Seems like Alaska Aces 2.0 in terms of travel, just in a smaller area. Not sure how they expect that to work. Best of luck, though.
Rapid City already confounds your average team travel agent.
At least, with Billings, Alaska Air (using their Horizon subsidiary) gets there less expensively than what you get going to Rapid City. Billings is also a 17% larger market... so it's growing faster than I thought it was. It's also Montana's primary city; Rapid City not so much for South Dakota. That MIGHT make Billings a reasonable bet... question being whether Rapid City is doing well enough and the comparison is moot or not.
(NOTE: I'm going to Rapid City next month. I would have, in one scenario, flown into Billings and taken the bus for a 6-hour ride because of the expense. It's literally cheaper for me to return from Rapid City to Portland via Las Vegas and stay a night on the strip than a more direct flight... and Vegas is what I'm going to do. BTW, I'm flying to Rapid City from Winnipeg, which is another story.)
That reminds me... if the courts in Canada come back and rule in favor of players in the Major Junior case, and the CHL subsequently implements some form of pay, the ECHL should be trying extremely fast to swoop into Spokane and at least two of Everett, Kennewick, Kent, and Portland. I have a suspicion that CHL would retrench and reorganize, and they might jettison American-based teams in the process. Since Alaska Air is based in Seattle, that makes connections to places like Boise and Billings easier. Example in another sport: Las Vegas AAA baseball attendance is much more atrocious than advertised. HOWEVER, with so many airlines flying through Vegas (and especially Southwest), they were never a threat to leave. A team in Vegas keeps costs down. Bummer about the Wranglers, I guess.