Coming Into Bloom(ington)

We know the ECHL is doing their due diligence on trying to find locations to push their membership to 32 teams so that each NHL team has an ECHL affiliate, and they pushed that number to 29 with the Lake Tahoe expansion announcement in July. It would make sense that the ECHL is pushing further west so that the teams in the Pacific time zone have more options when it comes to who they choose for an affiliation, but today's announcement stopped that westward progress that we may have aniticipated seeing. Where is this new franchise going to play? Let's find out as the ECHL gets a little bit bigger with today's expansion announcement!

The ECHL will add a 30th team for the 2024-25 season to join Lake Tahoe as an expansion cousin, and that team will be located in Bloomington, Illinois. For those wondering, Bloomington is about two hours southwest of Chicago, three-and-a-half hours west of Indianapolis, and five hours east of Des Moines. Honestly, it's kind of in the middle of a number of big cities, but far enough away from those cities that going to watch hockey is a bit of a trek. Combined with Normal, Illinois, there's about 130,000 people who live in the area, so there are enough people to potentially make ECHL hockey work in Bloomington.

This new franchise will be owned by Hallett Sports and Entertainment, and they do have hockey ownership experience as this group also owns and operates the Indy Fuel. The team will play out of the city-owned Grossinger Motors Arena which seats 5600 fans for hockey events, so they'll need to fill 80% the arena on a nightly basis to help the ECHL maintain its average attendance of 4515 fans per game. There are 24 private suites and two party suites that likely will be used as well, so this Bloomington team could have some fun crowds depending on how they're marketed.

The two largest employers in the area are State Farm Insurance and Illinois State University, so there's a good chance they'll have a solid sponsor if they can convince State Farm to partner with this new franchise, and the option to have student nights to fill the barn also seems highly probable. There aren't a lot of large corporations in Bloomington, so they'll need to have a strong season-ticket base to reach that 4500-fans-per-night mark. Where they may get some help is from the communities around Bloomington as Amtrak operates five trains in each direction between St. Louis and Chicago each day.

Bloomington isn't a stranger to professional hockey, so there may be some die-hard fans in the area who can head back to the arena to watch games. The Bloomington PrairieThunder played in the UHL from 2006-10 before they moved to the Central Hockey League for one season in 2010-11, and a new franchise was founded as the Bloomington Blaze in the Central Hockey League from 2011-13 before new ownership took over, renamed them as the Thunder, and moved them to the SPHL where they played just one season in 2013-14. Since then, the Central Illinois Flying Aces of the United States Hockey League have called Bloomington home as the main tenant in Grossinger Motors Arena.

Of course, there is a wild card that may factor into the team's success as Bloomington is the only town where Beer Nuts Brand Snacks are made. Whether there's a sponsorship or some sort of tie-in to the team, having a company based solely in Bloomington is an opportunity that can't be missed for this new hockey franchise.

There are a pile of radio stations and a handful of local TV stations that can carry games for this new Bloomington ECHL franchise, so media won't be a problem for fans when they go on the road. The Pantagraph is the local newspaper, and I'm guessing they'll have someone on the hockeyt beat for this new ECHL team.

In short, this new Bloomington team should work as long as the fans come and watch games. They're close enough to both the Indy Fuel and the Fort Wayne Komets to really have solid rivalries with those two teams, and they're within driving distance of the Iowa Heartlanders that fans could travel for a fun road trip. With Cincinnati, Toledo, and Kalamazoo not much further away, Bloomington will be in among some of the better ECHL teams, so fans in Bloomington will likely see a lot of good hockey, even if it's not regularly from the local team.

Hallett Sports and Entertainment seems to know that area of the US quite well when it comes to selling hockey, so it seems this ECHL franchise is in good hands. They'll need to sell the people of Bloomington on supporting this new ECHL team, but if they name the team right, get a few good companies onboard, and sell the idea of a student section, hockey will bloom in Bloomington once again.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!