Quote:
Originally Posted by Canada 02
You are correct, most every team will be self-serving.
What does a team in Abbotsford do for my franchise?
Does it provide growth opportunities for the league or increase franchise values?
Does it open a new market and provide expansion potential?
Is the west coast a relocation option for struggling franchises, with Abbotsford doing all the heavy lifting to get this market open?
Does it save teams even a little money by not having to pay for travel for X number of road games in Abbotsford?
Does this prep. players a little more for the NHL? Travel is obviously a big part of playing in the big leagues. Having players adapt to the pros is part of their development, and perhaps long travel/time zone changes, and playing jet lagged goes with the territory.
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i bolded a couple i did want to comment on. first the west coast expansion.
i find it hard to think that many of the current teams could give a crap about west coast expansion. assuming the ahl wants to keep its cluster of midwest teams, it means they are picking teams off from the east coast. sure there are a few weak teams that might go, but every team that leaves means the easts travel costs go up. the teams in the eastern conference are tremendously spoiled as they can take hour bus rides to many games. with less teams in the east, they will have to re-align the divisions and i am sure that would mean more northern division teams joining the other conference. that would start upping the remaining teams travel costs. i think its probably an instance of not wanting to mess up what they have now.
regarding the travel - i would argue most western division teams probably have a worse travel schedule than the nhl. the ahl relies a lot on weekend games, so often times teams play 3 days in a row. thats something you don't see in the nhl at all. additionally, when teams are in texas, they often have to fly the morning of the game and take a bus to the destination city. they often arrive at the arena only a few hours before the game. most of the time in the nhl, teams arrive the day before and have a day to rest. sure there are a lot of home and home series where teams play, travel, and play the next day, but those seem to only be in cases where the travel is minimal and can be done the night before after the game is over. additionally, the ahl does use buses a lot more which is a much slower and exhausting way to travel compared to nhl teams that can charter planes.
i would like to point out that neither of these things could necessarily block westward expansion or the abbottsford move, but just wanted to offer some rebuttal to those points.
