Jun 01 2011
NHL leaves Atlanta, AGAIN… What does that mean for the Canes? #NHL #Hurricanes
If this was to be foretold at the beginning of 2011, I am sure it would have been a surprise. But with Phoenix staying put, the owners for the Atlanta Thrashers being a bunch of pansies, oh not to mentions Man of many hats and one of the worst NHL team officials Don Waddell STILL being allowed to run the team, they were destined for the crapper and now are the ones moving to Winnipeg not the Coyotes. Granted I will admit one huge factor in this is the complete inability of the city to support the team at all. They have had attendance issues for most of the 11 years in existence. However, you must have some more winning seasons and win at LEAST one stinking game in the playoffs to help this out. The whole franchise now goes down as utter failures both on the ice and in the city. Ultimately in my mind it falls on Waddell’s shoulders the most.
Sure the team had some big names over the years, Dany Heatley, Kovalchuk, Hossa, K. Lehtonen, but they NEVER had more then 2 guys on the whole team with some star power or the ability to win games. You can’t win games, you can’t build any tradition or hope, you can’t attract more free agents, and then NO FANS. When you get NO FANS, you get run out of town financially. So we say a big adieu to the city of Atlanta and move on to another failure of an NHL city in Winnipeg.
Winnipeg has already failed once (yes I know Atlanta failed once before the Thrashers in the NHL, which makes this even more comical), with the old Winnipeg Jets who ironically enough moved to Phoenix to become the Coyotes. So why do we think it will succeed this time? Secretly I think the NHL and Commish Gary Bettman know there is very little chance this stay in Winnipeg will end in a success either. I think it’s more likely they had ZERO options at this point and had to take the only avenue available to them and go with it. None of the other potential cities had a building in place that would be available to play as soon as this next season. So back to lose-a-peg the Thrashers go. Or should I say back to being the Winnipeg Jets they go. This isn’t set in stone either. With the previous ownership group owning the “Thrasher” name it’s unlikely the team can be called the Winnipeg Thrashers (or Manitoba Thrashers) but in my research I couldn’t find anything about the copyright of the Winnipeg Jets name at all. So there is always the other option of them having to find a brand new name for the team in this short time. It should be an interesting next 30 days as the board of governors will approve this sale around draft time the end of this month, and then we get the start of Free Agency one month from today. A ton of info will be exploding out to us in this time so while it will be crazy, it’s still my favorite time of the year when you also include the Stanley Cup finals which start tonight as well.
So what does this mean for the league? Well other then seeing what the team will be named and the new logos/jersies going on, we will undoubtably have a shakeup in the divisional makeup. For anyone who doesn’t know, and if you are a typical American like me, you didn’t grow up knowing jack squat about Canadian geography, Winnipeg is just north of the boarder from where Minnesota and North Dakota meet. So naturally this means the team cannot stay in the Southeastern Division. Not only that, I would venture that they obviously need to be traded over to the Western conference entirely. The most obvious trade (if I was a betting man) would be to send them to the Central Division and bring the one team who has always been out of place in the western conference over to us here in the east…. WELCOME to the Nashville Predators to the Eastern Conference and the SE Division.
So what does this mean for the Carolina Hurricanes. Nothing good that’s for sure. Gone is the Thrashers who the Canes typically owned when playing head to head. Arriving is a very strong Preds team who has won 40+ games every season for the last 6 years. They are a very well coached team who can win games and play a disciplined brand of hockey. When you add this to a division which already has the Capitals, and Lightning, it puts the Canes back to being a bottom feeder. I certainly hope this wakes up the Canes front office to get a move on and get some good players in here and build a winner, because if not too many seasons of being 2nd to last or last in this division and I might be writing this post talking about the Canes moving to Kansas City or somewhere. And I CERTAINLY never want to make that post.
Which brings me to my hypothetical question for you to ponder. Had the Canes not made it to the Finals in 2002, and further not WON the Stanley Cup in 2006, could this not be the constant talk right now here in Carolina too?
Think about it this way. B/c of those 2 events in the Canes history, this market is now amazingly solid in it’s backing of the Canes. It’s clearly CANES COUNTRY. Everywhere you go around here you see Canes plates, Canes shirts, Canes stickers, and Canes Flags. That’s even in the middle of the summer too! Yes, I have no doubt hockey in NC is here to stay, I am just grateful every day that they had that success and built that base so now I have a team to complain about on a regular basis to friends and to you guys here on the blog.
Good luck to the Winnipeg XXX’s and Good Luck to the Canes to respond to this move. Should as always, be an exciting summer for the NHL (and my Canes!)
–GJ
I wonder if this story is a sign of the continued struggles of the American economy as it is the face of hockey in Atlanta. They were losing money and ticket sales were down year after year. Sure management can try to do things like putting a good product on the ice for fans but in the end there are outside factors that impact professional sports.
When reading the news reports related to this story I assumed that Winnipeg was able to get this because of the facilities available to any team that would be willing to move their. And they did have history with the old Jets franchise from years ago. Maybe that is just part of the story though. I would also assume any Winnigpeg investment group would have lots of corporate sponsors lining up to bring a franchise there. That goes a long way to helping secure a franchise for any professional sport.
I think this is a real wake up call for a lot of other NHL teams. Don’t think for a second that a team like Carolina isn’t also vulnerable to being shipped out to another market if the financials don’t make sense in Raleigh and interest declines among the local fan base. And Phoenix or Florida or any other team for that matter has that same problem unless they can committ to their franchise and try to develop a winning tradition and garner interest and support from their local communities and businesses.
And there are always other markets that don’t have teams that are just waiting for the opportunity to jump on a struggling franchise elsewhere and promise them the world to get them to move. It is big money and big money attracts lots of people and interest.
I too am curious about how this will affect the divisional makeup going forward. I’m sure the NHL is already discussing their options internally. But I wonder what this kind of move means for the health of the sport going forward? Can we sustain so many NHL franchises in the U.S. with our economy continuing to struggle and unemployement hovering around 9%? What can teams do to continue to receive support while so many families are struggling just to make ends meet? I don’t have any answers for you. Just more questions!
The Redheaded Pharmacist
Can sum it up like this… ATL is a pretty crappy sports town. The Braves can’t even sellout playoff games. I’ll cut them a little slack – perhaps the entertainment sports dollar is being gobbled up by the Falcons, because they are REAL good now. Hawks? Who cares?
giosgeo
Winnipeg met their season ticket sales goal 17 minutes after the tickets went on sale to the public to the tune of 13,000 season tickets sold. Not only did fans commit to three years for the season ticket prices Winnipeg announced but ownership has already set up a waiting list for future season ticket purchases. Also, it appeared that Manitoba Moose ticket holders had priority for these season tickets. I also read reports that initially this ownership group looked at the Phoenix franchise but after Arizona investors pumped money into that team this group turned their attention to the Atlanta team. It will be interesting to see how this team does and how faithful the fanbase will be in Winnipeg! Apparently though I think they are ready for professional hockey there!
The Redheaded Pharmacist
That really wasn’t a surprise, but more of a forgone conclusion. The initial season tickets are easy to sell, every team that has come into the league, or moved has had no problem selling from 10-15k at the drop of the hat. I would venture a guess that, even before the move was announced they had signatures of 8-10k fans for tickets, and that was when they were going to possibly get the Coyotes.
It’s not the initial tickets you worry about. It’s the re-neg on their 3 year commitment, which will happen to some, even if not a lot. It’s also after that honeymoon period is over and the team still stinks b/c revenues are down. What happens then? When they make 0 or even 1 playoff appearance in the next 3 years and don’t get out of the first round people will lose interest.
Sure the season tickets are a good sign even if a very predictable one, but the real test will be 5-6 years down the road. I still think this is destined for failure unless this ownership group is going to pay the money to keep the team in the mid area of salaries and not at the salary floor.
GeekJock