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Thrashers moving to Winnipeg


smozoma

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Just heard on TSN that the Thrashers ARE moving to Winnipeg.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/atlanta-thrashers-moving-to-winnipeg/article2029179/

Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg

STEPHEN BRUNT

Globe and Mail Update

Published Thursday, May. 19, 2011 8:57PM EDT

Last updated Thursday, May. 19, 2011 9:46PM EDT

An agreement to sell the National Hockey League’s Atlanta Thrashers to a Winnipeg group which plans to relocate the franchise to the Manitoba capital is done.

Sources confirmed tonight that preparations are being made for an announcement Tuesday, confirming the sale and transfer of the Thrashers to True North Sports and Entertainment, which owns and operates the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League and the MTS Centre arena, which would become the NHL team’s new home.

.....

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I think they want to see if more then 20 people show up at the Thrasher rally tomorrow.

Atlanta is probably the worst big pro sports market in the US. They support no one consistently.

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I guess that means the Coyotes will really stay in Phoenix now. Are the Thrashers gonna be the Jets now?

I think they want to see if more then 20 people show up at the Thrasher rally tomorrow.

Atlanta is probably the worst big pro sports market in the US. They support no one consistently.

Tell that to the Falcons' fans. At least in these recent years.

Edited by RedWingDevil
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RWD is right. Atlanta highly supports the Falcons and the NFL, but that's about it. They have not properly supported the Thrashers at all.

I truly hope this report will be true. Winnipeg was my favorite team when I was very young. The Jets are my favorite team to play with in NHL 94. Even though I'm not Canadian, I am a Winnipeg supporter through and through and hope that they are coming back so I can reclaim my favorite NHL team once again!

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is this happening this upcoming season? or after this next season? lol atl didnt even get to send them off thats pretty shitty for them.

hopefully this is a trend

panthers should move to seattle imo, they starved for a team after nba screwed their anus in

MIN will be moving back to norris- (central div)

CLB to southeast

and WPG to northwest

atleast thats what makes most sense.

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And they send DET to the East?

I saw threads where they said it might NOT be called the Jets... WTF are they thinking?

its cuz the coyotes were the jets and i guess they want to move away from that

and as for DET moving to the east, the wings are one of two teams in the west that play there games at an earlier time like all the teams in the east

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Ive read if ATL moves to WPG next season the team will stay in east. For one year at least. Because lets say you move WPG to west DET/CLB to east, and then next season PHX is moving too to lets say quebec, you have to bring back DET/CLB in west lol.

BTW, Manitoba Moose would be the gay. Jets please.

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I have been wondering the same thing. Will they be the Jets again? If not, that really sucks. Same with the Whale. Do we have anyone here from Connecticut btw? The only thing I can imagine is some copyright issues or whatever you call it where it hasn't expired yet and they can't use the Jets name. Gary Bettman sure fucked things up. How many terms can this a**hole serve? Why can't he be replaced? More hockey teams belong back in Canada. This is where the sport originated from. And you're gonna take a team from Canada and put them in Atlanta?!, where a previous team--FAILED. Look at the track record. WTF?

In my perfect world I would like to see: the Jets and Whalers back, get rid of these hillbilly southern state hockey teams, Panthers? gimme a break, same with the Lighting, never a fan (although they are starting to grow on me). Keep the Northstars name instead of the WILD (Although I like the logo I can do away with the Christmas colors). Now that was cool. Then they became the "Stars". How dumb and sounds arrogant. The Northstars was a cool name, represented the state well. The Expos. A team in Hamilton like they were talking about I believe and 1 team in Toronto- the Laufs, not two. They have enough problems running one team. Weren't they talking about putting two teams in Toronto? If not, disregard. Washington uses Al Iafrate's old jersey style with the stars running down the arm. Vancouver, pick a God damn jersey already and stick with it. (same with buffalo) Try going back to the black hockey skate that Bure wore, that was the coolest. Now I have to try and find my awesome Canucks hat from the 90's, f**k that thing is probably long gone. I loved that hat, it had the logo running down the side, I'd wear it with my Nordiques jersey. Bring them back, awesome, awesome, awesome jerseys. Keep san jose, colorado and columbus, get rid of nashville, phoenix, dallas, and carolina. Anaheim is on the fence.

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The Toronto area could support two teams easily. The one issue would be that if Hamilton got a team, it could hurt Buffalo.. In Buffalo, they actually play the Canadian anthem even if two American teams are playing, just because so many Canadians from the Toronto area go watch their games (since it's so hard to get Leafs tickets)

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Atlanta is probably the worst big pro sports market in the US. They support no one consistently.

I beg to differ, Iceman.

Las Vegas is hands down the worst big pro sports market.

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Msot people want it to be the jets and not another name. I had read that for next season that winnipeg would take atlanta's spot in the south east for one season and then they would re-align for 2012-13, only because there would not be enough time to decide who should go where and re-do another scehdule.

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The Toronto area could support two teams easily. The one issue would be that if Hamilton got a team, it could hurt Buffalo.. In Buffalo, they actually play the Canadian anthem even if two American teams are playing, just because so many Canadians from the Toronto area go watch their games (since it's so hard to get Leafs tickets)

WOW, I didn't know that. That's pretty interesting. Then why no love going around for Patrick Kane? The kid had one cabbie incident and since then, everywhere I read comments, nobody likes the kid. I think because he's cocky and good. Typical American punk filling JR's shoes. But he doesn't have JR's charisma and choice for words.

About Toronto. Would you argue that Toronto has the most loyal hockey fans in Canada then? It seems they have blind faith like Cubs fans.

Edited by Comeback_King
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WOW, I didn't know that. That's pretty interesting. Then why no love going around for Patrick Kane? The kid had one cabbie incident and since then, everywhere I read comments, nobody likes the kid. I think because he's cocky and good. Typical American punk filling JR's shoes. But he doesn't have JR's charisma and choice for words.

Yeah even before the cabbie incident, I didn't like him, just had a feeling he was not the classiest of dudes :P. But maybe there is artificial animosity created for Canadians due to the Kane vs Toews comparison (we want Toews to be better of course!). And of course cockiness is not very Canadian...

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The Toronto area could support two teams easily.

The Maple Leafs say no to your idea smoz

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The Maple Leafs say no to your idea smoz

They like to pretend it's within their power to say say yes/no on it, but it's not :)

I think QUE will get a team before TOR gets a second team, though.

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They better regain the Jets name and logo. No way Atlanta could keep hold of the team, even if it isn't actually official yet. Just look at Phoenix for example. They were struggling at the gate before the relocation threats began, but were still drawing around 15k a game, which I'd say is respectable in that market. But once the relocation threats started flying, the following season they had games where they were drawing under 10k a game, even under 6k on occasion.

It'd be stupid to make any more efforts to keep the team in Atlanta. It'll only hurt their market even more. They attempted to revive hockey in Atlanta, it didn't work, time to move on and keep a good market their team back.

As for how the divisions would be realligned, what would make the most sense to me is put Winnipeg in the Northwest, move Minnesota to the Central, and put Nashville in the Southeast. I know Detroit and Columbus fans want to be put in the East, but they'd need to be put in the Atlantic or Northeast divisions, which really can't be broken up.

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  • 2 weeks later...

About the move: not shocked, likely means that Phoenix will stay put for a little while, at least.

About the possible new nickname: doesn't matter much to me, but I'm sick of all the red/blue/white teams in the NHL. Let's try a different combination (maybe something with green...)

About re-alignment: It makes the most sense to move Nashville or Columbus to the Southeast, then put either Winnipeg (or Minnesota) in the Central.

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About the move: not shocked, likely means that Phoenix will stay put for a little while, at least.

About the possible new nickname: doesn't matter much to me, but I'm sick of all the red/blue/white teams in the NHL. Let's try a different combination (maybe something with green...)

About re-alignment: It makes the most sense to move Nashville or Columbus to the Southeast, then put either Winnipeg (or Minnesota) in the Central.

To me, I would like to see the Wild stay in the NW.

Pacific

-------

Anaheim

Colorado

Dallas

Phoenix

San Jose

Northwest

---------

Calgary

Edmonton

Minnesota

Vancouver

Winnipeg

Geographically, I think this makes sense. That leaves the SE with 4 teams, instead of the Pacific.

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Just as an aside -

There is still going to be a lot of "why hasn't the NHL abandoned these markets before and gone to places like Quebec/Hartford/Winnipeg"?

From the perspective of someone who has been to more Phoenix Coyotes games than any other NHL team - I'm glad it wasn't Phoenix, even though that is currently a mess.

Atlanta failed miserably and now Winnipeg is a great experiment, one that I hope succeeds.

But part of the NHL's problem is failing to connect hockey to the minds of people in these southern markets where it's not that cold.

For instance, Phoenix only has a couple ice rinks. It's a sport reserved for young people who can afford to play it and want to play it. There's not enough of a connection between the community and the team.

In places even like Nashville and Carolina, that's a little bit different. I can't speak to the number of rinks to people but these smaller markets do care about their team. Not all of them - Columbus can't make money.

But the important thing isn't destroying Sun Belt franchises because they don't deserve to be there - it's the NHL's failure to force owners to make sure their team is important to their community in the places where hockey doesn't come naturally.

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About the possible new nickname: doesn't matter much to me, but I'm sick of all the red/blue/white teams in the NHL. Let's try a different combination (maybe something with green...)

NO, keep the Jets and the colors. The NHL has f'd up enough already with the jerseys. Just leave s**t the way they are.

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Winnipeg reached 13000 season ticket sales in 4 days....there was about 7000 sold yesterday to former manitoba moose season ticket holders and then today the general public bought up the remaining 6000 tickets in 17 minutes. Bring more teams to Canada!

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=6625982

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