Which is still the best travel of any remaining NHL teams potentially looking for an affiliation. The only other teams I would think may be interested are Winnipeg, Vancouver, or San Jose and all of them have a far greater travel distance
True, but really, once you are flying, it probably doesn't change that much. A lot of the time "flying" somewhere is spent getting to and from the airports and waiting around. The difference between leaving your apartment in Norfolk and arriving at the hotel in Chicago vs the hotel in San Jose is something like 10 hours vs 5 hours (quick google search reveals no direct flights from Norfolk to San Jose, so that includes a layover) With a two hour time difference between Chicago and San Jose the number of times this would result in a player making or missing a game is fairly small.
I'm not arguing that Norfolk would be better off with the Sharks vs the Hurricanes, or any other team. I think working with an organization that is more committed to sending players down, signing enough AHL contracts that they aren't constantly short-handed, having decent goalie prospects, financial considerations, etc etc are probably more important than travel distance. I'm glad to see them get an affiliate, since it may indicate more committed ownership, and a more stable situation.
My real point was that the distance between the ECHL team and the NHL team isn't that important, as almost no one ever makes that trip directly. (with rare exceptions of course - happened with the Royals once in 20 years that I can recall. Well, twice, but it was the same player making two trips a week apart. A goalie, who spent most of the year in the AHL, and needed to get into a couple regular season games with the Royals to qualify to be playoff eligible, but he was serving as the backup in L.A. at the time.)
