Stockton Heat moving to Calgary

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by RM14

Not sure the timeline, but the proposed NW arena with the new McMahon/Foothills park redevelopment might be a final landing spot for the Hitmen.

What's the proposed capacity for that?

[bizaro86]

I'd love to see the heat play a few games at like noon or 1PM on Saturday. That would be a great time with kids, go to the dome have hot dogs for lunch, lower bowl tickets that don't cost an arm and a leg, not out way past their bedtime. Saturday starts are usually 8PM, that would be plenty of time to clear everyone out and clean up.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by jayswin

I'm just not understanding the debate and reasoning for this move to the Saddledome by the Heat.

We're not a city with a quality....or any midsize arena. We have three sports teams that draw 7k avg/10k avg/18k avg and play out of the Dome and then a farm team coming in where the parent organization is unhappy with 2-3k and wants to get it in the 4-5k range along with having said farm team in town for convenience.

And we're in here talking about a city with a 19289 seat arena and then.....out of inner-city/downtown locations like Winsport at just over 3000, Tsuutʼina (outside of Calgary!) at 2000 and Max Bell.

I apologize for my slight abrasiveness in the last couple of posts, but seriously, these teams are all at the Saddledome next season, no ifs ands or buts. Just wait for the season and see. No problem = no solution needed.

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

2-3% more? Maybe 20-30%?




I think there's at least 3 things:
1. Divisional alignment makes this more feasible now (compared to the first time they tried Abbotsford as a true outpost)

2. There are no particularly lucrative options for this, so might as well do what's most convenient and best for the core business (Flames)

3. Even if both the Hitmen/Scorchmen end up around 4-5k (which is still above avg for each league) it means they're probably selling the best ~3000 seats twice. Obviously there'll be a bit of trial/error to determine what the market will bear, but I suspect it'll be a slight net positive for CSEC

Sorry powderjunkie, looking back I worded that poorly. I was trying to say I don't understand why there's any debate and proposing of new locations for one or more of the teams that play out of the Saddledome when the Heat arrive.

Just read it back and realized I made it sound like I wasn't sure for the reasoning for the Flames moving the Heat here.

[Iceman90]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I'd love to see the heat play a few games at like noon or 1PM on Saturday. That would be a great time with kids, go to the dome have hot dogs for lunch, lower bowl tickets that don't cost an arm and a leg, not out way past their bedtime. Saturday starts are usually 8PM, that would be plenty of time to clear everyone out and clean up.

They could sell Saturday double header tickets too. The sport so nice, we've gotta see it twice.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

I see Austin giving that a big no. I don't know how they're going to do it, the league isn't set up that well geographically.

Because their status quo is any better?

Des Moines 13.5h
Rockford 17h
Chicago 17h
Milwaukee 18.5h
Grand Rapids 19.5h
Winnipeg 22h

Closest non-divisionals are:
Loveland 15h
Tucson 13h

Last year's road/fly trips (2 games per city unless noted otherwise):

Spoiler!

Tucson
Loveland/San Jose
Winnipeg/Laval
Charlotte - then 4 near Chicago
Winnipeg (just 1 game)
Iowa/5 near Chicago
Grand Rapids/2 near CHI
Grand Rapids/CHI
Milwaukee (1 game)/Iowa/Winnipeg(1 game)

The bolded makes at least 11 flights. I'm not convinced they wouldn't have flown some/all of the other trips, too?


It's not hard to draw up 36 road games that only requires ~20 flights (and some shorter bus trips around hubs like CHI and SoCAL.

Austin made more sense when San Antonio also had a team (now they're in Henderson NV). If DAL doesn't like this arrangement they could flip the Boise/Austin leagues which would make more geographical sense for each team, though they'd lose the convenience of AHL proximity (though there are twice daily 3h direct flights from DAL-Boise vs. a 3hr drive to Cedar Park),

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Because their status quo is any better?

Des Moines 13.5h
Rockford 17h
Chicago 17h
Milwaukee 18.5h
Grand Rapids 19.5h
Winnipeg 22h

Closest non-divisionals are:
Loveland 15h
Tucson 13h

Last year's road/fly trips (2 games per city unless noted otherwise):

But Austin to either Calgary or Abbotsford is much further than any of those.

You can also fly direct to Chicago from Austin. No direct commercial flights from Austin to Calgary.

[shutout]

Is there any chance that teams where AHL and NHL teams are in the same or adjacent cities where the leagues could book them at matching times? Maybe reduce the AHL travel costs if they can travel with the NHL teams.

NHL would book the Flames and Hawks for a Saturday and the AHL would book the Heat and Wolves for the same day (if in a different arena) or the day before or after.

Even just sharing on one leg of a trip of travel would be big for AHL budgets.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Reggie Dunlop

The ice will be lousy with so many events.

I don't think that will make much of a difference as the ice is already lousy and the Dome has nowhere near the activity of most other arenas league wide. It's more of an ice making issue than it has to do with usage.

[RM14]

Originally Posted by jayswin

What's the proposed capacity for that?

I thought it was 5-7 thousand or something. Your question made me go look at the latest plans and I actually don't see it mentioned. I wonder what happened to that. They do say FDB would be taken out.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by RM14

I thought it was 5-7 thousand or something. Your question made me go look at the latest plans and I actually don't see it mentioned. I wonder what happened to that. They do say FDB would be taken out.

How far along is this proposal? Is this something that will happen this decade?

[getbak]

I don't think anything about the Foothills arena replacements has ever been announced. They're on the plan, but beyond that, I don't think anything related to the design has been decided.

Right now, they're part of Phase 3 of the plan, behind the Field House and the public realm rework, including revamping McMahon, so it's likely a decade or more before anything substantial happens with any arenas at Foothills.

The capacity of the arena there will likely depend on what happens elsewhere in the city in the meantime. Calgary would likely benefit from an arena in the 6-8,000 capacity range to take on the types of events that the Corral has hosted since the Saddledome opened, so it depends if something get built on the Stampede grounds, or elsewhere in the downtown area, in the meantime.


----------

Here's the plan for Foothills/McMahon that was presented to Council last September: https://www.calgary.ca/content/dam/w...esentation.pdf

A return on investment analysis is supposed to be prepared for Q2 of 2022.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

But Austin to either Calgary or Abbotsford is much further than any of those.

You can also fly direct to Chicago from Austin. No direct commercial flights from Austin to Calgary.

Sure, but no further than Laval and not much further than Charlotte where they also played last year. The AHL also doesn't care about a perfectly balanced schedule; last season different teams played 68 or 72 or 76 games.

The Texas Stars are covering crazy distance no matter what. Austin played CHI 12 times last year and each of their other divisional opponents 8. They could just keep high frequency with CHI and LA area teams and only need one trip a year to each of the CAD outposts.

Perhaps they just do two western divisions of 8 and 9 teams. Now that they're a 32 team league they could even shorten their season a bit and re-think their playoff format (a 32 team bracket that continues for both winners and losers (at least for another round or two).

[getbak]

The AHL is supposed to be going to a 72 game schedule for every team next season, but it will still likely be a Division-heavy schedule.

I wouldn't be surprised if they make the Pacific Division 10 teams (the nine from this season plus Coachella Valley) and just have them play each other 8 times each. There's 72 games right there.




Also, people make a big deal out of how expensive flying everywhere would be, but I did some quick math on it...

72 games means 36 road games. If they took one round trip flight for every road game, that's 72 individual flights in a season. If 50 people travelled with the team and each single flight cost $500, that would work out to $1.8 million in air fare costs over the entire season. That would be the absolute extreme.

Of course, they don't fly home after every road game, they either play 2 or 3 games in one city in a row, or they make a few small trips between close cities on each trip. Also, the number of people who make each trip is probably closer to 30-40, and the cost per person per flight is likely much less than $500.


In reality, the cost of flying the AHL to every road game is likely less than the cost of two players making league minimum in the NHL.


I think what it boils down to is whether the AHL team is expected to stand on its own and operate profitably within its own means, or does the NHL team treat the AHL team as an expense related to making sure you have a proper development pipeline that can produce future NHLers and replacement players when needed?

[Flames_Gimp]

what ?? no way thats f'n awesome !!

[Flames_Gimp]

season tix to the heat and the flames would rule

[MrMike]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I'd love to see the heat play a few games at like noon or 1PM on Saturday. That would be a great time with kids, go to the dome have hot dogs for lunch, lower bowl tickets that don't cost an arm and a leg, not out way past their bedtime. Saturday starts are usually 8PM, that would be plenty of time to clear everyone out and clean up.

As someone growing up with a family who couldn’t afford Flames tickets more than once every few years, I would LOVE to go see the baby Flames. I was a huge NHL fan but had no interest or connection to the Hitmen, but being able to watch our lower tear Flames would have been awesome.

I’m a little jealous, wish this happened when I lived in town.

[browna]

Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus

I'd like to call them the Alberta Heat for no other reason than to tick off Edmonton.

Southern Alberta Heat could work too.

[browna]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I'd love to see the heat play a few games at like noon or 1PM on Saturday. That would be a great time with kids, go to the dome have hot dogs for lunch, lower bowl tickets that don't cost an arm and a leg, not out way past their bedtime. Saturday starts are usually 8PM, that would be plenty of time to clear everyone out and clean up.

Why not Sunday? Of course that's the Hitmen's prime day for the same reasons you mention.

If there's a Flames game later that night, the game day skates for both NHL teams would conflict with a game.

The Corral of course is no longer an option (not even sure if NHL teams used it the last decade for practices) for that for the NHL teams and no way they'd shuttle off players to Winsport for a GDS.

[Dr. Pepper]

They simply have to name them the Alberta Heat and have the flaming 'A' come back as a primary logo. It's just too good.

[Moneyhands23]

Heat force game 6! So that's exciting