How can the AHL support the money required for all the extra travel? Seems like this would drive costs through the roof.
MAJOR NEWS: Kings Preparing To Move Top Prospects To SoCal
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190Octane
Registered User
How sustainable would the whole venture be? If you have 6 teams out here, would they just play each other? Can't imagine these teams would be profitable if they have to take plane trips to games frequently instead of bus trips.
Granted, I'm not too familiar with the ins and outs of minor league hockey but I was under the impression that the echl teams out here played each other only, except for the playoffs, to cut down on costs. If these 6 teams are spread out over the whole west I can't see bus travel being viable for that even.
TKFAN
Registered User
As a very long time Monarchs season ticket holder, I doubt an ECHL team would ever make it in Manchester. No wonder the front office gave season ticket holders a "deal" if we committed to a 2 year renewal last spring. Just curious as to how the Monarchs front office will spin this news that is spreading around Monarchs Country.
Only if you mean an AHL rival for the Baby Kings -- there's already an ECHL team there, that will be moving from the Orleans arena (where they played for 10+ seasons) into a "tent" that seats 8,000 for hockey in what is now parking for the Plaza hotel downtown.
Now, the Orleans is a nice place to see a game -- I've been there a couple of times for ECHL games. Someone else MIGHT try to engage them as a landlord as part of this Western realignment of the AHL, if they didn't mind risking splitting the small Vegas hockey fanbase and killing both the AHL and ECHL teams -- one scenario (made up off the top of my head) might be as follows: Calgary owns their own AHL team, and were just paid off to leave town in Abbotsford, BC -- and haven't announced a destination. They might try to move into the Orleans and make Vegas their AHL affiliate -- it would be less of an outpost along with an Ontario team than it was in Abby!
BigKing
Blake Out of Hell III: Back in to Hell
I'd imagine they wouldn't be too spread out with any cities that required air travel to be serviced on the cheap by a SouthWest or something similar.
It seems they would need to be primarily in California. The NorCal team(s) could host two-to-three game series over the weekend so the other teams can take a bus and maximize their time?
BigKing
Blake Out of Hell III: Back in to Hell
I think someone moves an AHL team to Manchester, no problem.
Agree that the ECHL won't fly. Manchester has proven to be a viable AHL city and doesn't deserve a downgrade.
This is a big undertaking though. I would lend the whispers more credence than those that started ten years ago, but it still isn't confirmed.
There is a tradition that outpost teams pay into a travel fund for the rest of the league to offset the extra travel costs, as I understand it -- for example Abbotsford the last couple of years, and MAYBE St. John's, though I'm not sure about that.
Since this scenario would presumably have the Western AHL teams owned by NHL teams, the NHL teams would just make the extra travel costs part of their player development budget -- on an NHL bottom line, that's relative chump change to the amount that would make or break the non-NHL ownership groups in the AHL.
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BigKing
Blake Out of Hell III: Back in to Hell
No way in hell would an NHL team drop their top prospects into Las Vegas. Not going to happen.
BigKing
Blake Out of Hell III: Back in to Hell
That makes sense; I believe the teams rumored to do this would gladly pay the additional monies required except for Phoenix. They can't even support the AHL team they have now in Glendale so these rumors of a minor league team in Prescott or Tuscon seem silly.
ECHL team budgets are nearly an order of magnitude smaller than AHL team budgets. There's already a model in the AHL for clusters of teams that primarily play each other, but do have to fly to all other opponents: for example, Norfolk and Charlotte are each other's closest rivals, I believe. Similarly, there's the OKC, Austin, San Antonio triad, and the mostly former-IHL teams around the Great Lakes.
Outside the northeast core of the AHL, air travel is already a reality -- not to say it won't increase costs to have another grouping all the way out here, but as I said in an earlier posting, that can be considered a rounding error in the player-development budget for an NHL team, right?
And to be clear: I'm not assuming this is actually happening yet, MM's report notwithstanding. I've seen other frenzies about the Western AHL. Hell, I've PARTICIPATED in them. So, I'm a little older and more jaded about the whole thing. I'm just trying to give a little more of a complete picture about the minor-league side of the equation, and how that interfaces with the major-league landscape.
Worcester, MA, not Rochester, NY.
And yes, IF this happens, it will involve 4-6 teams being moved from their current locations, and likely a couple more of them from the northeast over and above Worcester and Manchester.
Edmonton already owns OKC, so that's in the discussion for a move candidate.
Neither the Coyotes or the Ducks _own_ their AHL affiliates -- the owners of those AHL teams pay the NHL teams a yearly fee for a contracted number of years, and in exchange the NHL parents provide the AHL teams with players (and pay their salaries), and sometimes coaches, GMs, office... the devil is in the details of each agreement between each team owner and each NHL parent (assuming the NHL parent doesn't also own the team).
Long story short, in order to be "on board" with this, as MM says, either they'd have to convince people who already own AHL teams to move them to Western markets as part of this, then affiliate with those teams, OR, they would have to purchase their own AHL team and then have the power to move them into available markets.
I'm not as up as I used to be on which teams are actually financially struggling in their current locations and might therefore accept an offer from the Ducks or 'Yotes to take the franchise off their hands.
190Octane
Registered User
Wasn't there a "AAA" league out here in the early 90's that the Gulls, Utah Grizzlies and other teams played in? I think I remember the Ducks having an alliance with the Gulls with Bob Wren going back and forth. Was that the IHL or the WCHL?
Yes, that was the 90s incarnation of the IHL. The IHL Gulls left San Diego in 1995, played one season in the LA Sports Arena as the LA Ice Dogs, then played in the IHL in Long Beach until they joined the WCHL in 2000 (one year before the IHL itself folded up shop).
The WCHL was founded in 1995 as a league a level below than, and the WCHL San Diego Gulls were founding members of that league, replacing the departing IHL Gulls. The WCHL lasted with between 6-9 teams for eight years, at the end of which the remaining six playing teams and the Vegas expansion franchise were absorbed into the ECHL in 2003.
kingsfan28
Its A Kingspiracy !
As it stands, The Stars,Panthers, and Oilers all have affiliates in Texas and Oklahoma, so there is plane travel involved for those teams playing the eastern teams. I'm sure cost analysts have been done and who knows maybe they split the league into a west/east league to offset the travel cost.
"MAJOR NEWS" lol
Isn't this by definition "minor news"?
Major minor news? Minor major news? The-very-model-of-a-modern-Major-General?
kingsfan28
Its A Kingspiracy !
Major minor news? Minor major news? The-very-model-of-a-modern-Major-General?
An image of the 3 Stooges came to mind while reading that.
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa....505788,79.013672&z=4&source=embed&dg=feature
Current AHL teams on a Google map -- linked from the AHL site itself. For those who don't know where the AHL currently resides.
And, for those wondering:
Current AHL teams on a Google map -- linked from the AHL site itself. For those who don't know where the AHL currently resides.
And, for those wondering:
They've been working on this for a long long time. Sucks for Manchester because we've really had no problems whatsoever with them and it has always been a first class organization, but it just makes too much sense to have the on the west coast rather than the complete opposite end of the country.
King RAZZ
Los Cucarachas
I'd suggest moving the ECHL team to Vegas... I remembered one of the high ups at the Orleans mention that he loathed having hockey there and was just looking for a way out... So that is a BIG out right there... Thomas & Mack may have the rink...but not the availability to ice on weekends... I'm not sure about the new rink on if that's going up to be AHL territory until they can actually land an NHL team... It shouldn't hurt having a temporary tenant just to gauge if it will warrant an NHl team (either expansion or by transfer)... I do remember the Flames using the Wranglers at one time and this might be the best scenario for them...even if the team is on top of a roof ready to jump...
Yeah, but wouldn't they just re-locate the Wranglers in Vegas? Doubt they'd move the Wranglers elsewhere and then bring in the Reign. I know Reno has been vying to get back their ECHL franchise for a few years, but I doubt they have the economics and willpower to get a deal going or the constitution to actually get it done. There should be plenty of other nearby locales for either club though.
Different animal. The college club team has a devoted following, but that doesn't translate to "hockey" fandom -- both attempts at pro hockey there in the last 20 years have been abject failures, because of the strength of the college club team's fanbase. I'm not sure the ECHL or AHL would be able to overcome that, even if they were Coyotes-affiliated.
BigKing
Blake Out of Hell III: Back in to Hell
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