the Canadian market," Gordon said. "We've had great success in Winnipeg and Quebec, and I think we could do the same in Montreal and Toronto. There are very few cities where you could put (an IHL) franchise in the same city as an NHL franchise and succeed, but we have two of them in Detroit and Chicago, and obviously two others are Montreal and Toronto.
      "There have been informal talks about (the Montreal franchise), but the league is very, very interested in that market."
      -- ANGRY GUY -- Fort Wayne general manager David Franke erupted after the team lost to Michigan 7-2 Thursday. Franke's family has owned the team for seven years
      "This is the worst effort out of a Komet team in a big game in the seven years we have owned the hockey club," Franke said. "This is totally baffling, totally inexcusable and totally not in the tradition of the Fort Wayne Komets."
      -- TIDBITS -- Houston's Frederic Chabot set an IHL record for games by a goaltender when he appeared in his 70th of the season in a 5-4 shootout victory in Phoenix on April 9. ... Cleveland's Jock Callander hit the 20-goal plateau for the 12th time in his career. ... It has been a rough season in Fort Wayne, but things haven't been all bad. When the team's flight home from a recent game in Cincinnati was overbooked, half of the players had to bus home. As compensation from Delta Airlines, though, all received round-trip tickets for two.