Ducks drop Cincinnati

[Shootmaster_44]

Where does this leave the AHL? With the Ducks dropping their affiliation with Cincinnati, does this mean the AHL will expand to 31 teams with Cincy playing as an independent? I'm kind of surprised the NHL would even allow Anaheim to drop them. I thought their goal was to have the AHL become like AAA baseball with each NHL club having an affiliate in the AHL. I thought the days of independent teams died with the IHL. The only other thing could be that I missed the point of them doing this and that Cincy is moving somewhere before next season with the Ducks remaining as parent club of that team.

On an unrelated note, since the Stanley Cup is not going to be awarded this season (unless the courts decide otherwise), does this make the Calder Cup champ the "world champion"? I know the Stanley Cup champion is usually referred to as such. So in its absense does that mean the AHL champ can assume the title for this season?

[Pounder]

Cincinnati is going dormant for 05-06.

Utah is also going down for the year... but they look like they're being set up for sale to be moved to Orlando. Utah will replace it with either an ECHL or (?) CHL (?) franchise.

CHL, even though they have a successful Colorado franchise, boggles my mind. That's less dates and less impact at greater travel than the ECHL would offer... since the ECHL plays mostly in-division games. Yet, http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,600134970,00.html ... it seems that the CHL may be the league of choice. It's also possible that the article is full of it, but all in due time.

[nksports]

I'm upset about the Ducks going under. I went to a Ducks game about three or four years ago and had a blast. Cincy Gardens is oozing with history (it's the house that the Big O, Oscar Robertson made famous). I got to drink one of the last genuine Cincy beers before they started making them in Maryland (I'm not even sure if they are making them at all except for Christian Morelien (sp?) and Little Kings.

I felt that with no Stanley Cup this year, they should have had a tournament ala the Canadian Major Junior Leagues between the AHL, ECHL, UHL and CHL for the Cup. The AHL would have probably won it, but the UHL and CHL teams would have had fun beating up on their more advanced counterparts.

Utah would make sense for the CHL only if they could get a team in Colorado Springs and one other far western city (El Paso?) to tie things together with the Colorado Eagles.

[Herk]

with no stanley cup i'd say the "World Champion" would be either the AHL Calder Cup Champion Philly Phantoms or the Champion of the Russian Hockey League. The RHL is arguably the best euro hockey league and teams like AK Bars Kazan and Metallurg Magnitogorsk picked up some big name NHLers.

[Global-Hockey]

The RHL Champions were the Dynamo Moscow team defeating Lada 3 games to 1 in the best of 5 series. The Dynamo team has 6 current NHL players on it Samsonov (Boston), Datsyuk (Detroit), Afinogenov (Buffalo), Churbarov (Vancouver), Markov (Montreal), Rosa (LA), plus the leagues # 1 Draft pick Ovechkin. This is a great line up in any league.

[Ibrox]

the true world champion is avangard omsk. They won the european club championschip.

[chdahs]

Where does this leave the AHL? With the Ducks dropping their affiliation with Cincinnati, does this mean the AHL will expand to 31 teams with Cincy playing as an independent? I'm kind of surprised the NHL would even allow Anaheim to drop them. I thought their goal was to have the AHL become like AAA baseball with each NHL club having an affiliate in the AHL. I thought the days of independent teams died with the IHL. The only other thing could be that I missed the point of them doing this and that Cincy is moving somewhere before next season with the Ducks remaining as parent club of that team.

On an unrelated note, since the Stanley Cup is not going to be awarded this season (unless the courts decide otherwise), does this make the Calder Cup champ the "world champion"? I know the Stanley Cup champion is usually referred to as such. So in its absense does that mean the AHL champ can assume the title for this season?

Anaheim has joined forces replacing Washington in Portland which went to Hershey and Colorado (temporarily) is in Lowell Shoot.

[SuperSonicStuart]

Whatever happened to the ECHL team, Cincinnati Cyclones?

[nksports]

The Cyclones went dormant a season or two ago and haven't been back since. They never officially folded as far as I can tell. They suspended operations (The ECHL lists them as a voluntary suspension for 2005-06). The town was never really big enough for both teams and the Cyclones never caught on with the fans like the Ducks did. They played at what used to be called Riverfront Coliseum (home of the old Cincy Stingers and the infamous Who concert in the late 70s). It never had the atmosphere of the Cincinnati Gardens (the house that Big O built).

[SuperSonicStuart]

Didn't Riverfront Coliseum get renovated and changed it's name to U.S. Bank Arena and why did the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks play in an old arena instead of U.S. Bank Arena in Downtown Cincinnati?

[nksports]

The Cyclones came first (IHL before it folded, then ECHL) and already had its arena deal. The Ducks came a year or two later.
I'm sure it was a cheaper venue for the Ducks. The atmosphere in the Gardens is better. The Cincy Sports Hall of Fame was there when I last visted a couple of years ago. They also served Cincy brewed beers (which they don't make much of any more).

[chdahs]

The Cyclones came first (IHL before it folded, then ECHL) and already had its arena deal. The Ducks came a year or two later.
I'm sure it was a cheaper venue for the Ducks. The atmosphere in the Gardens is better. The Cincy Sports Hall of Fame was there when I last visted a couple of years ago. They also served Cincy brewed beers (which they don't make much of any more).

Actually, the current Cincinnati AHL Franchise that is dormant or voluntarily suspended on 5/18/05 was born in Baltimore as the Bandits as the successor to the Skipjacks who were transferred to Portland when that franchise was transferred the previous year to Providence.

[nksports]

The Cyclones came first (IHL before it folded, then ECHL) and already had its arena deal. The Ducks came a year or two later.
I'm sure it was a cheaper venue for the Ducks. The atmosphere in the Gardens is better. The Cincy Sports Hall of Fame was there when I last visted a couple of years ago. They also served Cincy brewed beers (which they don't make much of any more).

I saw something recently (on the Ducks website about the Gardens history) about the recent hockey history in Cincy. The Cyclones started about five or six years before the Ducks (first in the ECHL and later the IHL) and originally played at the Gardens. It didn't say why the Cyclones moved downtown, but the Ducks started the same year as the Cyclones moving.

[Odie]

AHL hockey will return to Cincinnati for the 2006-2007 season. The team will be known as the Cincinnati RailRaiders. Who knows what NHL team they will be affiliated with. I would think their parent club will be Colorado, since Lowell is hosting both Carolina and Colorado this year.