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For those of you who haven’t been informed, the Calgary Flames affiliate team the Abottsford Heat have been moved to Glen Falls New York.
The team, having reportedly lost millions of dollars while in Abbotsford, was forcefully shipped out after the city’s mayor paid $5.5M for the organization to leave. It was never a great idea to have an affiliate team for the Calgary Flames so close to the city of Vancouver, who happens to be one of their near rivals.
Whether attendance was so low simply because they were seen as a rival team or not, the city simply didn’t show enough interest for the Heat and they will now try their luck in New York. The main issue I have with this move has to do with the distance between Calgary and Glen Falls.
As I discussed in an earlier blog, having your affiliate team nice and close to the NHL rink is important when it comes down to emergency call ups, but also because it provides the GM and coaching staff to keep an eye on their prospects much easier than if they were to have to travel a few hours.
To put that into perspective, the approximate flight time from Calgary to Glen Falls is around 4 hours by plane. I would be surprised if Brian Burke and or Brad Treliving made that trip too often throughout the year.
That said, where the move makes sense is that the Heat are now much closer to the rest of the AHL teams, ultimately meaning less time spent in hotels and less time spent on the road.
“One of the challenges we had, notwithstanding the economics, was the team travel,… King said two weeks ago. “The (Heat) has played really well, but they’re up against massive travel, substantially fewer practice opportunities. So that’s one of the criteria — can you get in a location that’s efficient for travel? And can you put yourself in a city that’s the kind of place you’d want to be with young men that are developing to proceed to the NHL?…
While the above does hold much weight and was likely the driving force behind the decision, I would have liked for the team to be a little closer to Calgary just the same. It will be hard for fans to catch games given the geographic distance, and the coaching/management staff will likely need to rely on the Heat staff when filling out monthly report cards, rather than watching them play live.
With that established, I’m sure the team is excited for the move given that they were essentially in “Canucks… territory and now have their own home and will certainly attract new fans. With their travel and road time severely diminished, there should also be more time for practices and free time than they likely had available to them previously.
Although, I wonder if so much time on the road perhaps didn’t make them a close unit?
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While we’re on the topic, the Heat have recently been knocked out of the AHL playoffs by the Grand Rapids Griffins Friday night, after a 5-3 loss.
Abbotsford would be outshot 37-26 in their final game of the postseason as Joni Ortio was tested quite often by the Griffins. Despite the first round playoff loss, the Heat had a successful season finishing 5th in the Western Conference and owning two of the top 20 scorers during the regular season in Max Reinhart, and Ben Street.
The Flames appear to have some promising young talent moving up in the ranks, and being amidst a rebuild, it certainly nice to see. Of those to note, rookie Sven Baertschi ended his 2013-14 AHL campaign with 29pts in 41 games played. There continue to be many eyes focused on this young player given when and where he was drafted.
The organization will likely expect him to show a sign of improvement moving into next season, given that Baertschi is now one of their more experienced prospects with 51 NHL games and 73 AHL games. That said, he’s still very young at 21 years of age and fans should remain patient with this particular player who continues to work on his 200ft game.
That’s all for today folks, thanks for reading!