The Atlanta Thrashers Barely Had Time to Fail, Just Like the Atlanta Flames

I know how Atlanta feels.  Growing up in Hartford, Connecticut, 1997 was a tough year.  The Hartford Whalers, having just been bought by Compuware's Peter Karmanos, all but stole the Whalers and moved them to North Carolina - despite the fact that he didn't even have an arena deal down in North Carolina.  Earlier this afternoon, Atlanta became the new Hartford, as it was reported that True North Sports and Entertainment, owner of MTS Centre in Winnipeg, purchased the Thrashers from the Atlanta Spirit Group, which has faced financial problems and owner in-fighting for years.  True North's plan is to move the Thrashers back to Winnipeg, Manitoba, which itself lost the Winnipeg Jets after the 1996 season.  The NHL's owners are meeting next month to finalize the sale. 

But I have never lost two teams like hockey fans in Atlanta have over the last 30+ years.  First, the Atlanta Flames, struggling their entire existence in Atlanta, folded and moved to Calgary after the 1979-80 season.  To make matters worse, the Calgary Flames ended up winning the Stanley Cup just a couple of years later in 1989.   The city did not seem to mind as the public outcry in 1980 was fairly subdued.  But that didn't stop expansion from rearing its ugly head again.

As part of Gary Bettman's foolish foray into the Southern United States over the last 15 years, the Atlanta Thrashers were brought into the league for the 1999-2000 season to little fanfare.  The team made the playoffs only once, losing in the first round to the Rangers in the 2006-07 season.  The only publicity it received nationally was negative - Dany Heatley being forced out of Atlanta as a result of the tragic car accident resulting in the death of his teammate 6 years ago and the Ilya Kovalchuck fiasco over the last couple of years that resulted in Kovalchuk being signed away to play with the New Jersey Devils. The Thrashers were relegated to a solid fifth place in the Atlanta sports scene behind the Falcons, Braves, Hawks and College Football.

The Thrashers did have some good good players - Kovalchuk and Heatley, Vyacheslav Kozlov and Marian Hossa - even former Hartford Whaler Ray Ferraro had a couple of good years at the beginning of the team's existence.  But they were all eventually traded away or left to sign with other teams.  The ownership group treated the Thrashers as the Black Sheep (and if the Atlanta Hawks are the pride and joy, that tells you how unimportant the team was) of the family and never devoted the resources that might have had the team succeed.  And here we are, only 11 years later, watching yet another NHL team move.  It didn't have to be that way if the Thrashers had stronger ownership. 

Atlanta Thrashers Imminent Move to the Home of Winnipeg Jets

Winnipeg fans are sitting on the edge of their seats.  Over the course of the next two months, they are going to find out if their beloved Winnipeg Jets are coming home.  As reported in the Atlanta Business Chronicle over the weekend, the Thrashers on the verge on being sold to the same group that unsuccessfully bid on Coyotes, before the City of Glendale ponied up $25 million to keep the team in Phoenix for the foreseeable future.  Atlanta Spirit, LLC, the ownership group that also owns the Atlanta Hawks, has been fighting off and on for the last 15 years as the partners just can't seen to get along.  While the Hawks have enjoyed some success, but the Thrashers have been the ugly stepson of the group, practically being ignored into non-existence.  The team ranked third to last in attendance last year and 80th out of 82 professional sports teams in TV ratings.  Steve Belkin and friends are now in the final stages of the sale of the team.  Unfortunately, it appears that the Thrashers will likely become the next Atlanta Flames. 

But is this good for the NHL?  Between the Coyotes, the Thrashers and the Islanders, the state of flux within the NHL is unsettling for the league.  Not since the mid 1990's has the league experienced such financial problems.  All of the franchise relocations in the mid 1990's - the Jets, the Nordiques and the Whalers-  led to overinflation of salaries which eventually led to the lockout of 2004-05.  Are we headed to the next work stoppage in professional sports, following in the foot steps of the NFL lockout and the impending lockout in the NBA?  Maybe Winnipeg's joyous celebrations should be tempered until the league's finances are stabilized.

Instead of contant relocation, perhaps the league and the players union should entertain contraction of two or even four teams.  Does there need to be a team in Columbus or Nashville?  What about in Buffalo or Miami?  Contracting these teams might be a better solution.

But back to the Thrashers.  The Ilya Kovalchuk deal put the final nails in the Thrasher coffin.  Selling their best player off for cents on the dollar lost most of the team's fans forever.  It's inevitable that this team, owned by the fractured ownership group, had to move.  No one in Atlanta cared about the team and this is the result.  I just don't think this should be considered a happy occasion - even in Winnipeg.  Remember, Winnipeg lost a team and perhaps might get one back, just like Atlanta did, and now the City is bidding good bye to its second NHL Team.

Could the St. Louis Rams Become the Los Angeles Rams Again?

I read with much interest the story from the St. Louis Dispatch about the possibility of the St. Louis Rams leaving St. Louis after 2012 and moving to Los Angeles, the city that the team's former owner Georgia Frontiere deserted in 1995 when her Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis.  The question remains, why would the Rams want to move back to Los Angeles after pulling up stakes all those years ago?

The Rams moved from Cleveland to Los Angeles in 1946, just as the West Coast was starting to grow, prosper and yearn for professional sports teams.  The Rams flourished in Los Angeles - often posting above .500 seasons.  Success never equated to Super Bowl wins, however.  When the aforementioned Georgia Frontiere inherited the team in the late 1970's, she was convinced that the Rams had to leave the Los Angeles Colisseum because of the NFL's onerous blackout rules.  After 15 years down the street in Anaheim, the team moved to St. Louis - enjoying reasonable success until Kurt Warner was released.

Now, the city of St. Louis is facing a difficult time with the team.  The lease at the Edward Jones Center expires in 2015 and in order for the lease to be renewed, the dome must be in the top 15 of the all football stadiums in the NFL.  It's unclear what that exactly means, although everyone seems to agree that the Dome is not in the top 15, and it would be very expensive for it to move up into the top 15.  While the city was able to buy its way out of a similar situation back in 2005, by making some improvements to the stadium's infrastructure, the amendment to the lease at that time included a mechanism for determining if the stadium is a top tier stadium.  A mechanism that could terminate the lease as soon as 2012.  Meanwhile, Los Angeles lurks in the background, waiting to become the home of a franchise moving out of its current home.

Ultimately, the Rams should stay in St. Louis.  The team's greatest years have come here - not in Los Angeles or Anaheim.  the fans are some of the most diehard and a move would devastate this region.  The team again is on the rise with star in the making quarterback Sam Bradford leading a young offense.  There are other teams that need to move from their current situations that don't have as much fan support, like Jacksonville and San Diego.  For the sake of the city, I don't want this situation turning into the next Houson Oilers.