Heading North

It might be a holiday Monday in Canada today, but there's certainly no shortage of news coming out of the hockey world. In rather surprising news for this summer, it seems the Calgary Flames have hired moving trucks to head down to Stockton, California where they'll start packing up the gear for the Stockton Heat who will move to Calgary for the 2022-23 season. After years after hearing about how important western expansion was for the AHL as a whole, we're now seeing at least one team leaving that scene while a second California team is rumoured to be considering its options as well. Whatever the case may be, the Heat will make the move north this summer as the hockey scene in Calgary gets a little more crowded with the arrival of an AHL team that appears it will play out of the Saddledome until further notice.

One has to wonder what the Flames are thinking outside of the bottom line on their financial statement. I say that with no disrespect to the Flames as this is the same group of owners who couldn't be bothered to spend a few extra million dollars to build a state-of-the-art arena which could have facilitated an extra team playing in Calgary. Rather, I say this because it's clear that spending money on an investment like the Calgary Flames is something that the owners of the Flames simply don't like doing.

For those who don't know, Calgary sits as the second-furthest NHL team from its AHL affiliate in terms of distance. Stockton is approximately 1291 miles (2078 kilometres) from the Alberta city, so recalling players when needed in a pinch becomes a lot harder when there's a five-hour flight plus added travel time on the ground between the cities. Recent trends have seen NHL franchises move their affiliates closer through relocation of the AHL affiliate, purchasing and relocating an AHL team to create an affiliation, or simply signing new deals with existing AHL teams to move the prospects closer to the NHL city so we shouldn't really be surprised by this move, but it's the cold callousness of ripping a team away from a community where it had established roots and ties that I'm questioning in this decision.

The people of Stockton deserve better than to have the Heat ripped from their hands without any explanation or reason outside of "it's too far". Syracuse and Tampa Bay make it work, so I struggle to understand why Stockton and Calgary can't make it work. The Heat are getting set to play in the opening game of the Calder Cup Pacific Division Final after a successful regular season, and this bomb was dropped on the city by the Flames. Why would anyone want to go and support a team that will be packing up all its worldly belongings in a few weeks to move away forever?

Let's cut to the chase on this one: the fans and the businesses that supported the Heat never mattered to Calgary. After the Heat spent the COVID-19 year playing and practicing in Calgary, the Flames had all the evidence they needed in how convenient it was to have their AHL affiliate in their backyard. Forget the fans who have made the trek to Stockton Arena, built in 2005, and the sponsors who opened their wallets to support the team in the California city. They don't matter when it comes to the bottom line of the Calgary Flames, apparently.

Instead, the Heat will move north to Calgary to be closer to the Flames in case management of the Flames forgets who is on the Heat's roster or something. They spew lines about "better scouting" and "better development" with the Heat being in the Flames' backyard, but the Heat were playing in Stockton without a lease after the team's initial five-year lease at the Stockton Arena expired in the 2019-20 season. Rather than entering into another expensive lease agreement, the Flames simply decided to move the AHL team home.

"Ultimately, we made the decision and if you look across the league there are a number of teams in the last 10 years that have moved their farm team closer to their NHL team," said Heat general manager Brad Pascall. "We just felt your development plan can be even stronger by having it closer. The best way to summarize it is organizational synergies become that much stronger and ultimately that's the reason for the move."

Somehow, Pascall's theory on development doesn't hold water when one looks at recent Stanley Cup winners. Let's take his ten-year window that he gave and look solely at the distances between the NHL teams who won and their AHL affiliates.

• 2021: Tampa Bay Lightning - Syracuse Crunch = 1100 miles
• 2020: Tampa Bay Lightning - Syracuse Crunch = 1100 miles
• 2019: St. Louis Blues - San Antonio Rampage = 905 miles
• 2018: Washington Capitals - Hershey Bears = 98 miles
• 2017: Pittsburgh Penguins - WBS Penguins = 224 miles
• 2016: Pittsburgh Penguins - WBS Penguins = 224 miles
• 2015: Chicago Blackhawks - Rockford IceHogs = 78 miles
• 2014: Los Angeles Kings - Manchester Monarchs = 3020 miles
• 2013: Chicago Blackhawks - Rockford IceHogs = 78 miles
• 2012: Los Angeles Kings - Manchester Monarchs = 3020 miles
• 2011: Boston Bruins - Providence Bruins = 42 miles

Pascall can make the case that having the Heat closer to Calgary will help the development plan they have, but the distances above prove that proximity simply doesn't matter. Tampa Bay is currently in the hunt for its third-consecutive Stanley Cup, and the Lightning sit a long way from Syracuse, New York. Call me crazy, but maybe the developmental plan is more about the coaches, players, and staff in that AHL city than the proximity to the NHL team?

Let's review our findings: moving the AHL affiliate closer to the NHL team makes emergency call-ups easier and faster, there's financial incentives to moving the affiliate into a building the NHL team owns, and there's zero correlation between distance and development in an NHL's system. It's not hard to see that this move will save the Flames considerable money, so why not just be honest about it?

I guess we shouldn't be surprised when it comes to the Flames refusing to spend money. They did it in 2007 when they moved the Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights to Moline, Illinois. It was entirely about money when the Flames' AHL affiliate jumped from Glen Falls, New York to Abbotsford, BC. They cried poor again and again and again when it came time to build a new arena, and then cancelled the entire project when costs went up and the city of Calgary forced them to eat those costs.

I don't want to say there's a trend forming here based on all those stories linked above from past years, but it seems that any organizational changes from the Calgary Flames should prompt one to follow the money. Time and time again, the Flames have said the right thing when it comes to the soundbytes, but their actions show an entirely different context. Perhaps that's their investment strategy, though, because talk truly is cheap.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!