The Abbotsford Heat made their fare share of headlines in 2009, but they were a hot topic again in both the news and sports sections of the Abbotsford-Mission Times in 2010.

While the Heat became a mainstay in the news for financial and political reasons, one of their more renowned moments happened on March 27 in a game against the Hamilton Bulldogs.

Head coach Jim Playfair grabbed instant fame for his 28-second stick-breaking, jacket-ripping outburst against referee Jamie Koharski.

Minutes after the incident, a highlight clip of Playfair on the boards of the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre with a broken stick in his hand and no jacket made its way to CBC's Hockey Night in Canada.

Two days later, Playfair found himself at the centre of a media frenzy that reached beyond the Fraser Valley all the way to news organizations in the U.S., such as CNN.

"I don't know if it did anything necessarily for the franchise," said Heat director of communications and broadcast Dave Sheldon.

"Sports is funny in the sense that sometimes as a coach you have to be the person who brings the team together, and Jim at that point wasn't happy that J.D. Watt had been singled out as doing something that he really didn't do.

"Jim's response was so passionate and so candid that it really brought the team together."

The Heat made the playoffs despite a plethora of injuries, and managed a first round victory over the Rochester Americans in seven games.

The Heat trailed in that series three games to one, but responded with three straight wins for a berth in the North Division final.

Their playoff run would come to an end on May 10, as the Hamilton Bulldogs defeated the Heat by a score of 4-0 in Game 6 of the North Division final.

"It's important for us being a first-year franchise, we wanted to be in the playoffs," said Sheldon.

"We felt it was important as a new entity in this market to show people that we can have success."

Off the ice, the Heat, as well as Abbotsford Mayor George Peary and city council, were criticized for the 10-year $57 million supply fee agreement between the city and the team's local ownership group headed by Lane Sweeting.

It was projected in March that the Heat would fall $275,000 short of the $5.7 million in guaranteed revenue for the owners, and that city taxpayers would be on the hook.

"The taxpayer is burdened with all of the risk for this hockey team. Unapologetically, there is no sharing of the risk," said Vince Dimanno of the Abbotsford Ratepayers Association.

Some critics even questioned the legality of the contract itself.

The Times reported in November that the city announced hockey revenue fell $450,637 short of the guaranteed target.

One of the causes of this was below average attendance, as the Heat finished in the bottom third of AHL attendance at just under 3,900 in their inaugural year.

The AESC holds over 7,000 for hockey games.

This season, the Heat sit 26th in the league in this category, averaging 3,382 fans. The media again focused attention on the lack of attendance, however Sweeting told the Times in November he is confident that ticket sales will increase and the business will grow.

"We're not reading too much into that. The big games are with Manitoba and Hamilton. We'll get more fans in and some momentum [in ticket sales] and we anticipate the average will go up."

Sheldon said the team is making roots in the community, including helping out the foot bank, Christmas bureau, reading at schools and visiting hospitals.

"Our franchise. . . is committed to the community and we're hoping that slowly and surely that message gets out."