I have no particular dog in this fight but why is Chicago so rigidly attached to its IHL-era independent team model? I could understand a bit of soreness after the AHL absorbed them, but it's been over 20 years now.
And it's not like their approach yields massive success and needs to be guarded... they have 3 Calder Cups since joining the AHL in 2001 which is better than average of course, but it's not exactly some kind of era of dominance. They've won once in the last 15 years. Would fans even really notice if the Wolves changed their philosophy?
Now that you've heard from the peanut gallery would you like to hear from an actual season ticketholder?
Once you get past hutch's incessant need to cry about the whole Rosemont/Chicago crap...He still btw hasn't been able to explain why it's wrong for them to be called the "CHICAGO" Wolves and yet it's ok for the NEW YORK Giants and the NEW YORK Jets to be able to retain their name while playing in NEW JERSEY...And let's not even get started about the LOS ANGELES ANGELS of ANAHEIM California Planet earth
Now back to the actual topic at hand...he does have a way of drifting a bit....Being an independently owned team the Wolves rely upon ticket revenue to pay the bills...they don't have an NHL sugar Daddy to pay them for them. The way to sell tickets is to win games...pretty basic. Somewhere along the line this narrative of the Wolves didn't care about anything but winning and not developing players started floating around. Just like in politics...if you say something often enough people start to believe it regardless of truth .People like hutch have some sort of axe to grind with the Wolves...maybe it's because they have been so successful unlike say his Portland team that doesn't even exist anymore...I don't know? And truthfully also don't care.
But I can tell you that with each affiliation the Wolves have had they have all come with certain "agreements" between them and the parent club. In some cases those agreements were broken by the parent club such as for example...the parent club says it will be assigning player A to the Wolves during camp...they end up not assigning the player and keep him as say the 13th or 14th forward...Player A is a goal scorer and is out of place as that 13th-14th forward on an NHL roster...the agreements have always allowed the Wolves to sign players to Wolves contracts...the Wolves aren't able to sign another goal scorer that late in camp to fill the now vacant roster spot. I get it ...it happens sometimes where a player impresses the big club and makes the team...but when it happens more then just a couple times with the same club then that's a problem since remember the Wolves have to put people in the seats to pay the bills. And to do that you need to field a strong team...Thus a break up occurs and then the "comments" get made and everyone latches on to them as fact. Funny thing is...as much as the comments come about the Wolves and how they don't develop players etc...you'd be hard pressed to find 1 former player who will say a bad thing about the Wolves and as recent as last summer you had multiple former Wolves saying they wanted to come back and play here on the independent team or coach here.
Truth is the Wolves aren't holding onto some old IHL mentality that is just people trying to find a way to mitigate the success they had back in the late 90's -early 2000's when all of that talk started and to talk about your era of dominance comment...around the time these comments started to make the rounds the Chicago Wolves were in an era of actual dominance...winning 3 league championships between 2 leagues in 5 seasons, including a Calder cup their 1st yr in the AHL...I would call that pretty dominant