It's a radical idea.

Christopher Lencheski does radical.

In the coming weeks, the principal owner of the new Quad-City Mallards will introduce a high-end ticket that will allow some 160 fans access to the team in its locker room up to a half-hour before the puck drops.

That's an idea culled from more than a decade of experience marketing NASCAR and other aspects of the high-performance auto industry at SKI & Company while also fielding racing teams on the Nationwide Series.

"In our business, it's about the experience," he said of NASCAR pit pass tickets that allow fans on-track access before races.

Lencheski, 42, also leans on his NASCAR experience to explain why he would buy into minor league hockey at a time when the industry is struggling nationwide and, particularly, in a market where the American Hockey League Quad-City Flames suffered in excess of $2.5 million in losses in just two seasons.

When Lencheski moved into the race marketing business after helping to successfully market the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, his friends questioned why he would do that.

"I said, 'I'll tell you why: I talked to sponsors, and they are seeing returns in NASCAR that are out of this world,' " he recalled during an introductory news conference Tuesday at the i wireless Center. "I saw NASCAR going like this."

His hand motioned upward to reflect the growth of the racing industry during his still ongoing tenure.

With a similarly aggressive marketing approach, Lencheski is confident he can help hockey grow here as well.

Eric Galler, Lencheski's partner in QCHT, LLC, said the duo's move into hockey ownership was based on a fairly simple factor.

"We love hockey," said Galler, found of Novus Applications LLC. "It's a great sport."

Lencheski is aware it is not the healthiest of sports right now, particularly on the minor league level. That's why he searched carefully for the right town and the right league, enlisting the advice and counsel of consultants like former Pittsburgh Penguins president Steve Ryan.

He said he was approached by AHL and ECHL teams looking to sell, but opted to start an International Hockey League expansion team here because the market has a history of success and the IHL business-model appeals to his hands-on sensibilities.

"We went from Greenville (S.C.) to Johnstown (Pa.) to Youngstown (Ohio) and other places as well," he said of his search.

He was lured to the Quad-Cities by iwC executive director Scott Mullen and Howard Cornfield, the former managing owner of the old Q-C Mallards who was working as a consultant for iwC's hockey hunt.

"We heard from Howard, Scott and others, sponsors even, who called and said 'Look, it's here. Please dig deep.' And we did."

Not too deep. Lencheski declined to discuss financial aspects of agreements with the IHL and the iwC, but Mullen indicated the new team is getting the building essentially for costs and Lencheski conceded he took a hard line in negotiations.

"We were very specific about what we were going to commit and what we were going to need for an organization coming in with the stuff we're offering," he said. "You can have a $10 ticket, but if it costs you $20 to get there, what's the point?"

The new owners know a recent history that includes an estimated $4 million in losses over three years for former Q-C hockey owner Quad-Cities Sports Ventures Inc., which owned the UHL Mallards for a season and the AHL Flames for two.

Lencheski indicated numbers carefully have been crunched. He said running an AHL team is at least twice as expensive as the projected $2 million "run rate" the new Mallards are looking at. The latter is a number he called "sustainable."

The key to making money on top of that, he said, will come in the marketing.

And Lencheski has ideas about that.

You'd better believe he has ideas.

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