STOCKTON, Calif. – The Stockton Heat hosted the Manitoba Moose for the first time ever at the Stockton Arena, with both teams tied at zero. During the first intermission, David Andrews made himself available for a short, open conversation about the AHL progress in California. He was near the end of a nine game trip that included teams in Chicago, Rockford, Des Moines, San Antonio, Ontario (Ca), San Jose and Stockton.
In his 22nd season as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Hockey League, Andrews has had an influential role in the expansion of the league.
This was Andrews’ first visit to Stockton, though he didn’t get a chance to see much more than the arena, he liked what he saw, in particular the fans.
“I think the crowds are great. The fans are really engaged. I think we have found that the biggest surprise for us has been the level of engagement in California,” said Andrews. “Our social media people are tracking the engagement and the retweets, the passion for the game; it’s really been amazing here in California with all of the markets, the degree of the passion for the game.”
The AHL has grown significantly over the last several years, and now has met the pace of the NHL too. The NHL announced last summer to explore a potential expansion into Las Vegas, Nevada and Quebec City.
“We are watching it, but it’s outside of our control. Certainly, if the NHL expands, we will expand as well. We match up now, thirty of our teams to thirty NHL teams and we need to match with whatever number of teams they have. If they expand out west, certainly we will see another team or two teams, depending upon where they expand out in this region, which would be great for the five California teams right now.”
The opening of the current season saw the AHL swap with ECHL markets, with the movement of five AHL teams into California, including the Stockton Heat, Bakersfield Condors, Ontario Reign, San Diego Gulls and San Jose Barracuda. When asked if there were any trepidation with this number of concurrent changes, he was quick to say none whatsoever.
“It was a very complicated process to go through. We spent three years essentially trying to find a way to do it. Any time you move five existing teams this far west or five teams anywhere, it’s a challenging process. Last year we moved the Manitoba Moose to back to Manitoba and the Montreal Canadians’ AHL team to St. Johns Newfoundland. [So in all] we moved seven teams last year and we changed four major affiliation agreements as well. We had 11 of our 30 teams undergo a pretty significant change. It was a challenging process. I think once we realized we could get the deal done though, there was no trepidation that we would be successful out here.”
“When you have five NHL clubs committed to making it work, with the level of expertise, commitment and the resources they have, we had every reason to think that they’d be successful.”
“I think we will see that they will have continued growth over time out here. It’s going to take a little while. If there’s expansion coming up with the NHL that will help us. I think overtime there will be other western based teams that would like to be out in this region. We just have to let it play its self out.”
Andrew’s added, “But this is a great start. It’s been a great first three months. I think all of these teams are happy. It looks like the fan bases are happy to have the American Hockey League out here too. I think we are going to continue to see the game continue to grow here in California. I think that was one of the things the NHL clubs, like Los Angeles, Anaheim or San Jose, all of them really felt that putting the American Hockey League in California would help to grow the game and hopefully that’s the way it will play out.”
When asked what the future would bring, he said, “I don’t think we will see anything in the next year, possibly next two years. The teams that are western based NHL teams are now involved in other commitments in the league. It’s unlikely you will see any quick movement. They have had the opportunity now to watch the other five teams and sit back and see how it’s going and to make sure it’s going well. I do believe over time you will see some more western movement of our league.”
The moves between the AHL and ECHL teams went well. Andrews commented on that process.
“To come into markets that have a solid fan base and history of the game is helpful. It was a move that fortunately was cooperatively done with support from the ECHL. It wasn’t as though we raided them; they were not uncomfortable with it. The way that it played out and the way it was negotiated, the way the teams were acquired by the AHL clubs, it was done the right way. As you know, the teams that left these markets moved into the markets we were vacating, and managed to keep hockey in their community. I think that was good for our fans in those cities as well.”
With the changes this season, the AHL would rank teams in order of points percentage (points earned divided by total points available), rather than just strictly by points. This was due to the modifications by the western teams to only play 68 games for the season, while the other teams play 76. Andrews was asked if the number of games might be modified in the coming years, so they can be point based again.
“It’s a topic that will certainly be discussed over the next months at board meetings. It’s not ideal to have five teams playing a different schedule than the other 25 teams,” he said. “It’s made our standings a novel experience for fans that are looking to see how we are doing, with the point’s percentage, rather than the number of points being the determining factor. The difference in games played is the only major compromise that had to be made to make this deal work. The teams [in California], understandably, had an opinion in terms of how long a playing schedule should be for developing players. They wanted to see more practice time and less travel. We are comfortable with it, and it was the outcome of negotiation.”
“It’s the new normal for us. And where it’s going to go down the road is unclear. We used to play an 80-game schedule, which we reduced a few years ago to 76. I believe there’s a fair amount of support within the group to get down to 72. I can’t imagine that we would go any lower than that. We will see how it plays out here with the western based teams. They are certainly able to play this schedule as long as they’d like to, as it was part of the deal. If it’s working for them, it will work for us.”
With that, it seems the AHL is on the right track and will look forward to keeping up with the Joneses… err, I mean the NHL. Hockey is most definitely growing in California.
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