monkeypower

The Calgary Hitmen raised a banner for former GM/Coach/Executive (and current Vegas Pro Scout) Kelly Kisio with his introduction into the Forever a Hitmen program over the weekend. They don't have a picture of just the banner anywhere. The thing he's holding in the banner picture is the WHL championship trophy.

The NHL and CHL fill different niches in terms of fans and corporate sponsors. The AHL and CHL would fill the same niche, roughly, and could cannibalize each other. I don't think there's a market for both an AHL team and a CHL team because they would be at the same non-NHL level. (I'm willing to give Winnipeg a few more years and see what happens once the Ice, er.. ICE, get their arena). The Hitmen and Oil Kings are also both owned by the NHL tenant they share an arena with and fill dates as noted by @rams80. Also noted by him is that the Blades and Pats are the primary tenants of their current arenas, so a second team would not be the same situation as the Flames/Hitmen and Oilers/Oil Kings for the above reasons. Duly noted. But like I also said, it's not necessarily just the size of the arena, it's the potential fan support for minor league hockey in Canada. It's not really an entirely different reason. A rival province, not just in sports but also in politics and general provincial pride, hosting the development team for an Alberta team could again be a hard sell. I also just posted that the Flames weren't one of the top three teams for Saskatchewan in that Sportsnet survey, which doesn't need to be taken as peer-reviewed fact but it should at least be noted.

As an aside, people have got to stop thinking Saskatoon is a viable relocation/expansion spot for the NHL, it's just too small. Saskatoon has around 500,000 less people than Winnipeg, who currently is the smallest population in the NHL. People point to the success of the Roughriders (in Regina) and the Rush (in Saskatoon) to say that Saskatoon/Saskatchewan could support an NHL team, but the Roughriders are a religion in Saskatchewan and both those teams only play around 10 home games a season and the games are on weekends. Both teams are supported by fans across the province who drive in for the weekend and there are people from all across the province who have season tickets to either team, but you aren't going to get people from Central Butte driving through the snow to Saskatoon for a Wednesday game in December against Florida. Outside of a massive population boost, I think Saskatchewan is at about the highest level it can go in terms of major sports franchises. I guess you could conceivably do AHL, but I don't think the support is there for that.

Junior hockey is, by and large, more supported than minor-pro in Canada so the first issue would be pushing out either the Pats or the Blades. I don't know how much initial goodwill an AHL team would have with their first move being to force one of these teams to relocate. Second issue might be a size issue. Now I don't know what the average size of an AHL arena is nor do I know the typical population size of an AHL market (someone with more knowledge can apply my info), but Saskatoon's population is around 246,500 and Regina's is around 215,000. Saskatoon's arena capacity is 15,195 and Regina's is 6,484. Don't be fooled by Saskatoon's capacity though, that arena is not "NHL-ready". From what I have heard, the arrival and success of the NLL's Rush has highlighted how flawed/outdated the arena is with those big crowds. It is also beginning the "quickly approaching end-of-useful life" stage and all the politics that brings. Third issue I could see arising would be having people from Saskatchewan/Roughrider fans become fans of a Calgary/Alberta team, a bit similar to the Abbotsford situation. A Sportsnet survey from a couple years ago listed the Jets as the favourite team in Saskatchewan with 36% of the vote, followed by Toronto with 14% and Montreal with 7%.

I don't know, I'll miss the T actually being the bone and I almost think the new bull looks worse. Also I don't know if the new wordmark reads as T-Bones to me because of the placement of the T. It looks more like it should be for the Texas Bones or the Tulsa Bones or "wherever starting with a T" Bones (you know, minus the Kansas City across the top).

Do we know why?

One thing I always forget about but like whenever I remember it, is that the Bruins use the players full names on the retired number banners. Robert G. Orr, Cameron M. Neely, Raymond J. Bourque.

See that would have made sense, but I honestly didn't even make that connection until right now reading your post.

I have no idea what my name means or why I chose it because I accidentally signed up for the CCSLC when I was 12 when I was trying to get an account for commenting on the mothership and then proceeded to forget about it. When I actually tried to create an account here back in 2013, my email was already in use because of this account. But at this point I've had this account name so long and I don't really want to have to come up with a new one. Monkeys aren't even my favourite animal.

In turns out the Calgary Canucks also went retro for the game, and the rematch tonight, but for the Canucks retro means last season’s jerseys.

The Drumheller Dragons of the AJHL had a throwback night to the Drumheller Falcons, who played in the AJ from 1971-76, then a three year leave of absence and then 1979-83.

The Calgary Roughnecks raised their 2019 championship banner on Saturday. (There hasn't been an "official" picture of all three banners together, so this is just one I found on Twitter). It's an improvement over the first two because it doesn't look like the logo was cut out by a toddler with safety scissors. Also interesting to note after looking up the seasons, the 2003-04 and the 2018-19 banners have those dates because both those seasons started in late December so the seasons took place over both sets of years, while the 2009 season started in early January and only took place within 2009.

Calgary Roughnecks 2019 NLL championship rings. The NLL unveiled their new, current championship trophy in 2018, so the trophies on the side of the ring with 04 and 09 are technically wrong.

Did Anaheim pay them to change to Anaheim? I always thought it was attributed to Disney. Again, the whole thing is stupid because the team doesn't even fully commit, so there's very little references to Los Angeles outside of in the media, boxscores and in opposing stadiums when they are on the road, which is I guess what Arte wanted. They aren't addressed by "Los Angeles" by the PA announcer in Angel Stadium. None of their merchandise (outside of throwback) says "Los Angeles Angels" on it, instead going with "Angels Baseball" in places where other teams have "(Geographical Identifier) (Team Name)". None of their logos or jerseys (outside of throwback) reference LA, with their roundel also going with "Angels Baseball". When the Ducks signed a new contract with Anaheim last year to stay in the Honda Center until 2048, the contract requires that the Ducks will keep their name, and Anaheim's position in it, for the duration of the contract.

Ever since I was a kid watching the Olympics and the World Juniors, it has been always been my dream to put on the maple leaf and represent my country roman numerals and represent my specific age group within my continent.

"Is that a banana coming out of your pants, or are you happy to see me?"

Yeah I worded that poorly. Another team that could be discussed, that I think many people might not know about, are the Okotoks Dawgs of the WCBL up here in Canada. They are my team, so I am a bit biased. They began as a youth travel team program in Calgary in 1996 and started the collegiate team in 2003. They ran into issues in Calgary in 2005 when the Vipers of the Northern League (than Golden League) started and the Dawgs were forced out by the Vipers and suspended operations for the 2006 season. They then moved about half an hour south to Okotoks for the 2007 season at a stadium built specifically for them. Them being forced out of Calgary was probably the best thing for them. They've been top three in attendance for all of summer collegiate for the past couple seasons and have been top five since 2011, which is as far as I can find on Ballpark Digest. (Obviously, this is helped by the fact they draw from Calgary, which I would have to assume is one of the biggest cities in a summer collegiate market). They've continued to build on the youth program (they're top U18 team was ranked the third best travel team in North America last season) and their stadium and field house are highly regarded. Meanwhile, the Vipers folded after the 2011 season. They just won their fifth championship last season, with four in Okotoks and one in Calgary.

I don't know if I fully explained the difference because I didn't know you didn't know. Independent league baseball is semi-pro baseball. It's professional baseball, just leagues not affiliated with the MLB or MiLB. Summer Collegiate wood bat leagues are for college players to continue to play baseball over the summer. They are amateur leagues made up of college players who are recruited and signed by the wood bat teams, but are not paid because of college eligibility reasons. I think it's still just a weird move considering how these summer leagues typically work. I don't know how big of a draw it is for players to sign with a "minor league" summer team that only plays exhibition games when there are, according to the summer collegiate baseball Wikipedia page, 64 other leagues across North America. I understand not everybody's going to want to/can move away just to play baseball for a summer, but the added bonus of potentially making the Pickles roster isn't really a bonus when players don't really tryout to play for summer teams.

Summer collegiate wood bat is different than independent minor league though... Yeah technically, any baseball team that isn't in the MLB or the MiLB is "independent" and "unaffiliated", but that's not what independent, unaffiliated baseball means. Independent, unaffiliated baseball is semi-pro baseball. The West Coast League isn't an independent minor league, it's a summer collegiate wood bat league. And since the Pickles are a summer collegiate wood bat team, they can't even be a professional team or else any players attending an American college couldn't play for them. Back to the original topic, what's the point of the Gherkins? Is there really a need for a summer collegiate team to have farm team of sorts, especially when they are going to be playing out of the same stadium at the same time? I don't really understand the thought process here.

This game is being played tonight with the Hitmen as the visiting team, who just announced on Twitter they are wearing their Teddy Bear Toss jerseys too, with the Hitmen having done their Teddy Bear Toss last Saturday. So it's going to be Teddy Bear on Teddy Bear and (sort of?) colour on colour.

The Angels have agreed to stay in Anaheim until 2050 and the stadium (along with 133 surrounding acres) to be sold to a business partnership, which includes Arte Moreno, for $325 million. https://www.ocregister.com/2019/12/04/angels-agree-to-stay-in-anaheim-through-2050-stadium-to-be-sold-for-325-million/

I still think the Hitmen win the Teddy Bear Toss jersey competition because it's still a regular jersey, just with a Santa hat on the logo and snowcapped numbers (and captain's letters).

Worcester Sauce with a logo similar to the Vermont Lake Monsters Maple Kings? (I kid)

The Swift Current Broncos are doing a Swift Current 57's night this Friday. The 57's are the summer collegiate baseball team.