Rant: minor league hockey

[pioneer98]

File this thread under the "I'm the only one who will care about this"...the Mallards entered the playoffs as the #5 seed. They upset the #4 seed on the road in a game 7 in the first round. That was a very exciting back-and-forth series. Then they had to face the defending champs in the semifinals. They pushed them to 7 games as well, but lost game 7 on the road tonight 3-2. The highlight of the season was the game #5 here in the semifinals. They were trailing 2-1 in the final minute. They pulled the goalie and scored an extra attacker goal to tie it with 50 seconds left. They then won it on an great one-on-one move about 15 minutes into OT. The Mallards' goalie made 45 saves in that game.

This playoff run should only help them recruit players and sell more tickets next year. In this league you can carry up to 6 "veteran" players - guys who have played above 300 pro games. This team only had 2 players like that, and they were up against teams who had maxed that # out (and also probably pulled other tricks to get around the salary cap). So they have lots of good young players to build with for next year.

They are in the Central Hockey League. If you aren't familiar with it, it is pretty darn good, IMO. The number of pro teams at these levels has shrunk drastically, so the level of play has gotten a lot better in recent years. The Mallards had 7 players get AHL callups, including one guy who was up there for half the season. Three of these players earned AHL contracts and then were reassigned here by their teams once their regular players came back from injuries. Then the Mallards have a handful of rookies who I bet may have earned an AHL camp invite next year. Some of the teams may be on shaky ground financially, but it is not bad hockey at all.

[pioneer98]

The team that beat the Mallards advanced to the finals. They lost game 1 by a score of 5-4, and a player on the other team scored 4 goals in the game. Less than three minutes into game #2 they gave that guy a nasty cross check to the head and he fell awkwardly and had to be taken to the hospital. Kind of similar to what Seabrook did to Backes. One thing I hate about hockey is the dirty hits like this.

[lukethedrifter]

Hi.

[pioneer98]

Hi.

Well, hello there.

[pioneer98]

So the St. Charles team folded after last season, knocking the # of CHL teams down to 9. Then there were rumors the CHL and ECHL were going to merge. But it didn't happen for various reasons. When that deal fell apart 2 more teams folded. Now they are down to 7 teams in the CHL. I think what stopped the two leagues from merging this year is the ECHL has a rule that an owner can only own 1 team in their league. There is an owner that owns 3 CHL teams. They would have had to either sell 2 on short notice (probably extremely hard to do) or fold 2 of them.

Rumor is that the AHL may be moving a bunch of teams West next year because the NHL teams in California are tired of having their prospects thousands of miles away. I think this will be the last year of the CHL and there will be a big shakeup in the AHL and ECHL as teams move West and these leagues merge. It was a nice change of pace though for our team here not to be tied to any rumors of folding. I bet they end up in the ECHL next year.

[pioneer98]

There have been rumors the last few weeks that the 7 remaining teams from the CHL are going to join the ECHL....Then there are also rumors that only 3 or 4 of them will join and the others will fold. I'm so tired of this [expletive]. It's the same thing every year.

[pioneer98]

It's official: there is now only 1 double-A pro league left, with 28 teams.

http://www.echl.com/echl-accepts-seven- ... rs-p194005