Expansion Into Anytown, USA

It came as a bit of a surprise on Thursday that the USHL will be making an announcement on June 24 about expansion into California, Nevada, and Arizona. We know that all the junior hockey leagues are looking to expand their footprints on the North Ameican map - sometimes with teams switching leagues to do so - but expansion by the USHL into these three states is a big move for a league that's generally only had games played in the US midwest. For a league whose furthest southwest team was in Kearney, Nebraska, this represents a massive shift in the USHL's thinking with the potential to have two isolated, independent divisions playing hockey before meeting in the Clark Cup Final. The only question that needs to be asked is into which cities the USHL will expand in these states.

According to the release on Thursday, the USHL "and a group of stakeholders have signed a memorandum of understanding to establish member clubs in Arizona, California, and Nevada" with no cities named nor a definite number of teams being added in those states. This could be a two-team expansion or we could see massive expansion depending on that group of stakeholders, but it should be noted that Los Angeles Kings President Luc Robitaille was named in the release along with former USHL Commissioner Tom Garrity and West Coast Hockey Sports and Entertainment executive Ben Robert.

If those three men are involved, this looks like a very real development as all three have multiple contacts that may want to own teams. I'm not going to speculate on who should own teams because ownership could come in many forms, but I will speculate on the cities who could host a team based on venue availability and market size. Will these sites work? I can't say for certain, but they do have venues that could make hockey profitable for these owners.

The Obvious Cities

FRESNO, CALIFORNIA: THE ECHL once called Fresno home, and the Falcons used to play in Selland Arena which can hold up to 7600 fans for hockey after the 2006 renovation that installed more comfortable seating, a new video replay scoreboard, message boards, and a new ice-cooling system for hockey games. With 542,107 citizens as per the 2020 census, Fresno ranks as the fifth-largest city in California and the city boasts a diverse economical sector for corporate sponsorship.

STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA: Once home to both the AHL and ECHL, Stockton is the the 11th-most populous city in California with 320,804 residents as per the 2020 census. Adventist Health Arena only hosts NBA G-League games at the moment, has many modern amenities, and would seat 9737 fans for hockey if a team played there. The arena still has a working ice plant, so it would only need a permanent tenant to make hockey work. Stockton also has a diverse, growing economic sector that could assist with corporate sponsorship.

PHOENIX, ARIZONA: Hockey in Phoenix? Say it ain't so! This could work well in Phoenix if a similar arena-usage deal with made with the Arizona State Sun Devils. Mullett Arena was good enough for NHL hockey, but the Sun Devils may want to have a USHL team playing in their building when it comes to recruiting players for their team. Amenities like private suites and concessions are already in place, so it wouldn't take much to move into Arizona's largest city and get things rolling. The venue and fanbase would already be present.

RENO, NEVADA: Reno has flirted with professional hockey teams for a long time, but none have found the staying power needed. They do have a bit of a hockey history with University of Nevada-Reno Men's ACHA Division-III team, but Reno could have its first permanent team with a USHL expansion team. Grand Sierra Resort broke ground on a new, 10,000-seat arena for the University of Nevada men's basketball team in October, but there was a rendering of an ice hockey rink in their release. Reno is the third most populous city in Nevada with 264,165 residents as of 2020, and it is the most populous city in Nevada outside the Las Vegas Valley. They have a diverse economic sector buoyed by several hotels and casinos, so they likely won't have to worry about begging for any sort of corporate sponsorship.

Potential Cities

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA: Sacramento has never really been a landing spot for hockey, but they do have an NBA team so there has to be a market. The city isn't far from Stockton, and the Golden 1 Center where the NBA's Kings play does have an ice plant despite never hosting a hockey game of any kind. It is the sixth-most populous city in California with a 2020 population of 524,943, but the metropolitan area contains 2.46 million residents. Sacramento's economic sector has seen major gains in healthcare, manufacturing, and technology, so corporate sponsorship is there. The only question is will the Kings want an ice-requiring second tenant in their building?

GLENDALE, ARIZONA: Do I really need to explain why? The Arizona Coyotes played at Desert Diamond Arena, so it can clearly do hockey. Would people show up to watch USHL hockey? That might be a harder sell than getting them to drive out to see the Coyotes play.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: It would make sense to consider Los Angeles, but one has to wonder if a USHL team could find a market with all of the other sports and entertainment options happening in Los Angeles everyday. There are arenas one could call home, but junior hockey might be a harder sell in Los Angeles with NFL, NBA, and NHL options along with everything else happening there. It's not impossible, but Los Angeles might be saturated with sporting options.

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA: There's no doubt that San Diego has supported the AHL Gulls as their team. The Gulls have virtually zero competition when it comes to other entertainment options, and they have an arena that could easily handle the crowds seen by the USHL. The question would be whether or not San Diego would support two hockey teams with the same enthusiasm shown for the Gulls.

BAY AREA, CALIFORNIA: We saw the IHL call San Francisco home for a few years and the NHL tried to make this area work with the Seals, but there might be more of an appetite for USHL hockey in the bay area. The Cow Palace is old, but it does have 11,089 seats for ice hockey. Oakland Arena also has hosted hockey games, but the catch is that both venues are ancient despite recent renovations. The Bay Arena could work, but it may need some tweaks to be profitable.

Cities To Avoid

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA: With the NHL's Golden Knights, the AHL's Henderson Silver Knights, the NFL's Raiders, the WNBA's Aces, the new PWHL team calling Sin City home and future NBA expansion coming to the city, putting a USHL team into the alrrady-saturated Las Vegas market would be unwise. I understand the draw to move into the Las Vegas Valley, but there simply isn't a slice of the entertainment market remaining to make a USHL team viable.

FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA: This one should be simple as Flagstaff does not have a viable arena. It's located in a great area and would likely have a market of fans that they could build, but no venue makes Flagstaff an impossible dream for immediate expansion.

ANY OTHER AHL CITY, CALIFORNIA: While I respect the success seen by teams in Bakersfield, Ontario, San Jose, and Coachella Valley, having a USHL team compete for market share against these teams would see both teams fall below their potential profitabilities. Yes, it could work in these cities, but the USHL needs to put down strong, stable roots in the southwest with this announced expansion.

TUCSON, ARIZONA: For the same reason as the other AHL cities in California, a Tucson USHL team certainly don't need to be competing with another team for market share with the AHL Roadrunners. Both teams would likely fall below their potential profitabilities by competing for the same fans, corporate support, and market appeal.

Obviously, there are some appealing markets listed above with a handful of more challenging markets, but we'll have to see what happens on June 24 when it comes to this announced expansion. The USHL is certainly taking a risk in starting up a southwest division that's hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from their current sixteen teams, but this feels like one of those "dream big" moments that could pay off in a major way for the USHL and for hockey.

With growing registrations coming from non-traditional markets like the southwest, putting major junior teams in those markets will give those kids a chance to play closer to home. It will also bolster US colleges and universities when it comes to potential recruits moving from the USHL to the NCAA, so the ripples of this expansion wave will be felt down the line for generations of hockey players to come.

Assuming that this expansion is successful, the USHL could see massive benefits. That's always the goal with a project like this, but when there's talk of northern teams potentially looking at other leagues for more structure and stability, adding a handful of teams in a place that hasn't had junior hockey might make the USHL stronger...

... as long as those expansion teams are successful and profitable. With junior hockey profit margins being razor-thin in most seasons, failure won't sell USHL hockey in any prospective hockey market.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Close-To-Dallas Stars

It's hard for me to sit here and read through the Dallas Stars' proposed plan for a new arena and not be angered by what they're doing. I will, in no way, be affected by the decisions that the Stars and the poltiicians in and around Dallas make, but it seems that their official colour of Victory Green should be renamed to Greedy Green based on their new arena idea. After all the bad press they took over Kenny Jacoby's USA Today article that exposed the Stars' efforts to create an arena monopoly around Dallas, threatening to leave Dallas while demanding another city to pay for their new arena seems to be the Dallas Stars' way of alienating fans and supporters.

In a move that defies logic at first glance, the Dallas Stars are aiming to move to Plano, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, where a new arena will be built in a a mixed-use district at a site called The Shops at Willow Bend. The Stars will leave American Airlines Center in 2031 for this new proposed arena despite American Airlines Center only being used for the last 25 years, and it seems like this move goes opposite to conventional thinking. After all, the Ottawa Senators are moving to downtown Ottawa after years of complaints about their location in Kanata, and the Arizona Coyotes struggled mightily in Glendale.

However, the move begins to make sense once you start mapping out the arenas they own and operate in Dallas, specifically in north Dallas. Sean Shapiro makes this clear in D Magazine, writing,

"The Stars own and operate eight StarCenters within North Texas; none of those rinks are in Dallas, and six of the eight are north of 635. If you draw a map connecting those northern StarCenters—Valley Ranch, Farmers Branch, Richardson, Frisco, McKinney, and Plano — the proposed arena project falls right in the middle."

The Stars are moving into the middle of their arena kingdom where, as Shapiro writes, "so much of its fanbase resided outside the city. According to multiple sources, the Stars' season-ticketholder base has already largely shifted to the northern suburbs. While there will be some churn leaving Dallas, the Stars are confident internally that they'll pick up more season-ticket holders from the move."

Business real estate thrives on the idea of "location, location, location", so the Stars' move to north Dallas would make some sense if they're moving closer to their season-ticket base. As stated in Shapiro's piece above, the Stars feel they can gain more season-ticket holders with this move even if they lose a few ticket holders from other parts of Dallas. Clearly, business has never been better, right?

On Tuesday, Stars owner Tom Gaglardi signed non-binding letter of intent for a proposed sports and entertainment district at The Shops at Willow Bend. The problem with this agreement is that it literally means nothing as it is non-binding. The Stars are obligated to do nothing to develop the area if they determine the site's location to be, in any way, unacceptable. Think "Phoenix" and "remediation".

Unlike Phoenix, however, the Dallas Stars are looking to avoid getting their hands dirty when it comes to shovels in the ground for a new arena. Field of Schemes writer Neil de Mause makes a great point about who will build this arena and who will be paying for it based on CBS News' reporting. S.E. Jenkins wrote in the linked article above,

"According to the letter of intent, the city is expected to contribute up to $700 million in funding toward the project from TIRZ revenue and other available funds. Development costs for the arena are expected to be around $1 billion."

de Mause points out that this is taxpayer money in another acronym.

"A TIRZ is Texas’ version of tax increment financing, where any rise in property taxes on a site is kicked back to pay off the bonds that built the project getting taxed, a kind of fiscal perpetual motion machine that it takes either advanced economics or the wisdom of Oscar Madison to see through as still being public money."

In short, Plano taxpayers will be forced to cover the bill for this new arena through another convoluted tax scheme proposed by politicians to pay for a billionaire's shiny, new toy. And in this agreement that the Stars are proposing, they're going to reap all of the benefits that come with owning the arena without paying a dime for the construction of this new money-making entertainment venture.

"It's going to be a business dream, honestly,” another NHL team president told Shapiro for his article in D Magazine. "You get to control the venue, you get to control the surrounding area, and you get to make money 365 days a year on that space. Between that and some of the corporate entities based in that area, the Stars could easily be a top-10 revenue team."

Yes, that's all correct. The Stars will own and operate the new arena, allowing them to sap every penny from parking, concessions, ticket sales, merchandise, private suites, and anything else in the arena for any and all events held there. The Stars will be able to develop the surrounding area with businesses - Shapiro points out that Tom Gaglardi is a hotelier by trade - which will enable them to collect fees and lease monies for any businesses that want to move into the sports and entertainment centre. And the Stars paid for none of it.

Again, I point back to Jacoby's USA Today article where the Stars have strong-armed their way into rinks across Texas where they raise ice-time costs, reduce total ice-time for teams, and hold a monopoly on ice time for "every level of amateur hockey in North Texas from preschoolers to adults". This money-printing venture is protected from all oversight thanks to the Stars stacking the regional USA Hockey governing body with their own people. They own everything.

Now you might be thinking, "The Stars had to sink some money into this idea," but this is where the problem began. Jacoby reports,

"The cities each put up around $10 million or more up front to build the rinks. Once built, they leased the rinks exclusively to the Stars, who agreed to repay the cities in rent payments over 20 to 30 years. In theory, the cities would eventually get their up-front costs back, while the Stars would keep the profits."

Strangley, this sounds almost identical to what the Stars are proposing in Plano, Texas: build us an arena and entertainment complex, we'll manage it, and we'll make sure you get your tax monies back in a couple of decades. Win-win for everyone, right?

With the city owning the arena, though, any repairs, maintenance, and upgrades will be their responsibility to fund, yet they're taking none of the revenue that comes from arena ownership - parking, concessions, and ticket sales - needed to maintain the arena. If the city can't come up with the required funds to maintain or upgrade the rink, the Stars can use the "not viable for an NHL team" excuse to move again. They'll keep the mamangement portion of their arena contract intact, but the team can now explore other arena options.

What's worse is that no one has even discussed any options for American Airlines Center which could sit vacant after both the Stars and the NBA's Dallas Mavericks have started walking the paths of each team building its own arena. Dallas could have a completely viable, 25 year-old arena sitting downtown that doesn't have a permanent tenant. In an era where more teams want to own the buildings they play in, the Stars seem to be the one team that wants to control everything in and around their arena without holding the mortgage.

The Dallas Stars might be perfecting the art of being the most transient team on the planet. They are exactly what Agent Smith, played by Hugo Weaving, described in The Matrix to Morpheus, played by Lawrence Fishburne when it came to the human species.


This seems to be the Dallas Stars' business plan: move to an area, bleed as much money out of that area as possible, and then relocate. Or as one former NHL team president texted to Sean Shapiro for his article, "Do you need to be in Dallas to be the Dallas Stars?"

If the vote by Plano goes through for the Stars, we'll soon find out.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 715

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, is doing a little clean-up tonight as there are a pile of stories that we said we'd tackle on previous shows and never got around to discussing. With hockey news seemingly being hot off the presses each week, things change quickly when deciding what topics to cover. Add in the fun we've had meeting and chatting with some of the great contestants on Survivor: NHL Playoffs and it makes some of the stories far less important. However, they still need to be discussed at some point, so our hosts will engage in a little housekeeping tonight and get all of these random stories off the books! We're going all over the place with stories tonight on The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason will flip a coin over who sends Buffalo home after scheduling conflicts with Fiona prevented us from chatting with her. Tyler will drop in for an exit inverview for the Colorado Avalanche. Travis is off on an adventure, so he gets to skip Montreal's exit interview tonight, but he's clearing his schedule for next week. After those get done, our hosts will begin the housekeeping with a discussion about Hockey Canada's women's program making changes, an old ECHL team is new again, a discussion on the Hamilton Hammers, the USHL expanding, the Dallas Stars trying to bully their way to a new arena, the 2026 Spengler Cup schedule, and anything else we may have missed from our notes over the past few weeks. It's another busy show with lots to discuss, so lock in tonight for The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The UMFM website's streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard! And because both Teebz and Jason are on the butterfly app where things are less noisy, you can find Teebz here and Jason here on Bluesky!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat with Tyler before looking at big changes, new identities, bad logos, bad expansion, ridiculous owners, fun schedules, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Absolutely Zero Time

If there's one thing that I realize as I get older, it's that time is a finite resource. People always tell me that I could "make time" if I really wanted to, and I'm sure that's true if I simply didn't care about obligations and responsibilities. Tonight will be the third-straight night of me working all day at my normal full-time job before heading to the ballpark for some minor-pro baseball which will see me arrive at home some 14 hours after I left this morning. This schedule will continue right through until Sunday.

This scheduling has, of course, put a damper on my hockey-watching schedule as I was gearing up for the ECHL's Kelly Cup Final while trying in vain to pretend like I care about the Stanley Cup Final. The AHL's Calder Cup Final is yet to be determined with four teams still in the semifinal series, and there's AIHL hockey to be watched later at night when possible. Clearly, baseball is cramping my hockey viewing.

It's funny how quickly two weeks go by when you're constantly working, and it made me realize that the speed of time likely moves differently for everyone. For anyone playing in a championship hockey series right now, it will feel like time passed in the blink of an eye. For those souls who are locked in a prison cell, time may crawl slower than I ever know. It's all relative based on what one is doing, yet time is a constant. It neither speeds up or slows down for anyone.

The philosphical side of me thinks about how time was figured by the Egyptians, Romans, Sumerians, and Babylonians in terms of time over days, seasons, months, and years, and part of me wonders if this time convention we've adopted would make sense to other beings.

Meg, HBIC's Cat Executive Officer, likely understands day from night, but time has minimal value to her outside of "hey, I'm hungry and you usually feed me now". I wonder what time systems aliens species may use and whether creatures living miles down in the ocean where sun never reaches understand or even need the concepts of time.

In thinking about all this, it occurs to me that me complaining about my two weeks of having no time that I chose where I can't watch hockey isn't even close to being important in the grand scheme of the world and planet. Do I want to watch hockey? Sure. Will I be able to? Yes, at some point. I can still catch the highlights and the social media posts, so it's not like I won't see the most important parts. I just likely won't see them happen as they occur in real time.

Maybe I should rely on Terrance Mann's speech about baseball and time as delivered by James Earl Jones in Field of Dreams. He said, "The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time," and it's how I'm marking my days as I'll be at the ballpark tonight, Friday, and Sunday while umpiring a tournament on Satuday.

Alice Walker wrote in The Color Purple, "Time moves slowly but passes quickly." As I've gotten older, she's entirely right.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Is It 2024 Again?

Tonight saw a dramatic overtime finish in the ECHL's Western Conference Final as the Fort Wayne Komets rallied to force overtime at 3-3 in Game Six. Based on the image to the left, though, you know what happened as Jakov Novak scored 64 seconds into the fourth period, sending the Kansas City Mavericks back to the Kelly Cip Final after eliminating the Komets in six games. With the Florida Everblades already waiting to see who their opponent was going to be, we now know we'll get a sequel to the 2024 Kelly Cup Final featuring these two teams.

Back in 2024, the Everblades were seeking their third-straight Kelly Cup championship, meeting the Brabham Cup-winning Kansas City Mavericks in the final. This year, the Everblades will look to claim their fourth title in five years by meeting the Brabham Cup-winning Kansas City Mavericks in the final. The Everblades will also bump their ECHL-best seven appearances in the final to eight while looking to capture a record fifth Kelly Cup with another series win this year.

Kansas City isn't looking to be a note in history for a second time, though, as the franchise will be seeking its first Kelly Cup in its second appearance in the final. Like the NHL's President's Trophy, the top ECHL regular-season team hasn't always fared as well in the playoffs, and Kansas City will look to join the 1997 South Carolina Stingrays, the 2006 Alaska Aces, the 2008 Cincinnati Cyclones, the 2011 Alaska Aces, and the 2014 Alaska Aces as the sixth team to win both the Brabham Cup and the Kelly Cup in the same season.

Despite these two opponents meeting for the Kelly Cup just two seasons ago, the script could be written in an entirely different language if things continue to trend as they have been. Florida has been lightning lamps in the Eastern Conference bracket early and often as they have found another gear for the postseason once again. Kansas City has had a few bumps along the way, but they have a deep roster with excellent scoring and goaltending so this Kelly Cup Final looks like it's going to be a good one featuring two solid squads!

The series will begin in Kansas City on June 5 where Florida comes in looking sharp. They feature goaltender Cam Johnson, the Nick Vitucci Award as ECHL Goaltender of the Year in both 2025 and 2026, who is the ECHL all-time leader in postseason wins and shutouts. His 1.35 GAA and .945 save percentage are a big reason why Florida is back in the final. Anthony Romano has 11 goals to lead the playoffs, Carson Gicewicz has eight goals including two shorthanded markers, and 15 Everblades have dented twine when it comes to team scoring depth.

Florida enters the final with a 12-2 record in the playoffs, scoring 50 goals while surrendering just 20. They rank ninth in power-play efficiency at 13.5% on 7-of-52 scoring, but they are tops in the playoffs while shorthanded as they've killed 95.1% of penalties on 39-of-41 opportunities. Perhaps most impressively, they are 6-0 at home in these playoffs, and have scored first in every playoff game this far, outscoring their opponents 15-4 in the opening frame!

The Mavericks boast six players in double-digit scoring with Bobo Carpenter having nine goals and Jackson Jutting having seven markers. Every player that has dressed for a playoff game has recorded a point, so the Mavericks' depth is solid. Goaltending duties have been split between Dylan Wells and Jack Lafontaine with both going 6-1, but Wells has superior numbers with a 1.94 GAA and a .928 save percentage. We'll see who starts in Game One on home ice, but the Mavericks won't worry about either goalie in this series.

Kansas City was a league-best 28-4-4 away from home in the regular season, and they'll look to continue their strong play which has pushed them to a 12-2 record through the playoffs with a 6-1 record both at home and on the road. They've scored 55 goals while allowing 31, but are 8-0 when scoring first in the playoffs. They boast the fourth-best power-play efficiency in the playoffs at 24.1% on 13-of-54 opportunities, but are ninth-best in the playoffs at 83.0% on 39-of-47 penalty kills. Kansas City likes playing in the second period, though, crushing their opponents 25-7 in scoring in the middle frame!

It took Florida five games to defeat Kansas City in 2024, and I suspect that the Mavericks don't want to see anything close to that happening again. The teams split the two games in Kansas City before heading to Estero, Florida where the Everblades won three-straight contests to capture their fourth Kelly Cup. Florida outscored Kansas City 23-13 in those five games, so this year's Kelly Cup Final might simply come down to an old playoff adage: "defence wins championships".

The Kelly Cup Final begins on Friday at Cable Dahmer Arena in Independence, Missouri. The rest of the series schedule can be found here, but this should be a heckuva series between two absolutely dominant playoff teams! The toughest part? Only one can win!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!