Atlanta Does Deserve a Hockey Team

On Tuesday of this week, the other NHL owners voted to take a NHL franchise out of a great TV market and into a citya quarter of the size. The people of Winnipeg would have watched NHL hockey regardless if they had a team or not. It is a stupid business move numbers wise. I understand needing to remove the team from the buffoons who make up the ASG, but please NHL consider another Atlanta team.

Strides have been made. There are now youth leagues that will grow a generation of hockey fans. The Gwinnett Gladiators are doing excellent and have just signed a deal to stay in their Arena for 3 more years. The Glads have maintained an attendance record that places them in the top half of ECHL attendance their entire existence .This is because now in June they are starting to market a season that does not start unitl mid October. If The ASG had ever really tried to reach out to the expanded Metro Area they would have found an area ripe for the growth they needed. We have a chance, next year Phoniex will lose their franchise if some would buy it and bother to do a little bit of research, they could find Atlanta a welcoming home.

It is being reported in various news sources that Atlanta lost its hockey franchise due to Atlanta not being a "hockey city". This is not the case. Hockey in Atlanta has failed because of bumbling management and the get rich schemes of a handful of individuals. On the day the Atlanta Spirit Group jointly screwed David McDavid out of his opportunity to purchase the Thrashers from Turner Broadcasting and the hockey fans of Atlanta out of the opportunity to enjoy a first class operation; the plan to sell the Atlanta Thrashers off was already in the works.

ASG took a team that had never been properly marketed and did even worse. My personal example of poor marketing is just ridiculous. I was introduced to hockey in college in 1997. I played Inline Hockey with several friends from the dorms and while I was not the best I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had heard on the news that we had a team coming and planned to be there at opening game. By the time I found when opening game was the tickets had been sold out( at least as far as ticket agents were concerned) and I had to watch opening game with some of my fellow players in a bar and grill. My point is I was looking for this information and could not find it. After scraping up the extra cash to buy my first tickets and finally getting into a game, the night Dean Sylvester scored the first hat trick, I found out about a discount student ticket, this was advertised not at my university but rather inside the arena. I tried on my own to spread the word and maybe got a dozen students to take advantage of this and I wonder how I compared to Thrashers Management. The whole college market was one the Thrashers missed. Georgia State University is stumble-home-drunk distance from the Phillips Arena and I had friends who had not attended a game until I pointed out close they were.

The Atlanta Market ( 8th Largest in the United States) would be prime for hockey if the right marketing had been employed. The traditional blue collar folks that easily could have filled the 300 sections were largely shunned. These could have been the rabid core base that grew the fan base. The NASTY NEST was a perfect example of this. They were dedicated fans who maybe did not the free capital to buy glass bangers but still did what they had to do get season tickets or flex plans to enjoy seeing the game. The ASG greatly expanded on this problem when they pitched almost exclusively to area country clubs and Golf courses. One thing us upper bowlers used to comment about was the Humvee contest where Somebody on the front row center ice had the ability to win a Hummer if a goal was scored in that particular minute. These things could be easily misconstrued as some kind of jealous class-warfare crap except I can testify as former Arena concourse staff I was told that if a season ticket holder wanted anything we got it for them, if someone from up high wanted something we usually went with the cheapest fix possible.

ASG took the absolute worst the Thrashers had and promoted it. Don Wadell somehow survived the entire existence of the team. HE WAS THE PROBLEM! .His bad choices started with his first player pick- Damian Rhodes. Who could have guessed that an injured aging goalie with a poor work ethic and a slew of personal problems would not work out? As a matter of fact; bad goalies were a trademark for Waddell he replaced Rhodes with a injured, aging British Hockey player in the form of Byron Dafoe!!

We ruined some good Goalie talent as well. Norm Maracle was a great glove man who deteriorated with poor conditioning. We burned out Pasi Nurimen and Milan Hlinka who I saw earn 66 saves in one night just to be blamed for the Thrashers poor performance.

I watched as 2 brilliant young goalies rose up from the Gwinnett Gladiators( awesome ECHL team) to fill in for injuries to 3 top goalies; Adam Munroe and Michael Garnett. Garnett had back to back shutouts and today leads the Thrashers record as most consecutive Shut outs. Garnett was pulled to make way for a burned out overpaid has-been named Mike Dunham. Dunham had been rushed back into the lineup even though he personally had let the ECHL Gwinnett Gladiators be beat by the August LYNX, ( I was there, 2nd row ,15 feet behind him and say it was his loss.) Of Course, the most glaring is Kari Lehoten. Lehoten had amazing skills, he was fast, he had excellent instincts, but no support on or off the ice. The ASG and Don Waddell placed blame for the many defeats on Kari even though he usually had twice the saves of the opposing goalie. Look at well Kari did when we was released and went to Dallas.

Don allowed great goal scoring players to leave here. Marc Savard, Dany Heatly, Marion Hossa, Peverly, Ilya Kovalchuk,were all lost because he could not work a deal. It is ridiculous when I see articles on him as great hero for this team. Kurt Fraser and Bob Hartley both took a lot of heat and a job loss that should have been his.

The ASG stood by their idiot because of, and not in spite of his poor decisions .No matter how loudly we fans called for Waddell's head, ASG kept him even going as far as to promote him. When at a town hall meeting of Season ticket holders, it has been published that the ASG reps went as far as to insult fans to their faces over their discontent. I once saw an online article that said any paying fan who wore a paper bag over or screamed "Fire Wadell" was to be ejected from the building. There is a saying "never argue with a customer, because you might just win". Well the ASG certainly showed us.