AHL's Binghamton Senators will relocate to Belleville, ONT, and become the Belleville Senators next season.

[Luke_Groundrunner]

Ottawa Senators just announce the relocation of their AHL affiliate from Binghampton to Belleville, ONT. The Binghamton Senators will become the Belleville Senators next season.

 

Not sure whether if this logo is just a temporary mark they'll use to promote the club while they create a new mark. (I hope that's the case)

 

 

[spartacat_12]

The fact that the potential placeholder logo is Ottawa's with a Belleville wordmark rather than Binghamton's tells me they're either coming up with something completely new, or they're just going to use Ottawa's. Either way it's an improvement. I've made it clear on these boards that I'm not a fan of the gladiator theme, but Ottawa's primary is still miles ahead of the two gladiators that Bingo has used.

[Burmy]

If they can give THIS beauty some usage, then we'll all be ecstatic.

 

[Underdog519]

Glad to see hockey back in Belleville. 

 

Don't know if this is on topic, but I find it funny they're using a picture of North Bay Memorial Gardens on their website for "Yardmen Arena Upgrades"

 

 

[Thaumatrope]

Gotta say I'm disappointed...but I'm also firmly in the "minor league teams should have their own identity" camp. 

 

Does anyone know what the legal status of the Belleville Bulls name is? Given the immense amount of history between the city and the Bulls I'm surprised a public effort wasn't made to retain it. Its too bad that the plural of Taurus (Tauri? Tauruses?) is such an ungainly mouthful, it'd be nice to find a way to bridge the history of the Bulls with the Senators organization. 

 

Its clearly too late now...but I wonder if the Belleville Minotaurs was ever pitched to the Ottawa brass. 

[Cosmic]

Albany Senators or bust. If you're going to reuse a name, I really think it should make some kind of sense in both contexts.

 

Edit: Or at least not not make sense.

[Morgan33]

On September 26, 2016 at 3:04 PM, MBurmy said:

If they can give THIS beauty some usage, then we'll all be ecstatic.

 

 

 

How a logo this good can never be used on a jersey is beyond comprehension.

[2001mark]

Not often, I think, does a town lose a CHL team & gain an AHL one down the road.  

 

This move might help the Sens' eastern Ontario identity apart the Leafs & Habs, with locals rooting for their players & system.

[Thaumatrope]

8 hours ago, 2001mark said:

This move might help the Sens' eastern Ontario identity apart the Leafs & Habs, with locals rooting for their players & system.

 

True. I feel like this is the one upside to using the Senators identity for the team. 

 

That being said, I feel like there are ways to extend the parent brand while still creating a unique identity.

 

The LA Kings are a good example of an organization that has found a way to create a unified brand consisting of unique team identities (Reading Royals, Manchester Monarchs, Ontario Reign). It is interesting to note that western teams (Ducks/Gulls, Flames/Heat, Sharks/Barracuda, etc.) seem to have a better track record with this than eastern teams (Senators/Senators, Bruins/Bruins, Devils/Devils). 

[Luke_Groundrunner]

15 hours ago, Morgo said:

 

How a logo this good can never be used on a jersey is beyond comprehension.

And how Ottawa chose their current logo over this is just as baffling.

[The_Admiral]

5 hours ago, Thaumatrope said:

It is interesting to note that western teams (Ducks/Gulls, Flames/Heat, Sharks/Barracuda, etc.) seem to have a better track record with this than eastern teams (Senators/Senators, Bruins/Bruins, Devils/Devils). 

 

The old NYS/New England/Maritimes AHL was much bigger on using parent team names: the Binghamton Rangers, Binghamton Whalers, St. John's Maple Leafs, Utica Devils, Capital District Islanders, Prince Edward Island Senators, Saint John Flames, Cape Breton Oilers (?!), and Fredericton Canadiens all come to mind. The IHL wasn't the captured shop the AHL was and is, so there was more room for independent identities in points west and south. Now we've sort of arrived at a Hegelian synthesis of fully realized variations on themes, I guess.

[scottysprings]

R.I.P. B-Sens  Happy for Belleville to get hockey back though. Speculation is that the Rangers will be returning to Broome County to take their spot.

[Thaumatrope]

31 minutes ago, the admiral said:

Now we've sort of arrived at a Hegelian synthesis of fully realized variations on themes, I guess.

 

Never in a million years would I have anticipated a crossover between this forum and German philosophy...and yet here we are.

 

You definitely bring up a good point about the AHL/northeast and the IHL/south and west. In addition to the strong relationship between the NHL and AHL, I also suspect that the history of hockey in the northeast and the popularity of the NHL may have been a factor as well. Having a team in Canada named after a Canadian NHL team (even when its the Cape Breton Oilers) could have been more of a selling point than a more unique or regionally relevant name. At the same time, having a unique and/or locally relevant name could be a strong selling point when there isn't much of an existing fanbase. 

 

Presently the biggest factor in team naming conventions (in the AHL at least) seems to be whether the team is independently owned or operated. The only exceptions that come to mind are the Comets (which are owned by the Canucks but operated by a local organization), the Condors (which started as an independent ECHL team that was purchased by Edmonton), and the Bruins (who are not owned by Boston despite sharing a name).  The Binghamton Senators were also an exception as they were owned by a local organization before selling to Ottawa.

 

 As an interesting aside, the Saint John's Ice Caps are interesting in that two different franchises (Winnipeg AHL and Montreal AHL) have used the same identity while being operated by the same business entity. I'd be curious to see if there are any other instances of multiple franchises rotating through the same entity. Could we see more like it in the future?

[Gothamite]

1 hour ago, scottysprings said:

R.I.P. B-Sens  Happy for Belleville to get hockey back though. Speculation is that the Rangers will be returning to Broome County to take their spot.

 

Just to clarify, the team is not moving.  Binghamton is just losing their NHL affiliate.

[The_Admiral]

The IceCaps journey is weirder still in that the intellectual property was ported over from the Manitoba Moose franchise to the Hamilton Bulldogs franchise, where that intellectual property was transferred to the former Belleville Bulls of the OHL, a different level of hockey altogether.

 

Speaking of the juniors, it's worth noting that in the days before anyone gave branding a second thought, Canada was littered with junior teams that were simply the so-and-so Bruins, Rangers, or Black Hawks. You even had a Q team whose name was "Éperviers," which means "small hawks."

 

37 minutes ago, Thaumatrope said:

Never in a million years would I have anticipated a crossover between this forum and German philosophy...and yet here we are.

I had a Wittgenstein reference buried in a greater point about giving Shea Weber a chance in Montreal.

[The_Admiral]

9 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

Just to clarify, the team is not moving.  Binghamton is just losing their NHL affiliate.

 

No, the press release says the Ottawa Senators bought the Binghamton Senators to move them to Belleville. Binghamton may get another AHL team with a new affiliation, but the team there now is certainly moving.

[Gothamite]

That's not what we were talking about on the minor-league hockey thread.  The team's vice president indicated this is just a change of affiliation.

 

On 9/27/2016 at 0:41 AM, Geoff said:

Some Binghamton fans feel a return of the Binghamton Rangers is a done deal and see this video as a hint. At the 2:43 while saying they can't officially announce the new affiliation right now, there's a guy in a Rangers jacket right in the center of the screen.

 

 

 

Odd.  He's talking as though he'll be with the new team that moves in, which is apparently a done deal.

 

 

[rams80]

https://www.nhl.com/senators/news/ottawa-senators-owner-eugene-melnyk-purchases-ahl-team-and-partners-with-city-of-belleville/c-282137476

 

The dude in the interview misspoke.  There aren't any spare AHL franchises lying around for the Senators to move to Belleville other than Binghamton, so they're taking that one.

 

As an fyi, the Rangers already own their affiliate in Hartford, so a move isn't hard to arrange for them/is probably a fait accompli at this point.

[Thaumatrope]

3 hours ago, rams80 said:

https://www.nhl.com/senators/news/ottawa-senators-owner-eugene-melnyk-purchases-ahl-team-and-partners-with-city-of-belleville/c-282137476

 

The dude in the interview misspoke.  There aren't any spare AHL franchises lying around for the Senators to move to Belleville other than Binghamton, so they're taking that one.

 

As an fyi, the Rangers already own their affiliate in Hartford, so a move isn't hard to arrange for them/is probably a fait accompli at this point.

 

Thanks for the link.

 

Its amazing how often people get confused about the nature of minor league franchises as they relate to affiliations. To be fair it doesn't help that you have situations like Saint John's where two different franchises adopt the same name and branding while being operated by the same organization. Or for that matter, teams like the Ontario Reign which started out as an ECHL team before being replaced with the Manchester Monarchs AHL franchise which was in turn replaced by the Ontario Reign ECHL franchise (which is now up for sale, fyi).

 

The latter example represents a larger shift taking place within the North American hockey world with NHL teams taking a greater interest in owning their AHL (and ECHL) affiliates and placing them in closer proximity to the parent organization. With the sale of the Binghamton AHL team to Ottawa the total number of NHL owned AHL teams sits at 16 with a 17th team (the Charlotte Checkers) having an owner that's a minority owner of the Hurricanes. Even with the addition of a 31st team to parallel the NHL's expansion to Las Vegas, the market for AHL teams is likely to remain very tight with an increasing number of independently owned teams getting bought out by NHL organizations. The forced sale of the Norfolk Admirals to Anaheim (who then moved the team to San Diego) is a clear demonstration of the leverage NHL teams have over their AHL counterparts, and it would not surprise me if similar moves were made behind the scenes in Binghamton. 

 

How does this relate to sports logos you ask? Well, I'd wager that identities like those belonging to Hartford, Bridgeport, Utica, Syracuse, and even Springfield may not be long for this world. Meanwhile it would not surprise me to see new markets and identities emerge for cities like Binghamton (Rangers), Abbotsford (Canucks), Nassau (Islanders), and others. There are also markets like Portland which are expected to receive an ECHL expansion team for the 2017-2018 season...who knows what identity they'll go with.

[Bigboy1083]

Well, Hartford pays MSG about $1.5 million a year for the Wolf Pack to play in Hartford. I can't see the Wolf Pack moving to Binghamton unless they are willing to put up that same amount for them to play there. Also, Binghamton is a hour farther away from NYC than Hartford is and people are saying that it wouldn't make sense to move farther from their parent city. MSG still has a one year option left on their contract with Hartford. If they do decide to leave then they have to find another AHL team to replace them. So, unless MSG and another team work out a three -way move then there's really no way for them to go to Binghamton.