Quebec failed in both the IHL/AHL, likely due to the rivalry w/ Montreal, which is why the Canadiens affiliate is in Hamilton, Tawnos, add in to tht fact that Quebec also has a junior franchise owned by a former player, and Hall of Famer in Patrick Roy, who demanded he wanted out of MTL, and landed in what had been the other "Quebec" franchise, then in Denver..... The Remparts actually drove pro hockey out of tht out of the province....
Western Conference NHL teams consider major AHL overhaul
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Quebec failed in both the IHL/AHL, likely due to the rivalry w/ Montreal, which is why the Canadiens affiliate is in Hamilton, Tawnos, add in to tht fact that Quebec also has a junior franchise owned by a former player, and Hall of Famer in Patrick Roy, who demanded he wanted out of MTL, and landed in what had been the other "Quebec" franchise, then in Denver..... The Remparts actually drove pro hockey out of tht out of the province....
Tawnos
A guy with a bass
If we really want to get into specifics (not the point of the comparison, but anyway), the IHL Rafales didn't last because they had no affiliate. IIRC, the Citadelles were not owned by the Canadiens and were purchased in order to save the Bulldogs. Again, you can't use the same terms to describe what goes on in the minor leagues. A team moving isn't the same as the league failing in the market. These changes happen a lot more regularly in the minors and often have little to do with the market.
Yes, I can and I have.....
Montreal controlled the Citadelles, and had been all over Canada with its franchise ever since 1969, including Montreal.... it's also been in Halifax, Sydney (CB), Sherbrooke, Fredericton, then Quebec, and now Hamilton.....
Hamilton would not exist once Edmonton left for Toronto, then Edmonton(the lockout), THEN suspended said affiliate until Prodigal bought it to place it in OKC....
THAT IS WHY Omaha was moved to QC bc of the established collegiate program.....
your argument was that Key West *wasn't suitable* for minor league hockey. He proved you wrong , now your coming up with another reason.
Now its league affiliation?
Tawnos
A guy with a bass
All of which has nothing to do with the point. Even if QC moved, they still moved to somewhere else nearby. In the scenario outlined: a bunch of NHL teams start affiliates out west: if Seattle were to get an AHL team, and then the team who they were affiliated with moved them, it wouldn't be moved East. They'd get moved to another Western market that was open. My only point was that you're overstating the relationship between the viability of an AHL team in a market now and the viability of an NHL team in the same market in the future. The two are practically unrelated.
(it's funny, not only are we talking about a league or division that doesn't exist... I'm talking about moving a team in this hypothetical league.)
Tawnos is arguing w/ both a Moderator, and a Poster...... on a point that is and has been brought up in the past but gone nowhere when this subject has been previously brought up before, Doc, as recently as 2006, and nothing, no Western NHL Affiliate, HAS EVER publically had this position nor even considered that option.... Manchester was specifically created bc the Kings had never been out of New England, and NH had its 1st pro franchise directly affiliated w/ 1 of the 4 major sports.....
if LA hadn't been awarded Manchester, Tawnos, NH still likely would be the only state that has a franchise directly, or indirectly affiliated w/ 1 of the 4 major sports...........
Tawnos
A guy with a bass
We're having this argument in two separate threads... so for the BoH people, I'll quote my last post from the other thread. PLUS, I will say this: 2006 is an incredibly long time ago in the world of minor-pro hockey. I don't really consider the outcome of the discussion then, under completely different circumstances, to inform the discussion today to any great degree.
These are two separate leagues...... the NHL should focus on its issues, we'll focus on ours.
BTW, THE MAJORITY of AHL Fans league-wide, Tawnos, back up the story, tht we've heard this before, it's a non-issue, and there isn't 7 local ownership groups, to accomodate this proposal......
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Tawnos
A guy with a bass
Your league doesn't exist without the NHL, so the NHL is going to focus on whatever it damn well pleases. If given a choice between serving it's own interests and serving the AHL's, which one do you think the NHL will choose? And this is and NHL issue. We wouldn't be having the discussion if it wasn't.
It's certainly fun throwing empty rhetoric back and forth.
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Tawnos
A guy with a bass
And that link? There is the guy who posted the article... two people who responded to it, and then the same guy saying what I'm saying... the circumstances here are new and different. Hardly what I would call the majority of ANYTHING at all.
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Big McLargehuge
Fragile Traveler
I'd be lying if I said it didn't make total sense. One potential issue is that a lot of the eastern cities that would probably lose teams are comfortable with their status as a minor league city...something that is generally hard to find in the west. The biggest reason that Wilkes-Barre/Scranton has a team is because of it's ideal location in terms of the AHL...but after that it's also because WBS/SWB is a minor league town, and comfortably so as a town roughly 2 hours from New York City and Philadelphia, about 4 hours from Buffalo, 6 from Pittsburgh, etc. When you're talking about minor league teams travel costs are a huge thing...and it's (much) harder to find those mid-sized cities in such close proximity in the west. A western state may have as many candidates as an eastern state, but it's also doing so at multiples of the size.
I think a western league is inevitable, though, but there will be some serious losses at the start as travel costs will be much higher and there won't be the built-in fan base. A good deal of east coast farm teams exist largely as a geographic claim on a region, something that doesn't really help the western teams as much as the eastern teams (Abbotsford is an extreme example, but I will return to WBS as a region that is midway between NYC and Philadelphia, and closer to New Jersey, Buffalo, and Washington than it is to Pittsburgh...and it has worked to extend the Penguins' reach into NEPA extremely well, a region that generally has little in common with Pittsburgh aside from being in the same state. Needless to say, Edmonton having a team in Oklahoma City doesn't really have that same geo-political impact.
All I know is that I'm glad that Pittsburgh owns their team in WBS, because they've been great fans through and through and having that team there has been a huge advantage to growing the Penguins' fan base...but I'm surprised it's taken this long for the issue to come up. What is the utility of Los Angeles having it's farm team in New Hampshire?
MLB's affiliations don't always make complete sense, and they're the best comparison for an actual minor league system (considering the NBA's is half-assed and the NFL doesn't have one). A damn good example would be that I live in a city who has a rookie ball affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks (who have had this franchise as their affiliate from day one of the D'Backs existence, back when the Osprey were in Lethbridge) despite there being a freaking Arizona League at the same level. Difference there, though, is that nobody is going from rookie ball to the Majors without being injured, and when that happens teams know that Player A is going to played X amount of games in Missoula before being assigned to the Reno Aces (DBacks' AAA team), where he'll play X amount of games before being brought back to the Diamondbacks. When teams need an instant call-up that becomes significantly harder...which is why the Diamondbacks' AAA affiliate is in Reno, which is fairly close to Phoenix, but most importantly they're in the PCL...which plays their games in the western U.S. The Pittsburgh Pirates changed their AAA affiliate in 2005 from the Nashville Sounds to the Indianapolis Indians, a move that would appear fairly lateral on the surface...but the Indians are members of the International League, which, despite it's name, is found mostly in the eastern part of the United States. The Indians are the westernmost team in the league. Nashville (now Milwaukee's farm team, and formerly the Pirates AAA team...it was essentially a AAA team swap between the two franchises), on the other hand, is the Pacific Coast League's easternmost team (one of only two on the eastern side of the Mississippi). Why Milwaukee let this happen, I'll never know. The Seattle Mariners have the Tacoma Rainiers, the Colorado Rockies have the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, the San Francisco Giants have the Fresno Grizzlies, etc. Most MLB AAA affiliates are close enough that the player can get to the team's city within a 2 hour flight...but there are, of course, exceptions. Seriously, Toronto...Las Vegas? There are no other comparables in AAA baseball, Toronto is the only team dumb enough to do such a thing. Though, I have to admit, it is entertaining to see that the Indianapolis Indians play in the same division as the Cleveland Indians' affiliate (Columbus Clippers). It's hilarious to see a minor league team that's had the name of a major league team name for longer than the major league team (Cleveland Indians dates to 1915, previously being the Naps; Indianapolis Indians dates to 1902, because...well...do I really need to explain the name?).
If there's only one MLB team with their affiliate outside of a reasonable recall range, and they carry 25 players on their roster (and usually have a couple guys that never see the damn field anyway) why wouldn't NHL teams want the same thing? There's two less active roster spots on an NHL roster (all 25 roster spots on a MLB roster are eligible for play; an NHL team can only dress only 20 of their maximum 23 players) and a greater chance for an injury recall to be necessary on a day's notice. I've never seen a situation where an amateur player has had to play for a baseball team...but I've seen two situations where this had to happen in the NHL between just the Penguins and Canucks in within about a 5 meeting span. Chris Levesque, a UBC third-string goalie, was the back-up to Canucks goalie Johan Hedberg in a 2003 game because Dan Cloutier was unable to play and the Manitoba Moose were on an east coast road trip...he almost had to play because Hedberg got hurt in the game, but Hedberg recovered...on the flip side, John Curry was set to be the Penguins' back-up in Vancouver as normal back-up Brent Johnson was hurt (shocking, I know)...but a couple hours before the game Marc-Andre Fleury got hurt and the Penguins needed an emergency goalie to replace him. Curry took the starting job and quickly allowed 5 goals on 14 shots...the Penguins had recalled the only player in their system in the WHL, who happened to be a goalie who'd only played 5 games in North America in his life...he was wearing a random jersey number (he wore #20 usually, but the jersey that the equipment manager had that fit him was #40), his name was misspelled on the jersey, he didn't speak a lick of English, and he was wearing Marc-Andre Fleury's too-big equipment...he still got third star of the game...pretty ridiculous stuff. Pechurskiy went back to Russia with a career 1.69 GAA and .923 sv% in the NHL despite never actually collecting a paycheck...pretty ridiculous stuff. As cool of a story as that was, I'm pretty damn sure the Penguins would rather have had Brad Thiessen as back-up and the Canucks would rather have had Alex Auld as back-up.
I think a western league is inevitable, though, but there will be some serious losses at the start as travel costs will be much higher and there won't be the built-in fan base. A good deal of east coast farm teams exist largely as a geographic claim on a region, something that doesn't really help the western teams as much as the eastern teams (Abbotsford is an extreme example, but I will return to WBS as a region that is midway between NYC and Philadelphia, and closer to New Jersey, Buffalo, and Washington than it is to Pittsburgh...and it has worked to extend the Penguins' reach into NEPA extremely well, a region that generally has little in common with Pittsburgh aside from being in the same state. Needless to say, Edmonton having a team in Oklahoma City doesn't really have that same geo-political impact.
All I know is that I'm glad that Pittsburgh owns their team in WBS, because they've been great fans through and through and having that team there has been a huge advantage to growing the Penguins' fan base...but I'm surprised it's taken this long for the issue to come up. What is the utility of Los Angeles having it's farm team in New Hampshire?
MLB's affiliations don't always make complete sense, and they're the best comparison for an actual minor league system (considering the NBA's is half-assed and the NFL doesn't have one). A damn good example would be that I live in a city who has a rookie ball affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks (who have had this franchise as their affiliate from day one of the D'Backs existence, back when the Osprey were in Lethbridge) despite there being a freaking Arizona League at the same level. Difference there, though, is that nobody is going from rookie ball to the Majors without being injured, and when that happens teams know that Player A is going to played X amount of games in Missoula before being assigned to the Reno Aces (DBacks' AAA team), where he'll play X amount of games before being brought back to the Diamondbacks. When teams need an instant call-up that becomes significantly harder...which is why the Diamondbacks' AAA affiliate is in Reno, which is fairly close to Phoenix, but most importantly they're in the PCL...which plays their games in the western U.S. The Pittsburgh Pirates changed their AAA affiliate in 2005 from the Nashville Sounds to the Indianapolis Indians, a move that would appear fairly lateral on the surface...but the Indians are members of the International League, which, despite it's name, is found mostly in the eastern part of the United States. The Indians are the westernmost team in the league. Nashville (now Milwaukee's farm team, and formerly the Pirates AAA team...it was essentially a AAA team swap between the two franchises), on the other hand, is the Pacific Coast League's easternmost team (one of only two on the eastern side of the Mississippi). Why Milwaukee let this happen, I'll never know. The Seattle Mariners have the Tacoma Rainiers, the Colorado Rockies have the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, the San Francisco Giants have the Fresno Grizzlies, etc. Most MLB AAA affiliates are close enough that the player can get to the team's city within a 2 hour flight...but there are, of course, exceptions. Seriously, Toronto...Las Vegas? There are no other comparables in AAA baseball, Toronto is the only team dumb enough to do such a thing. Though, I have to admit, it is entertaining to see that the Indianapolis Indians play in the same division as the Cleveland Indians' affiliate (Columbus Clippers). It's hilarious to see a minor league team that's had the name of a major league team name for longer than the major league team (Cleveland Indians dates to 1915, previously being the Naps; Indianapolis Indians dates to 1902, because...well...do I really need to explain the name?).
If there's only one MLB team with their affiliate outside of a reasonable recall range, and they carry 25 players on their roster (and usually have a couple guys that never see the damn field anyway) why wouldn't NHL teams want the same thing? There's two less active roster spots on an NHL roster (all 25 roster spots on a MLB roster are eligible for play; an NHL team can only dress only 20 of their maximum 23 players) and a greater chance for an injury recall to be necessary on a day's notice. I've never seen a situation where an amateur player has had to play for a baseball team...but I've seen two situations where this had to happen in the NHL between just the Penguins and Canucks in within about a 5 meeting span. Chris Levesque, a UBC third-string goalie, was the back-up to Canucks goalie Johan Hedberg in a 2003 game because Dan Cloutier was unable to play and the Manitoba Moose were on an east coast road trip...he almost had to play because Hedberg got hurt in the game, but Hedberg recovered...on the flip side, John Curry was set to be the Penguins' back-up in Vancouver as normal back-up Brent Johnson was hurt (shocking, I know)...but a couple hours before the game Marc-Andre Fleury got hurt and the Penguins needed an emergency goalie to replace him. Curry took the starting job and quickly allowed 5 goals on 14 shots...the Penguins had recalled the only player in their system in the WHL, who happened to be a goalie who'd only played 5 games in North America in his life...he was wearing a random jersey number (he wore #20 usually, but the jersey that the equipment manager had that fit him was #40), his name was misspelled on the jersey, he didn't speak a lick of English, and he was wearing Marc-Andre Fleury's too-big equipment...he still got third star of the game...pretty ridiculous stuff. Pechurskiy went back to Russia with a career 1.69 GAA and .923 sv% in the NHL despite never actually collecting a paycheck...pretty ridiculous stuff. As cool of a story as that was, I'm pretty damn sure the Penguins would rather have had Brad Thiessen as back-up and the Canucks would rather have had Alex Auld as back-up.
Tawnos
A guy with a bass
I'd say that, given the outsized reputations of SF and LA, most of the mid-sized cities in California have their own identities. I get your point about places like SLC or Portland, who likely view themselves as major league towns despite only having one major league team each. Travel costs in any league out west would be higher, but I don't know about significantly. If we're talking about NHL-owned affiliates? Some of the additional travel cost will be mitigated by not having to send your pro scouts all the way across the country just to watch your own prospects. I wonder how many bus tickets you can buy with the difference between flying your scout from LA to Manchester vs having him drive from LA to Fresno.
You know what else I was thinking? This whole topic is pretty interesting given the stories we've read about hockey's growth in California and the potential of seeing Div 1 college hockey there sometime in the near future. It would seem that CA might be ripe for AAA-level minor league hockey...
You know what else I was thinking? This whole topic is pretty interesting given the stories we've read about hockey's growth in California and the potential of seeing Div 1 college hockey there sometime in the near future. It would seem that CA might be ripe for AAA-level minor league hockey...
I'm surprised the NHLPA has allowed the 2-way $huffle to contiue. Maybe it'll be tackled in the next CBA. A fairer method would be to pay the player THE HIGHER OF...
Very few AHL teams have the economic resources to fly to games. Also, having your affiliate very far away is a disadvantage when it comes to calling players up quickly, and sending 2-way contracted players down to save cap room.
- what they get under the current setup
- the pro-rated NHL salary (and cap hit) according to the number of games played or dressed in the NHL as a fraction of the season.
Shawa666
Registered User
Oobz
Registered User
Dude, your avatar scared the **** out of me hahaha I wish you would change it.
Indeed, the Ducks started this by dumping Portland and going to Iowa and before that, affiliating with Bakersfield. Their goal was to start moving AHL teams westerly or closer to them at the very least. It turned into a disaster. Portland is by far the best AHL team they ever affiliated with and they were 3,000 miles away. The Samueli family and Brian Burke have been trying to make this happen for years.
Anaheim would like to put an AHL team in San Diego someday. That's a long term goal of theirs. That said, if its so important to them, why didn't they buy the Chops and move them there when Iowa ran into money trouble? It seems like they don't want to put their money where their mouth is and that appears to be the case with several of the Western NHL teams.
I think they're content staying east because the Sharks affiliate is not that far away. I would think that the Sharks wanted to move west, AEG would do the same with the Monarchs.
The relatively close access to Logan and its many flights to the LA area cancels out some of the downsides the Kings (and Sharks) have with their affiliates so east. Anaheim OTOH lacks this luxury.
If such a change resulted in a player being paid more, wouldn't the NHL team just be more likely to leave the player in the minors, meaning that the player would make less money which is not what the PA probably wants to accomplish.
Majik1987
I know kung fu...
Versus the cost of having to fly your minor league team to every opponent location? I'd say the travel costs are still highly increased. It costs far less to fly a couple scouts around as opposed to an entire hockey team, coaching staff, and support personnel. Heck, you could base a scout out east and have him fly out west on occassion.
Tawnos
A guy with a bass
Flying to all of your opponents isn't really what we're talking about here. There are 9 cities in California with over 500k population and a maximum distance between of 500mi, plus Las Vegas which is within the same definition. There are 14 cities with over 500k population within 500mi from Las Vegas. Finding markets close enough to each other isn't really a problem. The distance between Portland, ME and Hershey, PA (ignoring outliers of St John's and Norfolk) is not dissimilar from the distance between Sacramento and San Diego (483mi vs 504mi).
jigglysquishy
Registered User
Maybe we can finally get a team in Saskatchewan. We have more youth hockey players per capita then anywhere else in the world and it's about time we got a professional team.
KevFu
Registered User
In my attempt to realign the AHL, I moved the Springfield Falcons. That would draw in the Air Force Falcons hockey fanbase.
Yeah, I think this is a summit of the West teams saying "Hey, we need to make a commitment to all do this together."
If San Jose moves their team and no one else does, the Sharks and Heat are boned out there all alone.
Very few AHL teams have the economic resources to fly to games. Also, having your affiliate very far away is a disadvantage when it comes to calling players up quickly, and sending 2-way contracted players down to save cap room.
I didn't say affiliates had to be far away. I said that players have to learn that traveling is a part of being in the show. Why not learn how to do it in the A?
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