rams80

On 7/21/2020 at 3:32 PM, Sebastianm said:

Good point, When do you think Liberty will join a conference, NDSU is a elite program nobody talks about, so I think they go in the Big Ten.

The rest of their sports are parked in the Summit League, which is the tier below the Horizon League.  No.  No. A Thousand times No.

1 hour ago, Maroon&Gold said:

Nippert holds about as many people as Vanderbilt stadium. That said, I'd much rather see UNC and NCSU in the SEC than anyone else, for geographies sake

Vandy's only in the SEC because they're a charter member (and its nice to have the Nashville presence, but seriously it's the charter member thing.)

Pioneer League-D3 matchups are fairly common tilts in non-COVID years.  Probably because most Pioneer League programs are glorified D3 teams that have to play D1 because of NCAA bylaws.

2 hours ago, sportsfan7 said:

Yes, but both are the second largest public university in the state and the little brother of the larger one in a better conference.

2nd and 3rd with Va Tech being 2 (George Mason is bigger).

Also huge difference between liberal arts flagship and full land grant vs "One school to rule them all" and HBCU that's 1/6th the size.

2 minutes ago, sportsfan7 said:

Even though we now know they're staying in the MEAC, it wouldn't have been unusual for the State gov't to get involved and force Delaware to vote in favor of Delaware St, a la UVA-VA Tech in the ACC.

Va Tech ain't an HBCU in a former slave state.

Also on the earlier Delaware State to the Colonial spitballing, I'm pretty sure Delaware would put a brick on that idea.

On 6/10/2020 at 8:16 PM, Dilbert said:

Because there is already an Indianapolis (University of Indianapolis). They are in division II. Now if they go the route that Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne did (Now Purdue Fort Wayne) and become say Indiana University Indianapolis it could be a little better.

Untangling IUPUI is considerably more complex than untangling Fort Wayne was.

On 6/9/2020 at 6:19 PM, Red Wolf said:

Isn't Chicago State in a perpetual state of almost closing completely, let alone staying up in D1?

Very.  Nobody in their right mind would take Chicago State right now (not that a program that bailed on the Summit League because it was too hard to compete in would even consider signing on to the league that's a tier above from that.)

10 minutes ago, the admiral said:

I was thinking more Utica-Vancouver or Springfield-Lauderdale. I don't really have a mental inventory of flights, that's dfwabel stuff, I just know one time I tried to fly from Milwaukee to St. Louis but found out I'd have to connect in Atlanta.

I mean that's just #DeltaLyfe

The irony is that the Blues at one point owned the franchise that played in Springfield for decades before moving to Worcester.

2 hours ago, Walk-Off said:

The International Hockey League, during more or less its last decade of existence, had many clubs that lacked affiliations with NHL teams.  Is the AHL of today just as willing to let the Wolves or any of its other teams play without a tie-up with an NHL club? 

Restrictions on the use of veteran players mean that any pure Indy team would have difficulty icing a competitive squad.  The last independent AHL team was an unmitigated disaster too, which helped drive the decision to not do this anymore. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/team_results.php?tid=305&sid=1995

2 minutes ago, schlim said:

The rumor is the Mavericks get moved up to the AHL. I'm not sure how exactly that works, but Hunt Jr is all about it and St Louis needing an affiliate kinda makes the logistical pieces work.

They need to buy and move an existing team.

24 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

The Blues don't have an affiliate anymore, actually; the Rampage, their previous affiliate, was sold and is being moved to Henderson as the Knights' AHL affiliate next season. They almost definitely won't want to work with the Wolves again, given how awfully the last stint those two had as affiliates went, so I think they'll likely angle to get an entirely new franchise so they can avoid ever dealing with the Wolves. I could potentially see the Blues putting an AHL team in Kansas City or Peoria.

THE BLUES DON'T WANT TO/LACK THE FUNDS TO OWN AN AHL FRANCHISE.

They owned a team at one point and then sold it for this very reason.  The same ownership group in place then still owns the teams, so I doubt the financials have changed that much.  Yes, the Wolves are an incredibly sub-optimal affiliate, but the Blues don't really have much of a choice in the matter given this situation on the ground.

Also, I strongly suspect the Peoria Civic Center would be willing to work with the Blues again, since the Blues stripped the Civic Center's hockey facilities of everything that wasn't nailed down and a few things that were when they pulled out-many of which had actually been paid for by the Civic Center.

24 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

 

With Seattle adding a team in Palm Springs, I could potentially see the Blues angling to get a new affiliate of their own as well; we know Doug Armstrong and the Blues are already looking to get a new affiliate, and I imagine they'd want one that they have control over after the utter :censored:show that was their time with the Wolves. Incidentally, that would also bump the AHL up to 32 teams; which means every NHL team would then have an AHL affiliate of their own.

Palm Springs brought the AHL to 32 teams.

8 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

The Pats have been in Regina for over a hundred years, and the Blades have been in Saskatoon for fifty-six. I have a difficult time believing that either team is going to get squeezed out by an AHL club, especially if they share an arena like how the Hitmen and Oil Kings already share arenas with an NHL tenant.

Who owns the arena/master leases on the arena?  If it is those organizations, why invite trouble?  Anyway, the NHL/Junior model works because they can use junior teams to sponge up arena dates in large urban areas, and there's less of a demand for weekend dates by one org or another.  AHL/Junior turns into a death match for Friday-Sunday spots very, very quickly.

8 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

 

The B-Sens have an arena capacity of 4,400. The Comets have an arena capacity of 3,860. The IceHogs have an arena capacity of 5,895. If those capacity numbers can support an AHL team, Saskatoon and Regina's arenas can definitely do so.

Reduced travel burdens help.

8 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

 

Abbotsford didn't work for the Flames for an entirely different reason; because it was a place filled to the brim with Canucks fans who were never going to support a team directly affiliated with one of their most bitter rivals. There was a direct and heated NHL rivalry there, there isn't in Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan also has a fair amount of Flames fans, from my (admittedly hazy and second-hand) recollection, so a Flames affiliate in Saskatoon or Regina would do a lot better then it did in Abbotsford due to that pre-existing fanbase.

Counterargument, the Flames just flat out suck at running minor league orgs and will kill even the most fertile markets by showing up there.

1 hour ago, schlim said:

Lamar Hunt Jr just bought the NAHL Topeka Pilots and is moving them to Kansas City.

 

http://www.nahl.com/news/story.cfm?id=29100

 

There's no way the Mavericks don't move up to the AHL now.

 

 

What part of "they need to buy an AHL franchise first" isn't registering here?

Good Lord, its damn near like clockwork for Calgary.

47 minutes ago, Dilbert said:

Doubt that would happen. AHL bylaws say they have to have an NHL parent affiliation, no independents. Its what killed Cincinnatis team back in 2005. The Ducks terminated the affiliation agreement and we couldnt find another one. After sitting out a year trying to restart under the Cincinnati RailRaiders brand, that failed when not enough season ticket interest and affiliate could be secured and the team was sold to Rockford. The ECHL would prefer for teams to affiliate but independents are still allowed. The Wolves could surrive in the ECHL with plenty of teams nearby (Indy, Fort Wayne, Kalamazoo, Toledo, Cincinnati). Chicago did fail in the ECHL with the one year wonder of the Chicago Express a few years ago, but they played in Hoffman Estates. Although Manchester failed, former AHL markets havent done bad in the ECHL. Utah, Worcester, Newfoundland, and Adirondack arent doing bad but Norfolk and Maine are near the bottom of attendance.

Bylaws forbid new teams from being independent, although the workaround anyway is the Wolves doing what they've always done, and well it sucks to be the team that lost the round of affiliate musical chairs.  Anyway, the Blues aren't doing whatever the heck it is people suggest they do because they don't have the money and/or desire to own an AHL franchise, as evidenced by them SELLING the AHL franchise they owned earlier in the decade.  So yeah, go Blues.

34 minutes ago, Wings said:

Could we see the west coast teams break away to form a new league? 

Stockton, San Jose, Bakersfield, Ontario, Palm Springs, San Diego, Henderson & Tucson. 

They functionally are their own league, complete with fewer games than the rest of the AHL.  No need to foot the administrative bills.

16 hours ago, sohiosportsfreak said:

I just don't see the Wolves staying in the AHL with this situation.

What situation?  Travel only gets worse in the ECHL and there is no way for an NHL parent to force the Wolves to sell their franchise or give their farm players ice time.

1 hour ago, MJWalker45 said:

That's why it doesn't make sense to fans here. Attendance has been down this year according to most folks, but not to the point that they weren't worth keeping in San Antonio. 

There aren't that many AHL teams left that would be easily purchased and moved.  Nothing more than that.

15 hours ago, buzzcut said:

Expecting a breakup of the league?

Nah, just the functional death of it as a vehicle for anything besides skill training.

Big South has better brand awareness, accepts football tournament bids and has better football overall.

The Blues lack the money to own an AHL team.

Theology per se is less the hangup with BYU than the prohibition on Sunday competitions, especially given that Sunday is typically a heavy day for Pac 12 sports.

The B1G isn't pulling anybody from the MAC either.  Its another P5 league or nothing.