Is the 3rd Time the Charm for the NHL in Atlanta?
An old friend makes a convincing case
Some dust got kicked up earlier this week on Twitter concerning potential plans for expanding the NHL to 34 teams. The candidates, floated by ESPN’s John Buccigross and Kevin Weekes, were Houston and Atlanta.
The idea raised more than a few eyebrows. Houston and Atlanta are the two largest US markets without an NHL franchise. Both boast some hockey history. Houston was the city where Gordie Howe decided to return to professional hockey flanked by his sons Mark and Marty in 1972. Though the Howes eventually left town to join the New England Whalers, the Aeros soldiered on until 1978 when they folded after it became clear that the team would be excluded from the NHL-WHA merger. The Aeros have returned twice in separate minor league incarnations only to disappear each time.
There’s history in Atlanta too. The Flames entered the league in 1972 with the New York Islanders. By the time the Islanders won their first Stanley Cup in 1980, the Flames were packing their bags for Calgary. To this day, the Flames still use the Atlanta Flames logo to designate their alternate captain. It’s a nice touch.
The NHL tried Atlanta again in 1999 when they awarded the Thrashers franchise to Turner Sports. Though the logo was new, the end game for pro hockey’s Act 2 in Atlanta was familiar. Financial problems, ownership disputes and a lack of playoff success all contributed this time. An ownership faction that was more interested in owning the Atlanta Hawks and the arena won the power struggle and the Thrashers packed up for Winnipeg in 2011. If the NHL tries and fails in Atlanta a third time, which Canadian city will come to the rescue? Quebec City? Saskatoon? Hamilton?
On Wednesday, Frank Seravalli got hold of NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly to ask him if there was any truth to the speculation about another round of expansion. He poured cold water on the idea, saying that there was “no change in position on this end.”
To get a little closer to what’s really going on, I hopped on the phone with a friend who worked for the Thrashers organization all the way to the moment the moving vans headed to Winnipeg. This person would love to see hockey come back to Atlanta.
From where my friend sits, the city has all it needs to support a third bite at the apple when it comes to hockey. The one area where the Thrashers never had a problem was corporate support, with Home Depot, Coca-Cola, UPS, Delta Airlines and AT&T all calling the city home. And while CNN packed up not long ago, the NHL’s junior television rights holder, TNT, is still here.
The Atlanta metropolitan area is the ninth largest in the USA, and since the Thrashers departed, the region has added as many people as live in Quebec City.
But the real key from my friend’s point of view is finding a stable and committed owner, one who would be able to survive the inevitable financial losses that come with owning a pro sports franchise. With some folks projecting that the next round of expansion could demand a fee of up to $1 billion, pockets will have to be pretty deep. Home Depot founder Arthur Blank would be a logical candidate, but he’s already trod that path with the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United of MLS.
There’s still support for hockey in the Atlanta area. In December, the ECHL’s Atlanta Gladiators held a Thrashers Night where the team put on Thrashers sweaters, brought out the old mascot and partied like it was 1999.
What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on here? You’ve got a pair of personalities from the league’s most important broadcast partner trafficking in a pretty juicy rumor. Both of these guys are connected and you’d figure they wouldn’t allow themselves to be used. Is there any truth here at all?
My friend thinks that there is. He offered up two possibilities. First, my friend believes that there are efforts to bring pro hockey to Houston and Atlanta, and the folks involved gigged their contacts at ESPN. My friend believes there’s real money behind these efforts, but the identity of the potential owners remains unknown.
For a second possibility, we should look north of the border to Ottawa. The Senators are currently for sale and reports say that nine separate groups have submitted bids for the team for as much as $900 million. Eight of those bids will fail, and there’s no reason that one of those groups couldn’t walk their financing package to the league to ask about Houston or Atlanta. Stay tuned.
Eric McErlain lives and works in the Washington, D.C. area. He blogged at Off Wing Opinion regularly from 2002-2009. In addition to writing at Off Wing, his work has appeared at The Sporting News, AOL FanHouse, NBC Sports.com, Deadspin, The Hockey Writers and Pro Football Weekly.
I completely forgot about the Atlanta Thrashers