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T-minus 4 days and counting toward Vesey Day, with several NHL fan bases and apparently at least a couple of front offices awaiting the fall of that particular domino.
I'm writing from a Best Western hotel room in beautiful Utica, NY, traveling across the Northern Tier of the Eastern US, heading to Maine.
Utica is also home to the Utica Comets, the Canucks' AHL farm team. Yesterday, we passed through Cleveland, Rochester and Syracuse. Today, we see Manchester and Portland. All AHL cities.
I've had the pleasure of visiting and seeing games in several AHL cities: places like Rockford, Grand Rapids, Hamilton and Portland, where I stayed at the same Residential Hotel Property as Pirate defenseman Geoff Waugh. Waugh was a nice kid, who grew up in Winnipeg, playing with and against Jonathan Toews and Cam barker.
AHL hockey is good hockey, and these smaller cities tend to get deeply involved with their teams and players, who also tend to be more approachable.
But these fans also have to deal with lot of roster turnover every year. Aside from the difference in scale of the arenas and the media spotlight, AHL (and all minor league/junior) hockey is a different experience overall. Maybe not too terribly far—in some ways—from the Charlestown Chiefs of Slapshot fame.
I have some fun memories of handling the advertising of the Kalamazoo Wings, then the top farm team of there Dallas Stars in the old IHL, when Ken Hitchcock was head coach, assisted by Calude Noel. We once shot a commercial in the neutral zone with Hitch and Claude, surrounded by open bear traps. You can't make this stuff up.
So where is this blog going?
I'd love to hear your AHL (and let's throw in NCAA, ECHL, IHL and junior) game and city experiences on the message board.
All for now,
JJ
Chicago Blackhawks Blogger • 
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