A Rapid City Sentinel Editorial
Editor’s Note: DawnSherine Bernard is the founder and publisher of The Rapid City Sentinel. She covered the 2025-26 Rapid City Rush season directly and is named in the events described in Section 4 of this editorial. All documentation referenced herein is retained by the author.
The Corporate Promises
They came to Rapid City with a blueprint and a guarantee.
When Dave Smith was introduced as the new head coach and general manager of the Rapid City Rush, he didn’t come alone. Flanking him were Emma Setzer, Chief Financial Officer of Spire Holdings, and Jared Reid, President of the Rapid City Rush. The message was deliberate and clear. This wasn’t a handshake deal with a shadow operation. This was institutional. Funded. Serious.
The language that followed was unambiguous. This wasn’t a rebuild. This wasn’t a transition year. This was the beginning of something — a Kelly Cup contender, a team built to win, a front office finally ready to deliver on what Rush fans had been waiting for. The CFO and the President stood at the podium. The coach shook hands and talked about culture and compete level and what he was going to build in western South Dakota.
The Monument would be loud again. The roster would be deep. The team would bring fear to their opponents and the pride in wearing the jersey would be what every ECHL player would strive for.
Rapid City believed it. Season ticket holders signed up. Sponsors wrote checks. Fans who had watched years of mediocrity decided this time was different because they were told, in no uncertain terms, that it was.
It wasn’t.
What followed was one of the most chaotic, revealing, and ultimately damning seasons in Rush franchise history — not because the team lost, but because of everything that happened off the ice while they were losing.
A roster gutted by mismanagement before the puck even dropped on the new year.
A front office more focused on controlling what Rapid City could read than on building a winning team.
And a local media outlet that — when it mattered most — chose the franchise over the fans who trusted it.
This is the story of the season that wasn’t. And of everything that was buried to keep you from knowing about it.
The Unraveling
The cracks appeared before most people were looking for them. The first one appeared December 1st.
BILLY CONSTANTINOU
Billy Constantinou had been a Rush fixture for three years — a road warrior who had found a home in Rapid City and earned the trust of his teammates and the affection of the fan base.
In October, the organization rewarded that trust by naming him to the team’s leadership group. It was a public designation. A statement of confidence. Fans celebrated it.
Thirty days later, on December 1st, the Rush released him from his Standard Player Contract. No explanation was offered. No reason was given publicly. According to people close to him, Constantinou was blindsided. His mother took to the Rush fan page — not to defend the organization’s decision, because there was no decision to defend, only a silence — but to defend her son against the speculation that silence had created. She asked people to stop talking about her kid. The fans, who had every reason to be angry, were livid.
The Rush never explained why a player they had just publicly honored with a leadership role was gone thirty days later. They still haven’t. Billy Constantinou is still playing hockey. The organization that discarded him without a word has never been asked to account for it.
It was the first move in a season that would be defined by exactly this — decisions made without explanation, people treated as expendable, and a front office that confused silence with accountability.
In early December, while the Rush were still playing games and fans were still showing up, the organization was already coming apart at the seams further. The roster Dave Smith had assembled leaned heavily on his connections at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute — his own pipeline, his own guys, players who owed their professional opportunity to the man behind the bench. On paper it looked like loyalty. In practice it was fragility.
On December 8th, this reporter published “The Status Quo Face Off: PHPA’s Legal Counter Move Checkmates the ECHL” in the Rapid City Post — an examination of the unfair labor practice charges the Professional Hockey Players’ Association had filed with the National Labor Relations Board against the ECHL.
The charges were serious. The PHPA alleged the league had unilaterally continued scheduling practices that violated player health and safety, failed to compensate players for mandatory community appearances, refused to provide financial information required for good faith bargaining, and — most critically — that member clubs had attempted to intimidate and retaliate against players engaged in union activities.
The article named Spire Hockey explicitly. It named Mark Walter. It explained the legal strategy the PHPA was using and what it meant for the league’s ownership groups going forward.
Within days of that publication, the organizational rot that the article had only begun to describe accelerated into full view. Smith’s RPI pipeline — the inner circle he had built the roster around — began to dissolve almost overnight. Players who had personal loyalty to the coach saw the writing on the wall and were gone before the ECHL strike even formally hit at the end of December. When the strike arrived, the Rush roster was already in shreds.
ADAM BERG
Then came the Adam Berg incident — a moment so transparently cynical it deserves its own examination. On Wednesday, December 10th, Smith claimed Berg off waivers from the Utah Grizzlies. Twenty-four hours later, on Thursday, December 11th, Berg was released back onto waivers. One day. Claimed and discarded in a single news cycle — a textbook “block and drop” move that agents and players recognize immediately. You claim a player to keep him out of a competitor’s lineup, or to satisfy a roster requirement for exactly 24 hours, then discard him the moment the immediate need passes. It burns bridges. It wastes a career. And it tells you everything about how this front office viewed the human beings on its roster.
BRADY KEEPER
January brought Brady Keeper — a veteran acquired December 29, 2025 from the South Carolina Stingrays, where he had also been on team suspension. He made his ECHL debut with the Rush on January 2, 2026, logging over 24 minutes in his first professional game in nearly two years.
His tenure showed flashes of real impact — on January 9 he recorded a Gordie Howe Hat Trick (goal, assist, and a fight) against the Indy Fuel, returned from a brief family leave to play at Cincinnati on January 16, and scored a power-play goal on January 23 in a loss to the Utah Grizzlies.
Then, on January 24, 2026, he was placed on Team Suspension and removed from the active roster — and has not appeared in any game recaps or roster updates since.
Alleged Sponsor Misappropriation
At the “Peaches” game — a promotional event designed to project fun and community engagement — a member of the Rush on ice personality staff allegedly helped herself to sponsor gifts intended for the event, redirecting them for her own birthday celebration. She pitted her husband and brother in a roll eating contest to win her “birthday dinner” from this popular local steak chain which is famous for its rolls. This wasn’t a misunderstanding. Sponsors write checks and provide gifts in good faith, trusting that their investment goes toward the fans and the community events they agreed to support. What allegedly happened at this game was a betrayal of that trust — and of every local business that keeps this franchise financially afloat.
Coaches Corner Allegations
And then there was the Coaches Corner.
Held at a local tavern and billed as an opportunity for season ticket holders and fans to engage directly with the coaching staff, Coaches Corner is exactly the kind of event a franchise runs when it wants fans to feel valued and heard.
When one season ticket holder stood up and asked a question about scoring — perhaps the most fundamental concern any hockey fan can raise — head coach Dave Smith’s response was immediate and public.
“If you’re going to ask a shit burger question,” Smith told the room, “you’re going to get a shit burger answer.”
The comment was reported by multiple people on the Rush fan page. It spread through the Rapid City hockey community within hours.
What has not surfaced — and what is worth asking about openly — is video. In 2025, in a room full of season ticket holders armed with smartphones, at an event the franchise itself organized, not a single recording of that exchange has been made publicly available. Given everything else documented in this report, the absence is notable.
The pattern of conduct didn’t stop at the coaching staff or the events office.
Public Apologies. In February, during a three-game regular season series against the Worcester Railers, Rush PR director Cory Berberian made remarks directed at an on-ice official and his family that were serious enough to trigger a direct response from the league. The ECHL mandated a public apology. It did not come immediately — it came the next time that referee appeared in Rapid City, broadcast live on Mixlr and FloHockey for anyone following the team. It was not a voluntary act of contrition from within the organization. It was a requirement handed down from the outside because the organization had demonstrated it would not hold itself accountable.
Coach insulting paying fans at a sanctioned team event. An on ice personality allegedly redirecting sponsor gifts. A PR director compelled by the league to publicly apologize to a referee and his family. At every level of this organization, the same pattern: conduct that crossed a line, silence or deflection from leadership, and accountability only when forced from the outside.
By late December the ECHL strike had arrived to finish what mismanagement had started. The Rush entered the new year with a roster that bore almost no resemblance to what had been promised in the summer. The RPI guys were gone. Billy was gone. The team was statistically out of playoff contention before February arrived.
The season that was supposed to end with a Kelly Cup run was already over. The only question left was what else would be revealed before the final buzzer.
The Escapes and Extractions From The Red Alert
In Rapid City this season, success didn’t look like a Kelly Cup. It looked like a phone call from a different area code.
While the organization was consuming itself, the players and management staff who saw it coming found their way out. Their departures tell the story of this season as clearly as any scoreboard.
ARSENII SERGEEV Arsenii Sergeev’s exit may be the most damning of all. Originally drafted by the Calgary Flames in the seventh round of the 2021 NHL Draft, Sergeev turned pro after leading Penn State to its first-ever Frozen Four appearance — posting a .919 save percentage and 2.54 GAA with four shutouts in 33 starts. The Flames signed him to a two-year NHL entry-level contract at $866,250 AAV. The Athletic ranked him as the top goaltending prospect in the entire Calgary system. They sent him to Rapid City for development.
Named an ECHL All-Star, he was nevertheless being buried — limited playing time, a toxic culture, coaching systems that failed to deploy one of the most promising young goaltenders in the minors. On December 13th, Calgary had seen enough and recalled him directly to the AHL — nearly two weeks before the ECHL strike authorization was even issued on December 18th, and 13 days before the strike officially commenced on December 26th. Calgary wasn’t waiting around.
In his AHL debut on December 21st, he faced 52 shots, stopping 52 of 53 in a 2-1 victory over the San Diego Gulls — setting a new Calgary Wranglers franchise record for saves in a single game. He has not returned to Rapid City.
The Flames entrusted their top goaltending prospect to this organization. The Rush failed him. The talent was never the problem. The organization was.
UPDATE: Arsenii Sergeev played his first NHL game with the Calgary Flames on April 17, 2026. He secured the 3-1 win against the L.A. Kings.
ARVILS BERGMANIS
Arvils Bergmanis read the writing on the wall in December — early enough that he was already gone before the full weight of the collapse landed. He returned to Sweden. For a professional hockey player to leave North American hockey mid-season and go home is not a casual decision. It is a statement about what he found when he got to Rapid City and what he decided he was not willing to endure.
GEORGIA VEATCH
Georgia Veatch earned what can only be described as a golden ticket — a move to the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise as Manager of Partner Sales. In a season defined by dysfunction, getting an upward promotion to a higher level organization wasn’t just a career win. It was an escape.
UPDATE: The Pittsburgh Penguins begin their Stanley Cup journey on April 18, 2026 against the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round.
BLAKE BENNETT
Blake Bennett waited longer. His extraction came in March, a trade to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and a placement to the Wheeling Nailers finally arrived after a season spent watching the organization around him deteriorate. Bennett’s talent was never the problem. The culture was. Scoring a hat- trick in his first game with the Nailers was the icing on his extraction cake. No more screaming into to the Red Alert Void.
UPDATE: The Wheeling Nailers placed first in the North Division for the 2026 Kelly Cup Playoff run.
This is the ledger of who made it out alive. It reframes what winning meant in Rapid City this year. The players who thrived weren’t the ones who bought into the promise made at that summer press conference. They were the ones who recognized the reality early enough to find a way out of it.
RUSH NATION
The fans who stayed, who kept showing up to The Monument, who kept renewing their season tickets and asking honest questions at Coaches Corners — they deserved better than what this organization gave them. They deserved the truth about what was happening. And they deserved a local press that would tell it to them.
They got neither.
The Silenced Story
While all of this was unfolding, Rapid City had a local news outlet that was supposed to be covering it.
The Rapid City Post was, at the time, the publication where this reporter contributed sports coverage. On December 7th, 2025, Managing Editor Chris Hornick received a submitted article titled “The Status Quo Face Off: PHPA’s Legal Counter Move Checkmates the ECHL.” The full text of that article is attached to this editorial as submitted. Readers are invited to read it and draw their own conclusions about why it was removed.
Hornick’s initial response was collegial. He asked whether the story would be ongoing and suggested holding it for a slower news week. This reporter responded that the legal situation was unlikely to resolve quickly, mentioned upcoming FOIA research that could enhance the piece, and agreed that January timing made sense. The exchange was professional. The working relationship appeared intact.
On December 8th, Hornick published the article earlier than either party had anticipated — a miscommunication about timing. This reporter thanked him. He asked for a follow-up piece by December 26th for a January 3rd publication date. Hornick responded: “Sounds great.”
The article went live.
Scott McNaughton, Director of Communications for the Professional Hockey Players’ Association, read it that same morning and attempted to share it with a colleague.
By the time he tried, it was gone.
McNaughton emailed this reporter directly: “I read your article in the Rapid City Post this morning and was hoping to share it with a colleague, but I see now that the story is no longer available online. Do you happen to have a PDF copy that I could share?”
This reporter had not been notified that anything had changed. The response to McNaughton was honest: “I do now. My editor didn’t tell me there was any issue so I’m not sure what happened.”
Two days later, on December 12th, Managing Editor Chris Hornick sent an email that provided the answer. The relevant passage, in his own words:
“After some comments from Rush management. I’m working on looking over spelling/formatting of your stories more closely.”
The email went on to list minor formatting corrections — clock notations, player name spellings.
The formatting notes were the vehicle. The explanation was the story. Rush management had contacted the managing editor of the Rapid City Post about a reporter’s coverage.
The article about the players’ union’s legal action against the ECHL — an article that named the Rush’s ownership structure and its billionaire backer — was no longer available online.
This reporter forwarded the Hornick email to McNaughton at the PHPA the same day under the subject line “What happened,” with a single additional statement:
“I will no longer be contributing to the Rapid City Post in a journalistic way.”
Four days later, on December 16th, this reporter contacted Caroline Hendrie, Executive Director of the Society of Professional Journalists, to report what had occurred. The communication described the situation plainly: “I am not sure if what happened to me as a freelance reporter with the Post is business as usual or if I was a victim of a coerced editor. I do know the Post has continued to use my byline though I have stopped writing for them.”
The Cold Hard Truth
On April 18th, the Rapid City Rush will play their final game of the season. The rescheduled Tahoe game — itself a symbol of a season that couldn’t even unfold on its own terms — closes the book on a year that began with a press conference full of promises and ends with a roster full of strangers, a fan base full of questions, and a front office that has never been asked to answer for any of it.
This piece is the ask.
What happened in Rapid City this season was not bad luck. It was not the ECHL strike, though the strike exposed it. It was not a thin roster, though the roster was gutted by the decisions that preceded it.
What happened was a systematic failure of leadership at every level of this organization — and a systematic effort to ensure that the people most affected by it, the fans who bought the tickets and the players who signed the contracts, would never get a full accounting.
And when a reporter documented the legal and labor context that explained all of it — when a story was written that named the ownership structure, identified the financial backing, and gave Rapid City fans the information they needed to understand what was happening to their team — Rush management called the managing editor of the local paper. The story disappeared. The reporter was not told. The players’ union noticed before the journalist did.
The people of Rapid City deserved better. They deserved a team that honored the promises made at that summer press conference. They deserved a front office that treated players, sponsors, referees, and fans with basic professional respect. They deserved a local press that would tell them the truth when the truth was inconvenient for the powerful.
The Rapid City Sentinel is telling it now.
The season that wasn’t is over. The record of what it was — and who was responsible — is not going anywhere.
The Rapid City Sentinel covered the 2025-26 Rush season from the July press conference until Dec 11th 2025 for The Rapid City Post. The suppressed article, “The Status Quo Face Off: PHPA’s Legal Counter Move Checkmates the ECHL,” is preserved in the Wayback Machine archive and attached in full below. All email correspondence referenced in this report is retained by the author.
Scan Here To Hear the July 9th Press Conference :
STATUS QUO FACEOFF AS PRESERVED ON NEWSBREAK
https://share.newsbreak.com/i0hu3412
NOTICE OF PUBLICATION TO HOMESLICE AND SPIRE MOTORSPORTS
There has been no reply from Spire Motorsports as of publishing.
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