Dream season canceled

The Alaska Dream on Tuesday ended an attempt to bring professional basketball back to Anchorage, canceling an inaugural season riddled by nightmares.

Owner Trey Davis said the team won't play this season, but he isn't abandoning his hope of some day fielding an American Basketball Association team, KTUU reported Tuesday night.

"When the team was created I knew it was going to be a bumpy ride but I never once (thought) we would encounter some of the problems we have," Davis wrote in an email quoted on the television station's Web site.

The Dream's first two home games, set for Dec. 15-16, were canceled abruptly -- just hours before tipoff -- when their opponent, the Washington Raptors of Seattle, refused to make the trip. The Raptors said the Dream failed to secure a return flight for players needing to get home in time to return to their day jobs.

The Dream then called off their Dec. 19-20 road series against the San Francisco Rumble, saying they would use the holiday break to regroup. The team was scheduled to play Monday and Tuesday at Sullivan Arena, and an arena employee said on Tuesday that those games are still on the arena schedule. It's unclear whether Davis will have to pay rent for those two nights now that the games have been called off.

The Dream joined a league known for instability. Teams fold and games are cancelled with regularity in the ABA.

The Dream seemed to defy the odds, though, by staging a four-team exhibition tournament in Fairbanks, which the team won convincingly.

But things went downhill quickly. Only about 400 tickets were sold for the opener at Sullivan, and after the games were canceled, both teams blamed the other for the series not happening.

"We feel it would be best if we stepped back and get things in order before proceeding," Davis said in his email.