ECHL News: Chicago expansion, my own hockey tour

[The Ancient Enemy]

The Chicago expansion team in the ECHL has now named a head coach and unveiled their logo. If I am not mistaken, Chicago is the only city to feature an NHL, AHL, and ECHL professional hockey franchise.

From Steve Martinson's bio, this dude has never missed the postseason in 15 years as a head coach. In 6 of those years, he's won the championship. Pretty impressive hire.

The Chicago expansion is an ongoing effort by the ECHL to move to bigger cities for increased exposure and revenue. You only need to take a glance at the arena in Ontario, CA to realize the Chiefs were doomed. The arena in Gwinnett (Georgia) is almost equally impressive, not quite.

Last weekend I was in Elmira to see the Jackals take on the Trenton Titans. The reason we went there was because of the effort the ECHL is placing on bigger markets. You combine that w/ the fact that the AHL has Binghamton, Albany, Rochester, and Syracuse pretty nearby, and the rabid Sabres fanbase, you can make the assumption that the Elmira franchise is probably on borrowed time. Elmira is a smaller population but does seem to be more lively than Johnstown. Nearby Corning and Horseheads also appear to be cities that are either in a small growth or are at least status quo. Who knows, I might be way off, I am only going by my own observation. Anyways, yeah, we were worried that Elmira was going to lose that franchise soon and that small-market hockey was coming to the end of the line. The news that the Nailers are basically trying to move, means that northeast minor league hockey (minus the AHL) is possibly evaporating. I sure hope this is not the case.

We were shocked when we got to Elmira. That place was jam packed and we had to spend 20 bucks on tickets. There were 4 of us, only 2 real hockey fans, one guy hadn't seen live hockey (or even TV hockey) in over 30 years! He had not been to a game since he was a kid at the War Memorial.

They had a live high school band playing at this game. The people were pretty into it, and Elmira put a beating on Trenton. The Jackals have the firepower to score a ridiculous amount of points on any given night. It was really nice to see so many people excited about an ECHL team. The food there was good as well and very cheap, comparitively speaking. They had Labatt's on tap, and if you are at a hockey game w/ Labatt's on tap and you dont guzzle them, you are not a real hockey fan. We also ate a ton of pizza at a place called Pudgie's which was awesome.

We saw NHL games in St Louis, Florida, Atlanta, and Nashville. ECHL games in Elmira, Johnstown (Nailers), and Gwinnett. The best experience was definitely Elmira, and the best NHL experience was definitely St Louis. The worst, by a mile, was unfortunately the Wheeling game played in Johnstown. The best overall arena from all of that was Atlanta, without question. The worst was... well... guess. Haha

The ECHL also has on their team map a spot for Reno. The Columbia, SC expansion, at last I checked which was awhile ago, was securing funding for the new arena.

Chicago will begin play in 2011-2012 and will play in the Sears Center, which is a venue somewhat similar to the one Vegas plays in, with no seats behind one of the nets. I'm not a fan of this, as I like sitting back there, but I'd rather not be able to sit there than have to give up having another franchise. The Sears Center holds about 9,500 and the cheapest tickets are a ridiculous $8.

You can check out the new colors and logo of the Chicago Express here.
http://www.chicagoexpresshockey.com/team/

[jack daniel]

sounds like a good tripe TAE. i was at consol last night for the victory over Florida, now getting ready to head down to DC tonight to watch the Pens take on them Caps lookin forward to it, my first Pens game at arena other then Mellon or Consol.

[ham55]

Get ready to take a verbal beating by the Caps fans early. Just hope the Pens win, because then it's sweet. I was down there the year they won the cup and the Pens lost that game 5-3. Got ugly a few times. They really don't like the Penguins down there.

[jack daniel]

ham

there'll be four of us and were prepping for the worst

[The Ancient Enemy]

Anybody going to the Winter Classic?

[jack daniel]

i might be