AHL Dallas affiliate to Austin?

[Bo Toxic]

From oursportscentral.com 04/15/09 Weekly Sports League and Franchise Report

HOCKEY
The Dallas Stars are also planning to have its Triple-A American Hockey League affiliate in Texas (Austin) next season.



American Hockey League: A switch of Oklahoma City from the Central Hockey League to the AHL is not one of the league's priorities, even though officials of the Edmonton Oilers had checked out the facilities used by the CHL's Oklahoma City Blazers as a possible location for its AHL affiliate. There is no guarantee that the league will allow one of its teams, the Quad City Flames, relocate to Abbotsford (BC) for next season. Even though the relocated team would subsidize some of the visiting teams' travel costs, not all AHL owners are ready for West Coast expansion at this time.

[nickerjones]

i want QC flames to become the OKC Flames... that would be awesome..... The Ford center is a great great place for hockey ..... heres hoping we get an AHL team even if it is edmontons farm club

[Resolute 14]

I thought the Stars were putting their affiliate in Cedar Park, Texas next season? Or is that a suburb of Austin?

[c.t.ner]

Yeah, they've been promoting the hell out of it in Austin for a couple of months now. I think it's a great call for Dallas. It's a strong white collar city with a booming tech industry and a strong government town. Plus it's a quick flight to dallas for their call ups.

http://www.stalelife.com/blog/2008/1...ing-to-austin/

[SparkyOne]

They have everything but a franchise.....

[FlamingLonghorn]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

I thought the Stars were putting their affiliate in Cedar Park, Texas next season? Or is that a suburb of Austin?

Cedar Park is indeed a suburb of Austin. I for one am stoked to have the team coming here.

[c.t.ner]

Originally Posted by Sowa

Cedar Park is indeed a suburb of Austin. I for one am stoked to have the team coming here.

I'm just praying that Abbotsford plays in Austin during SXSW next year. A March away game in Texas would be amazing.

[Canada 02]

So Austin was given conditional approval as well as Glens Falls and Abbotsford

http://www.theahl.com/news/league/in...rticle_id=9993

The Board approved a limited membership to Hicks Cedar Park, LLC, to allow for the operation of an AHL team in Austin, Texas, for the 2009-10 season. The limited membership is conditioned on Hicks Cedar Park, LLC, completing the purchase of an AHL franchise within one year.

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

Very bizarre that Austin gets a team without having an actual franchise.

[SparkyOne]

I'm guessing there was a lot of wheeling and dealing at that meeting. Any team with a "conflict of interest" wasn't allowed to vote on the Abbotsford move.

Of course, no one can tell us which teams those were. Everything that happened there, short of what they've released, is privileged....

[Vulcan]

At one time most of the AAA franchises in the AHL, the old International League and before that, the old Western Hockey League, were privately owned and operated.

Nowadays most NHL teams own their AHL franchises, so the AHL depends on their parent teams for players and jumps to the tune of the NHL, and what an NHL team wants, it gets. The Flames want to move to Abbotsford, or the Stars want to move to Austin, done deal.

At one time other good NA minor leagues could get good players unaffiliated with the NHL but the good ones all go to Europe now.