What if the Flames had never moved?

[tarheelhockey]

This is a food-for-thought item that came up in another thread.

At that point in time, Atlanta was just as much of a hockey town as Los Angeles. Who's to say that, 40 years later, Atlanta and LA wouldn't have grown up together as anchor franchises for the NHL?

Come to think of it, take that "what if" a step further. Say the Flames make a go of it in Atlanta and the team turns out to be a success like the Kings. Instead of thrusting into the southeast helter-skelter, the league can afford to grow slowly and steadily because it already has a footprint there. It could very well have been a moment that led us to where we are today with numerous franchises scratching to survive, instead of a stable and balanced league with healthy teams in all corners.

What might have happened if the Flames stayed put?

Click to read more...

 

[headsigh]

They would be another chapter in the history of Atlanta franchises choking in the playoffs.

I'd wonder what Jarome Iginla would do for the demographics down here, though. Even though Kane & co. are doing pretty good themselves.

 

[Buck Aki Berg]

I think if the Flames had stayed put, we'd have the Calgary Rockies instead of the New Jersey Devils. The Saddledome was already under construction, so they would've played only one season at the Stampede Corral.

Considering Rockies ownership was courting Ottawa at the time - with the plan being to expand a glorified community rink on the edge of town into an NHL venue - a brand-new Olympic-calibre venue a year from completion would be hard to pass up.

 

[MAROONSRoad]

Q: What if the Flames had never moved?

A: Calgary's and Atlanta's NHL team would have different names.

 

[tarheelhockey]

So the geography of the league would have been different by the 1980s. The Patrick Division would have looked like this:

Atlanta Flames
New York Islanders
New York Rangers
Philadelphia Flyers
Pittsburgh Penguins
Washington Capitals

There would be only 2 teams in the NYC market, and the NHL would have a foothold in the southeast.

I wonder what it might have done for early-90s expansion. The Sharks and Stars were more or less inevitable because of the fiasco in Minnesota. So at that point (1991) the league would have had a very significant sunbelt presence already, covering California, Texas and Atlanta/the southeast.

So incoming president Gary Bettman would have had a very interesting decision to make. In reality, we saw Tampa, Miami and Anaheim join the league almost immediately. But does the league feel the same urgency to put 2 teams in Florida if they already have a club in Atlanta? Does hockey work better in Florida if they have an established geographic rival from the beginning?

 

[LadyStanley]

Not BOH topic.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Not BOH topic.

I'll take it over here.