MLN Sports Zone - A Minor League News Magazine

And Then There Were Two
The WCHL folds into the ECHL; The ECHL and the CHL slug it out for the heart and soul of AA hockey. The question remains now, what's in it for the ECHL?

09.10.02. – The West Coast Hockey League (WCHL ), the smallest of the established minor leagues, was absorbed into the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) today by unanimous vote of both the WCHL and the ECHL boards of governors.

At 40 teams, the ECHL is the dominant AA hockey league in the minors, leapfrogging both geographically and numerically over the WPHL-CHL merger last season. But team counts are not the only name of the game in the race to capture the mantle of 'legitimate' AA hockey.

For the once-proud AAA teams that defected from the International Hockey League (IHL) to form the WCHL, this ‘absorption’ of their league insures their survival, after dropping a peg in the hockey world over the last few years to the AA level.

The loss of teams in Phoenix, and Tacoma and, most recently, Colorado Springs, left the WCHL smaller than at any time in its history. The Las Vegas Wranglers, an expansion franchise, was not slated to begin until the 2003-2004 season. Teams in Ontario, California and other proposed sites are still on the drawing boards.

The strength of the WCHL is that it plays in excellent markets. The surviving teams have good to excellent fan followings, which is what is likely to have made them an attractive acquisition to the governors of the ECHL.

The ECHL Board of Governors approved the membership applications of the Anchorage Aces, the Bakersfield Condors, the Fresno Falcons, the Idaho (Boise) Steelheads, the Long Beach Ice Dogs, the San Diego Gulls and the Las Vegas Wranglers for the 2003-04 season. Teams in development for Ontario, California, and Reno, Nevada may also join this conference.

Owners from the WCHL polled by MLN said that they would also not rule out accepting other franchises from other leagues should they qualify financially and in terms of ‘fit’ to join the conference.

The WCHL will play the 2002-2003 season as an independent entity, then become the Western Conference of the ECHL in 2003-2004.

WCHL teams will continue to play a schedule dominated by appearances of teams from within their conference. “Fans want to see us play our geographical rivals,” said Matt Riley, spokesperson for the WCHL Bakersfield Condors.

How the WCHL will integrate into the ECHL is a matter of opinion at this hour. Ask the sources within the WCHL, and they will play a 6 game home/6 game away schedule with other conferences in the ECHL, out of their general 72 game schedule. When asked about touring on the East Coast, Bakersfield's Matt Riley replied: “There is a slight increase in cost and logistics, but it is worth it.”

That worth may be somewhat more in question to the members of the ECHL. "It's still up for debate," said David Miller, spokesperson of the ECHL Champion Greenville Grrowl. "As I understand it, you can opt out taking the trip forever."

In a survey of the teams taken by MLN, no ECHL franchise contacted could find a particular value in taking the trip out to the West coast. "The only reason to do it would be to 'mix it up' a bit, but we already can travel three hours to [a team in an existing conference] to mix it up," said Miller.

"In talking to our G.M.," said Joe Babik of the ECHL Pee Dee Pride, "we've done the number crunching ourselves. The way that he's looking at it, if we can get transportation for the players and staff at $250 to $300 a head, it's not that much different [than touring in other conferences.] We do one swing tour a year."

Babik was unsure if the WCHL dates would be added to the current season schedules which include visiting another existing conference. "If we had to do both, then I think we'd have reservations [about the travel] on those lines."

“This is a monumental achievement,” said the WCHL's Riley. “Both the owners of the WCHL and the ECHL voted for it unanimously. The benefit will be passed down to fans and players for years to come.”

“This is a process that has been six months in the making,” said John Tull, President of the WCHL Falcons and the expansion Las Vegas Wranglers. “It’s a natural marriage. It creates the first united ‘super’ AA league.”

The move pushes the East Coast Hockey League in front of the Central Hockey League (CHL) in terms of team count and territory.

When asked about the possibility of merging with the CHL, the geographic next-door neighbor of the WCHL, Tull noted, “Not really. We never considered the CHL to be a legitimate AA league.”

Yet the CHL is a legitimate and increasingly powerful AA league, which is establishing its own credentials with the AAA American Hockey League (AHL) as well as the NHL.

"I feel comfortable in saying that we are very confident that our product is at the ‘AA’ level,” said CHL President Brad Treliving. “In the past season alone, we promoted nearly 30 players to the American Hockey League, and our Rookie of the Year, goaltender Sebastien Centomo of the Memphis RiverKings, reached the National Hockey League with the Toronto Maple Leafs."

Sources within the CHL tell MLN that some of the WCHL clubs may not have met the tougher league requirements for financial viability that were put in place over the last two years. Sources in the ECHL speculate as to whether 'absorption fees,' of $100-200K, like those charged to IHL refugees, might have been asked.

Affiliations will be the name of the game in AA hockey, particularly for any league trying to recruit talent. The acquisition of the WCHL means that those franchises now stand a better chance of becoming part of a developmental chain for major league hockey.

“NHL teams on the West coast,” said Tull, “have been forced to develop talent in the Midwest and the East. Now they have an opportunity to develop relations with [minor league] teams West of Colorado.”

The ECHL will continue to have to contend with the aggressive CHL, which has been working feverishly to establish itself with both the AHL (AAA) and the NHL. "The Central Hockey league enjoyed six affiliations with National Hockey League teams last season,” said Treliving, “and expect to increase that relationship for the coming season.”

Maintaining a quality product and developing a growing fan base will also be critical to leagues establishing themselves fully. The CHL enjoyed a 16 percent increase in attendance last season, and led all other North American minor leagues in playoff attendance. Statistics for the ECHL were unavailable.

What still remains largely unclear is why the ECHL governors so enthusiastically adopted the flagging WCHL. The previous mergers, development, and acquisitions of the ECHL made sense, both financially and geographically. ECHL spokesperson Jack Carnefix, when queried on a potential ECHL-WCHL merger just about the time that negotiations began, played down the idea, citing the logistics and cost of travel as a primary deterrent to the deal.

ECHL President Rick Adams, designated spokesperson for the league on the merger, was unavailable for comment.

Brian Ross, Kathy Johnson & Ray Perea contributed to this story.