Times They Are A Changin' 2/6/2020
The days of the American Hockey Leauge (AHL) being an east-coast based league are long gone.
The league has expanded to the west, where Western Conference NHL teams want their AHL affiliates closer to home similar to the setup of many NHL teams in the east.
We saw it in 2015 when the league moved five teams out to California.
We saw it again when the Arizona Coyotes purchased an AHL franchise from Springfield and moved them to Tucson in 2016.
And again in 2017, as the league expanded to 31 teams and the Colorado Avalanche were granted the AHL's expansion franchise in Loveland, Colorado - home of the Colorado Eagles.
Thursday afternoon, the Vegas Golden Knights announced they have purchased the AHL franchise previously owned by the Spurs Sports and Entertainment group in San Antonio, home of the San Antonio Rampage. They have applied for relocation of the franchise to Henderson/Las Vegas, Nevada. Both the purchase and relocation are subject to approval by the AHL's Board of Governors.
The Vegas Golden Knights are a National Hockey League franchise owned and operated by Black Knight Sports and Entertainment LLC. The Vegas Golden Knights were established by founding partners William Foley and his family and the Maloof family.
"It's been a goal of the Vegas Golden Knights to have our AHL team located in our market since our team's inception," said Vegas Golden Knights President of Hockey Operations George McPhee in the team's press release. "We are now closer to realizing this goal than we have ever been before. Last season, more than 87% of all NHL players were graduates of the AHL. Local fans will be able to track Golden Knights prospects as they progress through our system, advance to the AHL and look to reach their potential as NHL players. This move will effectively centralize our hockey operations and streamline our processes in terms of player development, scouting, transfers and staffing."
The San Antonio Rampage will likely cease to exist after the 2019-20 season, now without an AHL franchise after today's sale and likely approval from the Board of Governors just a formality away.
Here's the statement from Spurs Sports & Entertainment on Thursday's news.
“We are extremely grateful to our staff, our fans and our partners who have supported the Rampage for the last 18 years,” said SS&E CEO RC Buford. “While this was a difficult decision to make, we believe this move is best for the long-term success of Spurs Sports & Entertainment.”
While the St. Louis Blues will need a new AHL affiliate for the 2020-21 season and the AHL's Chicago Wolves, currently the Golden Knights' affiliate, will be without an NHL team it's no secret to those close to the situation that their previous affiliation agreement was anything but sunshines and rainbows.
"We are aware of the news regarding Vegas purchasing the San Antonio organization. The Blues will finish the remainder of the 2019-20 season with San Antonio as our AHL affiliate. In the meantime, our pursuit of a new minor league affiliate will begin immediately. We will have no further comment on this topic at this time."
While the easy fix for St. Louis would be to move back to being affiliated with the Chicago Wolves, it's anything but set in stone at this point.
Though last week at AHL President/CEO Dave Andrews' annual state of the league address, he mentioned that things would need to fall into place in short order for the changes to be accepted and finalized in time for the initial 2020-21 scheduling process, which is set to get underway shortly.
There's definitely more shoes to drop, and it will be interesting to see how the AHL landscape shakes out after today's news.
