OHL Expansion

[ScoutLife4]

That’s overstated. It is a one way drive out on a long road trip with the WHL East and West teams home and home over two seasons.

Theoretically, the OHL could do it that way too with the Eastern Conference playing the USHL teams once per year with a home and home every two years but that would require a 14 day road trip every second season like the WHL. I am not too sure the OHL would go that route. Maybe they would but I cannot see it.

Ever been on a bus on a 25 hour road trip through the prairies in the winter?
This is the option the CHL should offer if they don't want USHL teams in the CHL LOL.

 

[Kingpin794]

Territories won't stay the same.
They are not going to have teams from Illinois and Wisc that want to join the CHL drive 25 hours for WHL games when they can travel 10 for OHL.
It's more than just the 2 Mich teams that want to move over.

IL and WI are both OHL territories already. They’re east of the Mississippi. Iowa and MN are not though. There’s no reason to take on teams west of Lake Michigan. The USHL will survive.

There are several USHL teams with barns that are much nicer then most of the OHL arena's.
There are a few that are probably even more suited for AHL to be honest.
Sioux City
Sioux Falls
Green Bay
to name a few.

Covelli Centre in Youngstown is a perfect OHL arena.
Trinity Health Arena -Muskegon - Needs some work to become an OHL rink -Probably upwards of 10M.

OHL is sitting on an opportunity to absorb a whole league.
I can see them doing so with any teams that want to pay league dues.

Trinity health still needs 10M in renovations? Didn’t they JUST put in a bunch of renos?

 

[ScoutLife4]

IL and WI are both OHL territories already. They’re east of the Mississippi. Iowa and MN are not though. There’s no reason to take on teams west of Lake Michigan. The USHL will survive.


Trinity health still needs 10M in renovations? Didn’t they JUST put in a bunch of renos?

You are correct so there's actually no real issue about east USHL teams coming into OHL.

Trinity may have recently i haven't been there in 4-5 years.

 

[Kingpin794]

You are correct so there's actually no real issue about east USHL teams coming into OHL.

Trinity may have recently i haven't been there in 4-5 years.

Yeah just this year

https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/improvements-being-made-trinity-health-arena/69-9b70d48d-c5e8-42ea-8a7d-936000d42eb6

 

[ScoutLife4]

Yeah just this year

https://www.wzzm13.com/article/news/local/improvements-being-made-trinity-health-arena/69-9b70d48d-c5e8-42ea-8a7d-936000d42eb6

I don't think OHL is as picky as people make it out to be for arena's anyway.
Go take a look at Peterborough it doesn't get much worse then the PMC.

 

[Kingpin794]

I don't think OHL is as picky as people make it out to be for arena's anyway.
Go take a look at Peterborough it doesn't get much worse then the PMC.

I mean USA hockey arena is the worst thing that gets used for major junior hockey but it's not in the league anymore.

 

[User13452]

I don't think OHL is as picky as people make it out to be for arena's anyway.
Go take a look at Peterborough it doesn't get much worse than the PMC.

There’s really only 3 arenas in the league that are outdated Ptbo Owen sound and Sudbury but that’ll be 2 soon once Sudbury’s new arena is built. 4 if you include North bay but they renovated at least fairly recently

 

[OMG67]

As a point of reference, I just randomly selected Sioux Falls as the example. Some other teams are likely closer and some probably farther from the West Division OHL teams but let’s just use Sioux Falls as the example.

SSM and Windsor are 12.5-13 hours drive.

The WHL travel isn’t as bad as a lot of people make it out. The Eastern Conference teams only play the Western Conference teams once per year. They do one long road trip of six games. It is a long bus trip out to start the trip and finish the trip but the travel between those games is very minimal. One year they play the BC Division and the other they play the USA division.

Brandon to Edmonton is 10.5 hours. That is pretty much the longest drive for the Eastern Conference teams. They play inter-conference on a home and home twice so they need to make that trip twice.

The travel isn’t a relaxing as the OHL but they tend to go on longer road trips.

Brian Kilrea always used to say he didn’t care how long the bus ride was to get where they were going. HE only cared about how long the bus ride was between the towns on the trip. You can ride the bus to get there in one day. Go for a skate when you get there. Sleep. Play the next night. Then play six games over 9-10 days and drive back. Take a couple days off and resume the schedule.

The way the WHL schedule works, I don’t see why most of the USHL wouldn’t merge with the WHL if they wanted under the CHL umbrella. PErsonally, I don’t know why they would want to. I can understand Youngstown and Muskegon. They are relatively close to the OHL teams. I am not sure about the other ones. It is possible.

I think it would make a lot more sense for the USHL to fold into the CHL as their own league making it a four league partnership instead of three. They could probably expand the USHL through the Eastern Seaboard and the CHL gives up the US territorial rights to that league.

 

[Dogs Enthusiast]

Sounds like Youngstown and Muskegon might be a done deal and just waiting on a vote. I can see Youngstown working only because teams can combine that with a road trip to Erie. Same with the Michigan teams.

I always wondered why there was not a team near Buffalo. Lots of big hockey fans in Western New York and lots of hockey players.

Burlington should have a team but it will be years to build an arena.

 

[Kingpin794]

Sounds like Youngstown and Muskegon might be a done deal and just waiting on a vote. I can see Youngstown working only because teams can combine that with a road trip to Erie. Same with the Michigan teams.

I always wondered why there was not a team near Buffalo. Lots of big hockey fans in Western New York and lots of hockey players.

Burlington should have a team but it will be years to build an arena.

For Buffalo its an arena. Can't have them play out of the Sabres building and any other rink in the city is like 1500 capacity.

 

[Dogs Enthusiast]

For Buffalo its an arena. Can't have them play out of the Sabres building and any other rink in the city is like 1500 capacity.

What about one of the Universities? Doesn't UB or Niagara have something? Ideally they would build something near the airport.

 

[Kingpin794]

If the USA hockey was smart, they'd do something like this:

Dissolve the USHL and NAHL. Take the teams from both leagues and realign them into 3 leagues. One on the east coast, one in the north/plains, one in the south/west. Truly create a junior hockey system for most of the Americans that either can't make CHL clubs or don't want to go to the CHL, which is the vast majority of them. Actually try to develop talent on the whole instead of just having one league be a feeder for another. And it would be under USA hockey and not hockey Canada.

 

[Kingpin794]

What about one of the Universities? Doesn't UB or Niagara have something? Ideally they would build something near the airport.

Niagara: 1400
Canisius: 1800

Buffalo is something 10 years from now that might happen.

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Muskegon seems like a safer bet travel-wise. Flint or Saginaw to Muskegon is only about two and a half hours.

Anywhere else west of Muskegon, though? Even Chicago (Geneva) tacks on more than a few hours more. That's a handful, albeit tapping into a major American market probably would be worthwhile.

 

[ZinErie]

There was an effort in the late 90s to get an OHL team in the Buffalo area. The guy (name escapes me) who did color commentary on Otters radio broadcasts back then was involved with a Buffalo group.

 

[Ward Cornell]

There was an effort in the late 90s to get an OHL team in the Buffalo area. The guy (name escapes me) who did color commentary on Otters radio broadcasts back then was involved with a Buffalo group.

Was his last name Fernandez??

 

[frontsfan67]

Anyone mention Amherst New York?? Population of 126k and it is close to St Catherine’s, and not too out of reach for the Western conference teams?

Furthest team away would be the Soo at 8 hours but next furthest would be Windsor and it’s just over 4 hours. The rest are like 2-4 hours. Even to ottawa which is the furthest team east it’s just 5 hours.

To put into perspective that’s not even the longest drive the Soo has to make in the OHL right now. 9 hours and 7 mins from the Soo to kingston and 8 and a half to ottawa

 

[DubCee21]

There was an effort in the late 90s to get an OHL team in the Buffalo area. The guy (name escapes me) who did color commentary on Otters radio broadcasts back then was involved with a Buffalo group.

Was it Mark Jeanneret? He is the son of longtime Sabres TV/radio guy Rick Jeanneret.

 

[DubCee21]

Was his last name Fernandez??

There was a Vic Fernandez but he was a sports writer for the Erie Times News and covered the Otters. They haven't had a dedicated hockey writer since.

 

[Dogs Enthusiast]

Anyone mention Amherst New York?? Population of 126k and it is close to St Catherine’s, and not too out of reach for the Western conference teams?

Furthest team away would be the Soo at 8 hours but next furthest would be Windsor and it’s just over 4 hours. The rest are like 2-4 hours. Even to ottawa which is the furthest team east it’s just 5 hours.

To put into perspective that’s not even the longest drive the Soo has to make in the OHL right now. 9 hours and 7 mins from the Soo to kingston and 8 and a half to ottawa

Amherst is in the heart of Buffalo suburbia. It would be perfect. They would require an arena.

 

[onetimeshot]

There was an effort in the late 90s to get an OHL team in the Buffalo area. The guy (name escapes me) who did color commentary on Otters radio broadcasts back then was involved with a Buffalo group.

Steve Manson ?

 

[dirty12]

As a point of reference, I just randomly selected Sioux Falls as the example. Some other teams are likely closer and some probably farther from the West Division OHL teams but let’s just use Sioux Falls as the example.

SSM and Windsor are 12.5-13 hours drive.

The WHL travel isn’t as bad as a lot of people make it out. The Eastern Conference teams only play the Western Conference teams once per year. They do one long road trip of six games. It is a long bus trip out to start the trip and finish the trip but the travel between those games is very minimal. One year they play the BC Division and the other they play the USA division.

Brandon to Edmonton is 10.5 hours. That is pretty much the longest drive for the Eastern Conference teams. They play inter-conference on a home and home twice so they need to make that trip twice.

The travel isn’t a relaxing as the OHL but they tend to go on longer road trips.

Brian Kilrea always used to say he didn’t care how long the bus ride was to get where they were going. HE only cared about how long the bus ride was between the towns on the trip. You can ride the bus to get there in one day. Go for a skate when you get there. Sleep. Play the next night. Then play six games over 9-10 days and drive back. Take a couple days off and resume the schedule.

The way the WHL schedule works, I don’t see why most of the USHL wouldn’t merge with the WHL if they wanted under the CHL umbrella. PErsonally, I don’t know why they would want to. I can understand Youngstown and Muskegon. They are relatively close to the OHL teams. I am not sure about the other ones. It is possible.

I think it would make a lot more sense for the USHL to fold into the CHL as their own league making it a four league partnership instead of three. They could probably expand the USHL through the Eastern Seaboard and the CHL gives up the US territorial rights to that league.

Muskegon and Youngstown would be ok. Anything W or N of Chicago would be too far, I think.

 

[OMG67]

Guys, viable locations with access to potential fan bases is the easy part. The arena is the hard part. Trying to suck Public funding for arenas is really difficult these days. It usually needs to be part of a larger development or a reasonable renovation to an existing building that the community can handle. There isn’t an OHL owner that will put money into an arena without it being part of a larger development where revenue can be generated outside of the arena.

We could probably list off a dozen viable locations easily. None of them have viable arenas. This is why the USHL makes a lot of sense (even though travel becomes a big headache). They have a lot of viable arenas. The good thing is I checked out their ticket pricing in the USHL and it seems to be higher than the OHL, especially when you consider the value of the US$ vs CDN$.

They have 16 teams so there is no way they can merge that many teams. I assume they’d want enough to at least form a solid sized division. Six to Eight teams? Maybe the Western Conference goes to the WHL and the Eastern Conference goes to the OHL? They each get 8 teams? The division stays the same. Add Flint and Saginaw to make a ten team division. Then do two more nine team divisions, adding two teams when possible?

I have no idea how this would all work…. But, if they eat up a lot of teams, it would need to be some sort of WHL version of schedule where those teams only play the Eastern Conference home and home over a two year period in the regular season.

 

[HockeyPops]

I am not sure that they would split the Iowa teams up. There are 5 USHL teams in Iowa. Assuming they keep them together, a more likely split might be Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois go east (6 teams), while Iowa, Nebraska, and both Dakotas go west (10 teams). As an aside - how are there no teams in Minnesota???

Also interesting, would the USNTDP play in the OHL???

Lots to chew on.

 

[OMG67]

I am not sure that they would split the Iowa teams up. There are 5 USHL teams in Iowa. Assuming they keep them together, a more likely split might be Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois go east (6 teams), while Iowa, Nebraska, and both Dakotas go west (10 teams). As an aside - how are there no teams in Minnesota???

Also interesting, would the USNTDP play in the OHL???

Lots to chew on.

I wonder if it does make more sense to try to simply promote the teams in the USHL and NAHL that have the viable arenas and revenue generating possibilities to the WHL/OHL/QMJHL and then make the remainder of the teams their Tier II league like our JrA loop? Some sort of complete restructure. Amalgamate the leagues and align them with same rules etc. Make it a pipeline for NCAA and NHL with the two pronged focus in place. Academics align more to NCAA programs for the more advanced students looking at that path.

I think this may need to go deeper than simply adding two teams if in fact adding multiple teams is on the table. Leaving left over orphan teams isn’t an option. It would be like the old WHA folding into the NHL with teams falling off the map. That wouldn’t be good.