Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

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Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by jag42 »

just like in Omaha, the Calgary Flames top farm team is leaving the Quad Cities after two seasons....
 
http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2009/03 ... 075105.txt
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Post by HskrFanMike »

a significant boost in attendance anticipated from playing just a level below the National Hockey League never occurred. The Flames drew 3,523 last year, 27th in the 29-team AHL. Through 31 of 40 homes games this season, the Flames rank 28th in attendance, with an average of 2,976.

“It is disappointing the fans didn’t appreciate what we tried to do,’’ said Voss
And in typical fashion, they once again blame the fans for their failure.
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Post by jag42 »

Omaha's attendance was about 3500 in its second season and on its way up.  QC's was down in its 2nd year.  Hey...the Mid America Center in Council Bluffs needs a hockey tenant now the Lancers are moving to the Civic!!!  Bring back the Knights!!!!
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Post by Coyote »

Just had to look into the archives:

Knights Are Successful, But Few Know
Hockey Club Has Trouble Filling Seats

KETV wrote:The Omaha AkSarBen Knights are 38 games into the season and have the third-best winning percentage in the American Hockey League. But the Knights are 26th in the 27-team league in attendance. The team is averaging just over 3,100 fans per game in its second season at the Civic Auditorium, which is about 2,000 below the league average.

The statistic are disappointing to the parent club, the Calgary Flames of the National Hockey League, according to Flames General Manager Darryl Sutter. "I don't think it's a challenge the team faces at all. The biggest hurdle in attracting fans is success, and the team has done an outstanding job. They've done everything they can. It's disappointing," Sutter said.
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Post by Big E »

jag42 wrote:Hey...the Mid America Center in Council Bluffs needs a hockey tenant now the Lancers are moving to the Civic!!!
Maybe they can expand the as-yet-unfunded Sarpy County Non-Bush League Good Place to Raise a Family Even Though Parking Won't Be Free Sports-A-Torium...
Stable genius.
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Post by Brad »

A guy at work told me that in last nights Calgary game, there were SEVEN  former Aksarben Knights playing... I wish they were still here!
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Post by Greg S »

Yep for only being here two years, there are certainly a lot of former Knights in the NHL, not to mention all of the players from other teams we saw too (check out the Wings and the players that were on Grand Rapids back then).  I never missed GR when they came to town.

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Post by jag42 »

I always had to go see the Knights play the Peoria Rivermen as the St. Louis Blues are my favorite NHL team, hard to pick who to root for when the Rivermen and Knights were playing :-(
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Post by Brad »

Did they ever figure out where they were going?
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Post by Stargazer »

I believe I had heard that they had PLANNED to go to a city in British Columbia... although it was a controversial move due to it being a LONG way from the rest of the the AHL.
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Post by nebugeater »

Brad wrote:Did they ever figure out where they were going?
Sarpy County????
For the record  NEBUGEATER does not equal BUGEATER    !!!!!!!
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Post by Coyote »

Stargazer wrote:I believe I had heard that they had PLANNED to go to a city in British Columbia... although it was a controversial move due to it being a LONG way from the rest of the the AHL.
The ownership group in Abbotsford, lead by Lane Sweeting, is prepared to subsidize the travel costs for other AHL teams, which will have to fly out to the B.C. city.

''Most of the teams in the American Hockey League are on the east coast and for them to come all the way to the west coast, we definitely have to satisfy that,'' Sweeting told Vancouver sports radio station, CKNW. ''But we're hopeful that's the only hang up and I think we've got that taken care of.''

King too is confident it's a good move for the organization.

''It's a bold move. And I think it's a smart move,'' King told the newspaper. ''It's a Canadian market. They know hockey. They understand hockey. They appreciate hockey. And they've been years in the making. They've been courting us and other teams for a long time.''
They went to Abbotsford, B.C. because they know hockey? Well this was just reported....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbotsford_Heat
The team has struggled financially due to very low attendance rates. Upon the Vancouver Canucks purchase of the Peoria Rivermen, the Flames were courted by the City of Utica, New York as a potential relocation city for their franchise. Talks broke down between the city of Abbotsford, the Vancouver Canucks and the Calgary Flames on a possible affiliation swap and relocation. On June 14th, 2013 the Vancouver Canucks and Mohawk Valley Garden, the managing partner based in Utica, NY, signed a 6-year affiliation agreement and the Utica Comets became the new AHL affiliate of the Vancouver Canucks.
Suck that Calgary!
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Post by MadMartin8 »

Guess they didn't realize how good they had it in Omaha :) hahah
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Post by Greg S »

If they had just stayed one more year.  Ren Smith's group was doing a great job.  The owner's of the Quad City Mallard's screwed us when they came in and offered to move the franchise.

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Post by HskrFanMike »

I think Calgary's track record with their minor league franchise proves that the failure of the OAKs was primarily the result of their own incompetence.
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Post by Greg S »

I agree.  How can they not find a decent home for an AHL team in Canada?

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Post by Coyote »

Greg S wrote:I agree.  How can they not find a decent home for an AHL team in Canada?

Greg
Let alone a market that prepared and was lobbying for one...
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by Coyote »

Calgary Flames moving farm club, possibly to upstate New York
WES GILBERTSON: CALGARY SUN wrote:"The economics did not turn out the way any of us intended, despite the tremendous efforts of many men and women who made it their mission to convert the allegiances of local hockey fans, at least at the American Hockey League level, to the Heat.

The Flames have had a hard time finding a long-term location for their top affiliate. Since a decade-long stay in Saint John, N.B., they've tried cities in Massachusetts (Lowell Lock Monsters, split with Carolina Hurricanes), Nebraska (Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights), Illinois (Quad City Flames) and then made the move to Abbotsford.
I was ready to make a snarky response....
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by cp jay 07 »

Well Downtown Omaha will be Hockey less in 2015/2016, just saying.
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by nebugeater »

At this point maybe they need to admit it is not the location that is the issue but the organisation.
For the record  NEBUGEATER does not equal BUGEATER    !!!!!!!
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by S33 »

I think the real problem is neither the location nor the organization, but a lack of interest in the sport.

I can't, at the top of my head, think of a single person I know personally, who has even an ounce of interest in hockey. not a single one. So when you have a market with a couple teams who have already carved-out and established their niche, Lancers and UNO, that leaves little room. Then you go to a market less than half the size of Omaha, as if that's going to take off. It was dead from the beginning.
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by Brad »

S33 wrote:So when you have a market with a couple teams who have already carved-out and established their niche, Lancers and UNO, that leaves little room.
I doesn't help that you still have a decent percent of the population that think the Lancer's are professional athletes and just days away from begin called up by the NHL... When in reality, they are a bunch of high-school guys.
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by skinzfan23 »

S33 wrote:I think the real problem is neither the location nor the organization, but a lack of interest in the sport.

I can't, at the top of my head, think of a single person I know personally, who has even an ounce of interest in hockey. not a single one. So when you have a market with a couple teams who have already carved-out and established their niche, Lancers and UNO, that leaves little room. Then you go to a market less than half the size of Omaha, as if that's going to take off. It was dead from the beginning.
I have to agree with you there....as much as I wanted them to succeed in Omaha, I only went to one game, and I don't know anyone who went to any. Hockey for some reason, just can't get the mass amounts of people on a continual basis in Omaha or a lot of other cities for that matter.
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by skinzfan23 »

Brad wrote:I doesn't help that you still have a decent percent of the population that think the Lancer's are professional athletes and just days away from begin called up by the NHL...  When in reality, they are a bunch of high-school guys.
I found that funny as well. Whether I lived in Dubuque, IA, Cedar Rapids, IA or Omaha, a ton of people believe that they are professional athletes. I literally had to try hard once to convince some old co-workers of mine that they are high school kids and their next stop, if they are lucky, would be to play in college.
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by Brad »

skinzfan23 wrote:I have to agree with you there....as much as I wanted them to succeed in Omaha, I only went to one game, and I don't know anyone who went to any.
There were some of us on this forum who went to several.

Stargazer, the1wags, Omaha Cowboy, etc. I went to a few as well.
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by skinzfan23 »

Brad wrote:
skinzfan23 wrote:I have to agree with you there....as much as I wanted them to succeed in Omaha, I only went to one game, and I don't know anyone who went to any.
There were some of us on this forum who went to several.

Stargazer, the1wags, Omaha Cowboy, etc.  I went to a few as well.
Ok, I stand corrected....haha.
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by Brad »

skinzfan23 wrote:
Brad wrote:There were some of us on this forum who went to several.

Stargazer, the1wags, Omaha Cowboy, etc.  I went to a few as well.
Ok, I stand corrected....haha.
But we weren't enough to keep them going...

Overall you are right, I knew way more people that never went than those that did attend.
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by S33 »

I'm just saying, the interest just isn't quite where it needs to be for most to consider another team. Baseball seems to be heading that way, although at a far slower pace.

And I don't think it's much different than why American football will never catch on in Europe and most of the rest of the world, because their bread and butter is soccer. Here, it's football and basketball. It's difficult to sell a sport when the majority of the possible fan base is so far invested into other sports.
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by Greg S »

Brad wrote:
skinzfan23 wrote:I have to agree with you there....as much as I wanted them to succeed in Omaha, I only went to one game, and I don't know anyone who went to any.
There were some of us on this forum who went to several.

Stargazer, the1wags, Omaha Cowboy, etc.  I went to a few as well.
I went to several games the first year, and close to half the second. They were horribly run the first year and brought in a great crew the 2nd year (lead by Ren Smith). If they had stayed the 3rd year I was going to buy season tickets. They had a lot of momentum going the 2nd year. They were near the top of the league in playoff attendance their last year. Too bad the league that Quad City was playing in that year was teetering. Their ownership group panicked and made the Flames a nice offer. I think everyone involved later came to regret it.

If you had either the Ren Smith group leading the Knights from the beginning, or even better Martie Cordero and crew, we'd still have professional hockey in Omaha (though I think the Lancers might not still be here if that happened).

Greg
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by jag42 »

Abbotsford Heat relocating to Glen Falls, NY.



http://theahl.com/flames-ahl-franchise- ... ls-p192047" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by iamjacobm »

jag42 wrote:Abbotsford Heat relocating to Glen Falls, NY.



http://theahl.com/flames-ahl-franchise- ... ls-p192047" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Wow that is a small city.
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by jag42 »

So, Glens Falls is losing one AHL team, and right away get the Abbotsford Heat.
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by Coyote »

So the Adirondack Phantoms lasted 5 years in Glen Falls without a single postseason game and moves to Allentown, PA (Lehigh Valley)

The Glen Falls Civic Center holds 4,794, and whose claim to fame is that Phish recorded the a White Album (Live Phish, Vol. 13) there '94 Halloween?

Way to step it up there Calgary!
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by jag42 »

Glen Falls NY (Formerly Omaha Aksarben Knights and Quad City Flames) moving to Stockton, California. This is part of a 5-team relocation to various cities in California for a "Pacific Division" of the AHL.


http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/12250 ... c-division" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by Coyote »

Wow, The carousel just keeps turning...
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by Stargazer »

I'm still dumbfounded with the woman I ran into in a supermarket, telling me how much better the Lancers were compared to the Knights... not the 'product' mind you, but the team. I came to the realization, that there are many people in this town who think that the Lancers are a professional hockey team ("they fight, you don't see that at the college level.").
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by Greg S »

Stargazer wrote:I'm still dumbfounded with the woman I ran into in a supermarket, telling me how much better the Lancers were compared to the Knights... not the 'product' mind you, but the team.  I came to the realization, that there are many people in this town who think that the Lancers are a professional hockey team ("they fight, you don't see that at the college level.").
Yeah it's amazing how hard it's been to educate the public here. For years so many did not understand the Lancers. There were two extremes, some that just thought it was "high school hockey" and others that thought they were pro's and elevated above UNO.

Those 2 years the Knights were here were the best. I'm a UNO hockey guy but at times their games are so few and far between, it was great having the Knights here. I'm sure the Flames have come to realize they pulled the plug too soon. I get that the guys in the Quad Cities made a great offer, but they had some serious momentum going here after their initial GM hurt them in the market so bad.

The level of hockey being played at the Civic then was so good. Amazing how many of the Knights went on to the NHL along with the opposing players.

Greg
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by bigredmed »

Omaha is a town for people who raise kids. Pro teams have to have games on school nights. Can't get people to pay double what the Lancers charge to blow a school night for a team that is pretty good, but not great.
Will they blow that for a one off event? Possibly. For a full season? No.

The team blew their entry into the market, and never put anything on ice that made up for it. That is on them. I am really tired of sports geeks belly aching about how Omaha won't support pro sports. If you open a pork sausage store in an orthodox Jewish neighborhood, you are not going to get very good walk in business. Everyone would look at that and shrug that you were dumb enough to do it. Same economics work in entertainment. Open a business that caters to Yuppies in a town where the three Yuppies can barely keep one bar open, you are going to have a bad outcome. Pro sports depend on guys with lots of disposable income to buy tix and gear. In a city big enough that the 1% of the population that can afford this is a large enough number, you make out. In a city like ours, you don't.
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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by Greg S »

bigredmed wrote:Omaha is a town for people who raise kids.  Pro teams have to have games on school nights.  Can't get people to pay double what the Lancers charge to blow a school night for a team that is pretty good, but not great.
Will they blow that for a one off event?  Possibly.  For a full season? No.

The team blew their entry into the market, and never put anything on ice that made up for it.  That is on them.  I am really tired of sports geeks belly aching about how Omaha won't support pro sports.  If you open a pork sausage store in an orthodox Jewish neighborhood, you are not going to get very good walk in business.  Everyone would look at that and shrug that you were dumb enough to do it.  Same economics work in entertainment.   Open a business that caters to Yuppies in a town where the three Yuppies can barely keep one bar open, you are going to have a bad outcome.  Pro sports depend on guys with lots of disposable income to buy tix and gear.  In a city big enough that the 1% of the population that can afford this is a large enough number, you make out.  In a city like ours, you don't.
They did screw up their entry. That being said, they were CHEAPER for families than either the Lancers or Mavs, and it's not even close. If you bought an adult ticket, your kid got in free. So honestly, in year 2 they were the BEST family option.

The Storm Chasers have proved that if you run a program well, and are affiliated with a major team. Omaha is a very viable option.

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Re: Quad City Flames (ex Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights) leaving

Post by bigredmed »

Not a fair comparison as their games are in the summer.

The freebie tx must have been only in year two. Family had season tx and had to buy them for their kids.
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