Potential Atlanta NHL Expansion Team Thread

[dj4aces]

I am excited if Atlanta gets a team. Maybe Caps in a southern division.

I can see it happening, if QC gets one too. ATL is all but guaranteed a spot in the Metro.

 

[roccerfeller]

As I have mentioned on here before I was told back in late 2023 from sources I trust that the NHL has already told Mr. Krause that Atlanta will get an expansion team soon and it will be called the Thrashers.

This interview pretty much confirms it. 2027-28 is a little further out than I wanted to hear but just having the NHL back in Atlanta is enough for this crusty goblin to shed some tears.

Goblin, This is Fantastic news for yourself and all Atlanta based nhl fans.

Will be rooting for you guys to get this across the finish line myself.

I hope it won’t mean we’ll see you on the Jets boards less though

 

[Yukon Joe]

I can see it happening, if QC gets one too. ATL is all but guaranteed a spot in the Metro.

This brings up the whole re-alignment issue.

The Eastern conference is all kinds of messed up, what with the two Florida teams in a division with a bunch of northern teams. So interesting to ponder if adding Atlanta, Houston, SLC and maybe QC (I have my doubts even though I'd love to see the Nords back) will prompt a wider re-alignment. But yeah otherwise I think you'd just go:

Atlanta: Metro
Houston: Central
SLC: Pacific
QC: Atlantic

 

[MMC]

 

[dj4aces]

This brings up the whole re-alignment issue.

The Eastern conference is all kinds of messed up, what with the two Florida teams in a division with a bunch of northern teams. So interesting to ponder if adding Atlanta, Houston, SLC and maybe QC (I have my doubts even though I'd love to see the Nords back) will prompt a wider re-alignment. But yeah otherwise I think you'd just go:

Atlanta: Metro
Houston: Central
SLC: Pacific
QC: Atlantic

Well... I think on QC, if they don't add a second team in the east and instead go someplace like KC or SD, who moves to the east? Nashville is the closest candidate for that, but would they want to? Would Preds fans want that? Near as I can tell, it's either them or the Blackhawks. QC, as doubtful as it might be, would make the most logical sense, and stave off a realignment that puting a third team out west would cause. But that's just my opinion, and I have no way of knowing what the league actually thinks. But I do think an expansion team is QC's to forego at this point.

 

[dj4aces]

Something told me Krause wasn't the only player in all this. Plus, this mixed-use development would be located at North Point, which explains a lot.

 

[nhlfan79]

Whoa. Am I really understanding this correctly that a second, non-Krause group also wants expansion, but at the North Point Mall area? If so, this is tectonic news.

EDIT: Back on January 2, WSB-TV ran a story about the Alpharetta City Council rejecting a developer's proposal to convert the North Point Mall property to mixed use, saying it was too much commercial and not enough residential. (I posted the link back at the time, which I'll repost here, too). The story concluded with a tease that further development plans would be disclosed by the end of March. Well, here you go.

Potential Atlanta NHL Expansion Team Thread

Not sure how I feel about Fire Ants, because that kinda sounds minor league to me. It's been done before. It's not minor league. It's worse. It's '90s roller hockey. I went to a few of their games. http://www.georgiahockeymuseum.com/fire_ants

forums.hfboards.com

 

[barkovcanfinnish]

This brings up the whole re-alignment issue.

The Eastern conference is all kinds of messed up, what with the two Florida teams in a division with a bunch of northern teams. So interesting to ponder if adding Atlanta, Houston, SLC and maybe QC (I have my doubts even though I'd love to see the Nords back) will prompt a wider re-alignment. But yeah otherwise I think you'd just go:

Atlanta: Metro
Houston: Central
SLC: Pacific
QC: Atlantic

If Quebec wanted to join in with a 4 team expansion, they could realign the two EC divisions into something like this

ATL
CAR
FLA
PHI
NJ
NYR
NYR
TB
WSH

BOS
BUF
CBJ
DET
MTL
PIT
OTT
QUE
TOR

Florida and Tampa get into a division that’s much more geographically friendly this way.

The one team that feels odd doing this is Pittsburgh because they’re away from their natural rivals. But also Detroit left huge rivals like Chicago and St. Louis for a totally different conference. Who knows.

Happy to see Atlanta getting serious about giving it another try.

 

[MMC]

 

[LadyStanley]

Hmmmm. Interesting. Guessing expansion may be added to June BOG meeting

 

[Mike Jones]

Save what's left of the talent pool and move the Flames back. Our arena needs to make money for the city and that can't happen with an NHL franchise demanding all of the revenue.

 

[tucker3434]

Well, I guess we’ll take two teams…

Jeez guys, just merge.

 

[dj4aces]

Whoa. Am I really understanding this correctly that a second, non-Krause group also wants expansion, but at the North Point Mall area? If so, this is tectonic news.

EDIT: Back on January 2, WSB-TV ran a story about the Alpharetta City Council rejecting a developer's proposal to convert the North Point Mall property to mixed use, saying it was too much commercial and not enough residential. (I posted the link back at the time, which I'll repost here, too). The story concluded with a tease that further development plans would be disclosed by the end of March. Well, here you go.

Potential Atlanta NHL Expansion Team Thread

Not sure how I feel about Fire Ants, because that kinda sounds minor league to me. It's been done before. It's not minor league. It's worse. It's '90s roller hockey. I went to a few of their games. http://www.georgiahockeymuseum.com/fire_ants

forums.hfboards.com

It, I think, speaks not only to the strength of a potential return to Atlanta. It also speaks a lot of the level of interest and support in the Atlanta market.

Despite being only six or so miles south of the Krause arena location, I think it'd also be easier to get Alpharetta to agree to a MARTA rail stop at the arena than it would be to convince Forsyth to allow a MARTA rail stop. MARTA is, after all, already in Fulton County. Forsyth County's voters would have to approve allowing MARTA in first, and that'd be a bit of an issue for any talk of MARTA expansion. The talk in Forsyth, up to this point, has been shuttling people from a stop at Windward, roughly two miles from the proposed location of The Gathering. A North Point location would go some distance to alleviate some of the concerns folks have about access to the building from other places in metro Atlanta.

 

[KevFu]

Maybe Caps in a southern division.

The Eastern conference is all kinds of messed up, what with the two Florida teams in a division with a bunch of northern teams.

Florida and Tampa get into a division that’s much more geographically friendly this way.

I cannot emphasize this strongly enough regarding realignment to move TB/FLA to the same division as CAR/ATL: ABSOLUTELY NOT and lots of swear words directed at the map.


Because hockey started in the northeast, grew westward first and then (aside from LA), didn't really go south of DC/STL until the 1990s, the regional divisions left us with two divisions that were 80% new brands each. The Southeast division was terrible... it was like an annex and not an assimilated part of the league.

Splitting up the SE division was a great business move. Same with getting Dallas out of the LA/ANA/ARZ/SJ division. And going back serves no purpose.

Business wise, balancing the amount of "new brands" in a division is good. And more important than how many miles apart cities are, because the ORDER of games dictates the miles you travel, and that's always going to be weird based on arena availability anyway.

 

[Tawnos]

Nice!

I am going to say that I hate Elliotte Friedman's Tweet though. Including Carter's career stats is really funny to me.

Cartographer Tawnos, who once traveled to 48 US states, unveils plan to purchase Google Maps.

 

[Zrhutch]

I feel like this makes way more sense for the general populace than a team in Forsyth

 

[GreenHornet]

Hmmmm. Interesting. Guessing expansion may be added to June BOG meeting

This might also explain what at the time seemed like a puzzling response by AC when one of the initial Buccigross Twitter Bomb (or maybe it was Kevin Weekes) dropped almost a year ago. Can't seem to find the exact tweet (may have been deleted), but he decried the news (which, IIRC, may be the first time Vernon Krause's name was mentioned) breaking on the first night of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

However, I did find THIS tweet from a few months later that this news may also explain.



EDIT: Hmmmm. Don't know why the AC tweet I posted isn't showing up because it's still on his account's timeline. Anyway, he repeats a phrase he's tweeted out several times since this whole thing became public. To wit: "We’re building a strong sustainable hockey tree in ATL focusing on the roots while others have their eye on the fruits!!"

 

[nhlfan79]

My head is totally spinning by today's news, right on the heels of last week's very public statements by Krause that strongly suggested that The Gathering was all but signed, sealed, and delivered, and that they had had longstanding positive discussions with the NHL in general and Bettman specifically.

Why is Anson putting this out there now?!? Are they the dark horse that will come in at the relative last moment and get the concept across the finish line? He's obviously deeply connected to the league and its main American broadcasting partner already, unlike Krause. It's a no-brainer that the North Point Mall footprint is a more ideal location for a million reasons, even though Forsyth is still pretty good.

I feel I have cultivated some pretty decent connections within the Atlanta hockey scene. I've heard scuttlebutt about NPM redevelopment for a while now, such as back in January bidding out concrete contracts, allegedly for arena construction, but it didn't seem credible without a name or group attached to it. So, maybe this North Point Mall thing is much further along than any of us realized, and it's a huge credit that they kept it under wraps for this long.

 

[dj4aces]

I feel like this makes way more sense for the general populace than a team in Forsyth

I think so too. Forsyth really isn't that far from Alpharetta, but it also makes a lot more sense for it to be there.

At the end of the day, the more competition to bring a team back to the market, the better.

 

[ponder719]

This brings up the whole re-alignment issue.

The Eastern conference is all kinds of messed up, what with the two Florida teams in a division with a bunch of northern teams. So interesting to ponder if adding Atlanta, Houston, SLC and maybe QC (I have my doubts even though I'd love to see the Nords back) will prompt a wider re-alignment. But yeah otherwise I think you'd just go:

Atlanta: Metro
Houston: Central
SLC: Pacific
QC: Atlantic

I wouldn't expect the league to push for massive divisional realignment at 34 or 36 teams; I think we don't get that until 40 teams, at which point 8 5-team divisions is less unwieldy than 4 10-team divisions would be. I do think at whatever point they go to 8 divisions, we likely see something that functions more like four conferences, so (say) the Northeast and Atlantic pair, the Southeast and Metro pair, the Central and Southern pair, and the Southwest and Pacific pair up, and then everyone outside that grouping structure you see progressively less frequently. But that's a much larger discussion better suited to when the league actually starts to go there.

 

[Zrhutch]

I think so too. Forsyth really isn't that far from Alpharetta, but it also makes a lot more sense for it to be there.

At the end of the day, the more competition to bring a team back to the market, the better.

It would be in downtown Fulton, not Alpharetta proper. More than likely a split venue with the Hawks.

 

[dj4aces]

It would be in downtown Fulton, not Alpharetta proper. More than likely a split venue with the Hawks.

Read the press release that was tweeted. It would be in Alpharetta, at a redevelopment of the North Point Mall location. No way is it going downtown, and no way will it be shared with the Hawks.

 

[Zrhutch]

Read the press release that was tweeted. It would be in Alpharetta, at a redevelopment of the North Point Mall location. No way is it going downtown, and no way will it be shared with the Hawks.

Ahhh my mistake, misread. I was believing it was downtown Atlanta proper. If that were the case splitting with the Hawks would make a ton of sense.

Feel like downtown Atlanta, selfishly as I just moved right off the beltline, makes too much sense. Go where the people are and make it easy to get there.

 

[GKJ]

My head is totally spinning by today's news, right on the heels of last week's very public statements by Krause that strongly suggested that The Gathering was all but signed, sealed, and delivered, and that they had had longstanding positive discussions with the NHL in general and Bettman specifically.

Why is Anson putting this out there now?!? Are they the dark horse that will come in at the relative last moment and get the concept across the finish line? He's obviously deeply connected to the league and its main American broadcasting partner already, unlike Krause. It's a no-brainer that the North Point Mall footprint is a more ideal location for a million reasons, even though Forsyth is still pretty good.

I feel I have cultivated some pretty decent connections within the Atlanta hockey scene. I've heard scuttlebutt about NPM redevelopment for a while now, such as back in January bidding out concrete contracts, allegedly for arena construction, but it didn't seem credible without a name or group attached to it. So, maybe this North Point Mall thing is much further along than any of us realized, and it's a huge credit that they kept it under wraps for this long.

I think you have a good beat here when it comes to Anson Carter's connection to Turner. I don't remember who it was, probably was 32 Thoughts since that's what I listen to the most, but beyond the whole 'Atlanta is a big market' thing is that Turner being based in Atlanta, thinks there should be a team in Atlanta. That was before we heard there was any real plans in Alpharetta. I don't know much how much the NHL will care that this was put out there in the sense that they have less control over it regardless, because Turner is going to do what they're going to do.

Carter himself, we've seen a lot of these TV talking heads move into front-facing executive roles, so it always made sense that he would be their guy for this.

 

[dj4aces]

Ahhh my mistake, misread. I was believing it was downtown Atlanta proper. If that were the case splitting with the Hawks would make a ton of sense.

Feel like downtown Atlanta, selfishly as I just moved right off the beltline, makes too much sense. Go where the people are and make it easy to get there.

I completely understand. The argument for the team being up this way is this is where the majority of former Thrashers season ticket holders live, as well as where a majority of youth and adult hockey players live and play in the area.

Downtown only has ~500k people, and has for decades. The suburbs are what's growing in the area, and the northern suburbs are growing the fastest. Just another reason why both proposals (so far) have arena locations near me.