Albany- Charlotte -- Charlotte - San Diego

[Dilligas]

Tomorrow it'll be announced that Scheer, the owner of ECHL Charlotte, has purchased the AHL Albany team and will be moving them to Charlotte for next season.

What might not be announced tomorrow is the other half of that transaction, where Scheer will sell the ECHL Checkers to a San Diego group.

Has anyone one else heard any rumors like this

[Hans]

I would certainly be very happy if this were to be true -- as y'all can probably guess! *laughs*

[Primis]

Tomorrow it'll be announced that Scheer, the owner of ECHL Charlotte, has purchased the AHL Albany team and will be moving them to Charlotte for next season.

What might not be announced tomorrow is the other half of that transaction, where Scheer will sell the ECHL Checkers to a San Diego group.

Has anyone one else heard any rumors like this

None whatsoever. Minor pro rumors out west now are dominated by current western markets going to the AHL. Not much more.

I will say... if SD ever gets a pro team back, it had better be named the Gulls, and had better incorporate the slick old IHL logo (which was about 3894832094 times better than the one of the cartoon gull holding a hockey stick). I know a junior team currently has it, I don't care! ;-)

In school one time I did a research paper on IHL logos and the Gulls logo and colors were hands-down the favorite of the study. Did my due dilligence and tried to get all kinds of ages, genders, etc.... to get a varied opinion. Gulls and Blades were VERY popular...

[Riverdome]

What happens to Albany at the end of the day? It's ~3 hours from Elmira so the ECHL isn't a great fit. Publicly the arena says it is looking for an AHL team to replace the Rats but if the last owner was loosing money . . .

EDIT -
I'll somewhat take back what I said about the ECHL. It isn't a great fit but with Elmira 3 hours away, Reading 4 hours, Trenton 3 hours and Johnstown 6 hours it would be doable. Add in a few trips to Wheeling and you could put together a schedule. Not ideal but certainly doable

[hockey]

http://gocheckers.com/team/office/index.html?staff_id=2

Interesting that the Checkers COO is the former Gulls COO. If anyone could make a go of it in San Diego right away, it would be her.

[hockey]

Gullshockey.com was purchased on Feb 2nd, 2010 by Club 9 Sports out of Chicago.

Involved in Club 9 Sports is FORMER Checkers owner Carl Scheer. He is currently only an adviser to the Checkers.

http://www.gocheckers.com/team/office/index.html?staff_id=3

http://club9sports.com/Our_Team.html

[bajarick]

I just found out that new chillers have been ordered for the SD Sports Arena

[Hans]

http://gocheckers.com/team/office/index.html?staff_id=2

Interesting that the Checkers COO is the former Gulls COO. If anyone could make a go of it in San Diego right away, it would be her.
Who says she's not staying on with the AHL Checkers?

And personally, I think the person who did the most and best with San Diego hockey within the WCHL/ECHL era was Jeff Longo, who is now working for the NJ Devils. Tera succeeded him in San Diego, IIRC, and apparently succeeded him in Charlotte, too :)

[pioneer98]

In school one time I did a research paper on IHL logos and the Gulls logo and colors were hands-down the favorite of the study. Did my due dilligence and tried to get all kinds of ages, genders, etc.... to get a varied opinion. Gulls and Blades were VERY popular...

This one? Yeah, I like it, too.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/1/18/IHLGulls.png

Good luck - I hope it happens!

[Dilligas]

I would certainly be very happy if this were to be true -- as y'all can probably guess! *laughs*

I think we all know you'd be VERY happy with this if it happened. I think Mark and a few others would be too. :byebw:

[Crusty]

It would be very welcome indeed to have hockey come back to San Diego, but I can't help but be skeptical of their chances of success. I know they have renovated the Sports Arena for the 94598832th time, but it's still like putting lipstick on a pig with that one...

The SD economy is tough right now and in a town that finds it difficult to find 60,000 sports fans to come out to a Chargers game, how are they going to find 4k to come watch hockey for 15-20 bucks a pop + 10-20 bucks for parking. Hell finding 15k for Padres games in a beautiful new facility was tough several times last year... I just don't see it. They better have an ace or ten up their sleeves if they're going to see this incarnation of San Diego hockey succeed, in my opinion.

[Thatkid]

Tomorrow it'll be announced that Scheer, the owner of ECHL Charlotte, has purchased the AHL Albany team and will be moving them to Charlotte for next season.

What might not be announced tomorrow is the other half of that transaction, where Scheer will sell the ECHL Checkers to a San Diego group.

Has anyone one else heard any rumors like this




I made mention in another post a while back that SD was getting a team for as early as the 10-11 season. The one thing a didn't say was that I was told there was a vote that approved it.

[mike]

I can see SD very easily averaging 4k for ECHL hockey as they have been there and done that, unfortunately that wasn't good enough (apparently, this situation as the one here in Fresno wasn't necessarily based on attendance and revenues alone). It appears to me that most west coast ECHL teams need to average about 6k to break even with the increased travel costs we have out here and that was always the trick. In SD they averaged over 6k for years but that was in the WCHL and the numbers were obviously inflated, there were freebies and more and the salary cap was higher as were the costs. Great fun, but not sure how profitable.

BEST OF LUCK! The one thing that really makes this look like it might be a for real thing is the purchasing of the domain. People would only do that if there was some thought that it might happen.

I'm sure those of you in SD feel the way I do about the current Junior substitute league we are getting, it's entertaining, the kids are trying hard and giving it their all but it's nowhere near the same as we've come to expect. I miss pro hockey really badly and have only been able to tolerate a few of the WSHL games and find myself literally laughing at some point during the game (I'm not a snob, it's just really inexperienced players).

The Monsters have been really successful here drawing 3,000 fans to Selland Arena. No idea what the attendance is like at the rink down in SD. It's just not the same.

We are going NAHL here next year but I'm sure that won't be close to the same either.

The ECHL was a decent substitute for the WCHL but I enjoyed watching the rivalries that built in the WCHL and the more experienced players, personally but I'd buy season seats to the ECHL in a flash. Junior hockey not so much. It woiuld be awesome to see the Gulls break back into the ECHL as it would signal some growth out here on the West Coast. I just can't really believe in the AHL west coast thing as a long term viable option.

GOOD LUCK SD FANS!

[T/C Fan]

Greensboro, NC is where the ECHL Checkers will end up. Original ECHL city!

[Hans]

Turns out, the answer is "none of the above":

http://echl.com/cgi-bin/mpublic.cgi?action=show_news2&cat=1&id=21388


The Charlotte Checkers received unanimous approval from the Board to move up to the American Hockey League for the 2010-11 season and will relinquish their membership in the ECHL at the end of the current season.

No sale, no move, just simple oblivion.

So much for the hopes of Richmond, Greensboro, or San Diego.