crimsonace
Registered User
If you split the difference and pull the "promoted cities" out of consideration, the decrease in the last ten years is noticeably less than the previous ten.
Which is to say there was overexpansion and resulting contraction.
Otherwise, if you examine previous leagues going a LOT further back, you'll find that there's NEVER been solid stability at this level of hockey as opposed to, say, baseball. When we tell you the last 10 years is as stable as any, damn right it's a relative term.
Look at the minor league hockey landscape from 1960-1970, or 1970-1980. The entire universe of minor pro hockey looks completely different from the start to the end of each decade ... the period from 1988-2002 (with the introduction of the ECHL, WCHL, Co/UHL, WPHL, new CHL at the front end, expansion into the south, contraction from many of those markets, and the demise of the IHL and the WPHL/CHL merger) saw probably the greatest amount of change in minor pro hockey. Since the overexpansion, league battles in some markets, battles between leagues for markets, things have been really relatively stable for the last decade or so. The minor pro hockey landscape in June 2020 will look a lot closer to that from 2010 ... than 2010 looked to 2000 ... or 1980 looked to 1970.