Could Portland Hold Another Professional Franchise?

[jwmann2]

Even though the Jaguars were recently purchased by a new owner, I don't expect them to stay long in Florida. I had always thought Portland had the money and fanfare to support another team.
What team would you like to see in Portland and why? With all of the rain, an MLB franchise I'd say is the furthest shot even though I would love to see an expansion of 2 new teams, I know San Antonio wants an MLB team bad. Too close to Seattle for a NFL franchise?

 

[martymoose]

Even though the Jaguars were recently purchased by a new owner, I don't expect them to stay long in Florida. I had always thought Portland had the money and fanfare to support another team.
What team would you like to see in Portland and why? With all of the rain, an MLB franchise I'd say is the furthest shot even though I would love to see an expansion of 2 new teams, I know San Antonio wants an MLB team bad. Too close to Seattle for a NFL franchise?

I love baseball, but I don't think that we could support that.

Hockey would be neat.

 

[DustRunner]

Given the fact that I have to go quite a ways away for a baseball game, I'd love to have an MLB team here. But that won't happen because people here have an intense disinterest for baseball for some reason.

Football would be nice too, but it won't happen.

Hockey, or some other smaller league, would be the only chance for us to gain a team.

 

[WiViking]

I wanna see the Timbers continue to fill up Jeld-Wen for four more years before this is seriously considered. I doubt it.

 

[BroadwayVik]

A natural progression would be for Portland to trade up for Hockey affiliation, going from junior hockey to the National Hockey League. They'd have to develop an original team concept name as their junior hockey team is an affiliate of the Chicago Blackhawks (with the name altered a bit to Winterhawks).

I think a nice NHL team concept name would be the Portland Polar Bears.

The question is: Does Portland prefer junior hockey to professional hockey? Would they prefer playing the likes of Kelowna to, say, the Boston Bruins (or Philadelphia Flyers)? Does Portland prefer that developmental aspect to fully developed professionals? Or is Portland actually champing at the bit to get their hockey to the big time, having had enough of their hockey D-League days?

 

[BroadwayVik]

I believe, for Portland, the following makes sense vis-a-vis to represent its teams in seasonal sports:

Football - NCAA Portland State Vikings, but requires coninuously-improving team to fulfill its campaign to acceptance, complete with conference affiliation upgrade worthy of Portland ticket-purchasing market, together with university full-state jurisdictional upgrade needed equivalent to that of UO, OSU, Portland's public university needs to become a third primary university for the state, right now, the program's arms are "too skinny";

Basketball - NBA Portland Trailblazers [Estab. 1970]

Baseball - Family Baseball for now (possible MLB American West Division member, check in every decade);

Soccer - MLS Portland Timbers [Estab. 2009 MLS, 1975-1982 NASL);

Hockey - NHL Portland Polar Bears (or Chicago Blackhawks WHL junior hockey farm team Winterhawks);

 

[Pounder]

The Winterhawks are not the "affiliate" of the Chicago Blackhawks. WHL teams do NOT have NHL affiliates.

However, there used to be (and to a small degree, in some places, still is) some "use" of near-NHL sweaters as a recognition factor. The NHL doesn't mind... they want to be able to keep up the brands across Canada.

The Portland-Chicago story is more historic than you might imagine.

The first American-based team to ever compete for the Stanley Cup, in 1916... the Portland Rosebuds.

The next Portland team took the same name in 1925. In 1926, the players were all sold to the owner of Black Hawk Restaurants, who was granted an NHL expansion franchise. So, basically, Portland begat Chicago.

 

[BroadwayVik]

The Portland-Chicago story is more historic than you might imagine. The first American-based team to ever compete for the Stanley Cup, in 1916... the Portland Rosebuds.

The next Portland team took the same name in 1925. In 1926, the players were all sold to the owner of Black Hawk Restaurants, who was granted an NHL expansion franchise. So, basically, Portland begat Chicago.

I accept now there is no official NHL-WHL connection between Chicago and Portland, but the historic one as you've shown. But given that Black Hawks Restaurants moved the Rosebud players from Portland to Chicago, is Portland paying tribute to their old team by adopting the NHL Black Hawks logo for the city's WHL team?

The name Rosebuds seems a concept destined to suffer ignominious defeat in the modern day. But I believe an NHL Portland team would want to pay homage to the heritage. I think the NHL Polar Bears concept would be a winner in Portland with the tribute to the Rosebuds worked in.

 

[Pounder]

A few thoughts:

You know that NHL will never come to Portland while Paul Allen is still alive. You understand why, right? Even if Allen thought the market could support both teams, he doesn't want the dilution, certainly not in his building.

I've researched the NHL and related issues considerably. Let's go back as far as when San Jose entered the league in 1991: they didn't try to replace the Golden Seals in Oakland, they got a new arena in the South Bay and pretty much opened up Silicon Valley to flirtations from all the leagues. The 49ers are building in Santa Clara, Lew Wolff is still trying to force the A's into San Jose, and is building (on his dime) a stadium for the Earthquakes near San Jose's airport.

Meanwhile, Minnesota got the expansion Wild... and a new arena in St. Paul. The Coyotes had earlier moved to Phoenix from Winnipeg, then somehow finagled an arena in suburban Glendale. The Florida Panthers shared an arena with the Miami Heat initially, but got their own arena in the suburb of Sunrise. The Atlanta Thrashers shared Philips with the Hawks... and naturally ended up in Winnipeg. The other expansion markets weren't even in NBA markets. Truth of the matter: 9 NHL teams share arenas with NBA teams, but 8 are in the top 12 LARGEST markets north of Rio Grande. The point: the NHL actually wants their own arena. Will they go to Seattle? I think that's an open question.

I also had a blog entry last year discussing how minor league pro teams are increasingly suffering from the bullying aspects of college athletic programs in "college towns." People are competing more than they're sharing these days.

I want to throw this out as a thought: you've probably seen the troubles regarding the Winterhawks. Crowds weren't all that good until the last couple years with league finalists (and things weren't that peachy the first half of 2011-12 at the gate). When the sanctions were levied, Bill Gallacher pulled Memorial Coliseum renovations off the city's docket... which is now delayed to March. If there's no negotiations on sanctions, there's a real possibility the Winterhawks would end up gone. If you want Portland State to lay claim to something unique, something that nobody else on the west coast has saw fit to attempt yet... college hockey, anyone? If done with any sort of competence, there's the possibility of tapping California talent bases that are beginning to appear, and maybe steal a few folks from the cold climes of Minnesota. It's risky to assume a "build it and they will come" posture, and of course Gallacher (who's no small-time owner) may have designs on a replacement for the Winterhawks... and the bigger factor is that hockey comes at the price of shutting down football. Mind you, if Portland State can't get last year's recruits to bear fruit, football might be doomed anyway. In any event, it's a thought more for the back of the mind than the front.

 

[BroadwayVik]

You know that NHL will never come to Portland while Paul Allen is still alive. You understand why, right? Even if Allen thought the market could support both teams, he doesn't want the dilution, certainly not in his building.

Isn't this just hearsay? I mean, what dilution of fan base is there for the Trailblazers from the Winterhawks faithful now? Winterhawk fans would naturally upgrade themselves to an NHL team. Aren't Blazer tickets a bit of a status symbol in this town? I'm not convinced Paul Allen feels this way, unless he has made an announcement.

If you want Portland State to lay claim to something unique, something that nobody else on the west coast has saw fit to attempt yet... college hockey, anyone?

This is a very good idea. I think the Winterhawks can be sold and college hockey would upgrade the experience in Portland, playing the likes of Ivy League teams and traditional powers that contributed to the Miracle on ice team in Lake Placid. Junior hockey has kind of a street brawler image, but college hockey has panache (though they do essentially the same thing).

 

[DustRunner]

PSU already has a college hockey club team that practices/plays at the Winterhawks' Beaverton practice facility, so there is a base there to build off of (and we have a club baseball team, too, for what that's worth).

And when has Portland been a "college town"? It's more of the UO fanboy city with some OSU mixed in, then UP, then PSU, so I don't think PSU is going to be threatening minor league hockey/baseball/anything else anytime soon because we can hardly get people to come to PSU football or basketball games as it is. Even when the Blazers are out of town we can't get people to the games. The Winterhawks, despite their lower ticket sales over the years, still get more people than we get at our games, and they have more of them to go to/get more money out of them than our AD does. Until we start getting people interested in PSU athletics, I think professional franchises won't have any holds barred on being able to win over the college crowd because they already have no interest in seeing their own school play anything already to prevent them from going to a pro game.

 

[martymoose]

'UO fanboy city' :lol:

PSU already has a college hockey club team that practices/plays at the Winterhawks' Beaverton practice facility, so there is a base there to build off of (and we have a club baseball team, too, for what that's worth).

And when has Portland been a "college town"? It's more of the UO fanboy city with some OSU mixed in, then UP, then PSU, so I don't think PSU is going to be threatening minor league hockey/baseball/anything else anytime soon because we can hardly get people to come to PSU football or basketball games as it is. Even when the Blazers are out of town we can't get people to the games. The Winterhawks, despite their lower ticket sales over the years, still get more people than we get at our games, and they have more of them to go to/get more money out of them than our AD does. Until we start getting people interested in PSU athletics, I think professional franchises won't have any holds barred on being able to win over the college crowd because they already have no interest in seeing their own school play anything already to prevent them from going to a pro game.

 

[BroadwayVik]

To maximize the hockey experience for Portland, I would recommend first selling off the Winterhawks to a NW or Canadian city that wanted a WHL team. I believe discarding our ties to the WHL would improve upon the city's brawling, Shanghai-ing image.

If PSU-OHSU merge as some of us expect, the resulting institution would be worthy of first-class NCAA sports affiliation. I believe in this new hybrid institution sporting an NCAA Division I Ice Hockey team. This would bring some prestige to the sport in Portland and end up classing up this joint of a city.

NCAA Ice Hockey is a growing phenomenon. Fifty-seven programs play in five conferences, with two programs (Alabama-Huntsville and Penn State playing currently as independents).

o Atlantic Hockey

o Central Collegiate Hockey Association

o ECAC Hockey

o Hockey East

o Western Collegiate Hockey Association

And this is just D-I. With so many teams coming into the fray, a reorganization balancing traditional rivalries and geographic location seems inevitable. Notre Dame plays in two conferences? The Alaska schools play apart? What is Air Force doing playing in an East Coast conference?

I believe this affiliation would make the game highly interesting and more tickets would be sold under the NCAA D-I regime than are currently being sold under the WHL. PSU-OHSU could also be a pioneer in being the first to bring a true NCAA D-I college ice hockey team to the West Coast (Lower 48). This would make a Minnesota & North Dakota affiliation vibrantly healthy for Portland.

 

[Pounder]

I figure I'd just answer the questions posed for now.

Notre Dame is currently in the CCHA, but moves to Hockey East next year. The main reason: the Big Ten sponsors hockey next year because Penn State started a program this year. Therefore, the CCHA disbands and a lot of teams move around.

Air Force basically runs a small program within D-1, and therefore competes against like-minded institutions.

College hockey traditionally schedules weekend homestands... so when Alaska goes to, say, Minnesota, they play Friday AND Saturday night there. Of course, going to Alaska is a major time and financial headache, so the CCHA sought to ease the burden (theoretically) by taking on Alaska so that there aren't schools making one weekend trip to Fairbanks AND one weekend trip to Anchorage almost annually (there's been no way to schedule a clean sort-of-round-robin without doing that to some schools).

However, everything's jumbled next year. Some of the WCHA schools have formed the National Collegiate Hockey Conference with some outliers: Colorado College, Denver, Miami (Ohio), Minnesota-Duluth, Nebraska-Omaha, North Dakota, St. Cloud State, and Western Michigan.

That leaves the WCHA next year with Alabama-Huntsville, Alaska, Alaska-Anchorage, Bowling Green, Ferris State, Lake Superior State, Michigan Tech, Minnesota State, and Northern Michigan. Basically, the NCHC has higher-profile PROGRAMS than the WCHA schools with some possible exceptions (Ferris State went far into the NCAAs last year IIRC).

There's a test later.

 

[Pounder]

There's some updates screaming to be made regarding the NHL, but first...

...since we dove into college hockey, and since I finally made my way to my first college hockey game last month, I thought I better share this with you.

http://blogbythepound.wordpress.com/2014/01/16/hockey-trip-north-dakota-aint-kansas-toto/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[martymoose]

There's some updates screaming to be made regarding the NHL, but first...

...since we dove into college hockey, and since I finally made my way to my first college hockey game last month, I thought I better share this with you.

http://blogbythepound.wordpress.com/2014/01/16/hockey-trip-north-dakota-aint-kansas-toto/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Granite floors. :-|

 

[Pounder]

BTW, no granite floors at Matt Knight Court. The practice floors are just to the side of the concourse, however. Was there 10 days ago. It does make for a good Norwegian crypt... or, in the other direction, a reasonable escape from a zombie apocalypse. Always be careful what passageway you're entering when you're in that building.

MEANWHILE...

...Geoff Baker, a sometimes critic of Seattle's arena plans, came out with this article on February 13. http://seattletimes.com/html/hockey/2022905302_nhlseattle14xml.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There's been some followup, and there's been some doubt cast on how fast Seattle could potentially be awarded an expansion franchise (an announcement probably can't happen until after the city approves an Environmental Impact Statement and then changes the MOU with the arena organizers to allow hockey to catalyze the development). There are also rumors that the league and whomever might own this possible NHL franchise are down to talking expansion fee, but again, there's four speculated ownership groups and not a lot of leaks from the league.

If there's an expansion, it seems very much like two teams would be granted... but the rumors point more to Quebec (where an arena is already under construction) than to Portland.

I do think this affects the Winterhawks because it affects the whole US Division of the WHL. As Charlie Hales seems to have put a serious kibosh on Coliseum renovation efforts, I find that to be a second reason the Winterhawks won't be long for the WHL (probably along with Seattle and/or Everett). The question comes down to whether Paul Allen will pay a larger price to bring the NHL here, or is there another trick up a sleeve or two. While Allen apparently made an overture regarding the Phoenix Coyotes, please note he was trying to get an existing team at a discount. The chances of him going in for 5-10 times that amount on an expansion team are slim. AHL? ECHL? Coerce a Dallas or Florida or- in 4.5 years- the Coyotes to Portland? I have no freaking clue.

 

[Pounder]

Worth an update.

http://www.buffalonews.com/sports/niagara-hockey/conference-affiliations-remain-subject-to-change-20141005" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Of all the schools out west, Arizona State might start varsity hockey? Curious.

 

[Pounder]

Just thought I'd mention another possibility for a sport at Portland State.

Until yesterday, the previous NCAA Lacrosse D-1 champion situated furthest west was...

...drum roll please...

...the University of North Carolina.

Yesterday, Denver University won the championship.

Their recruiting base- all over, really, but their key players play indoor in British Columbia. They have as many players from out west as back east, very much more players from non-traditional areas than from the old recruiting grounds of the sport in America. There's a somewhat substantial presence of the sport in Colorado, as well. There's also a lad who played at Lincoln (Michael Marcott, a soph this year).

All spring (and half of winter), there's lacrosse practices going on at Lincoln. I'm told it's kind of big on the west side these days. Time to tap into that?

I'm still ambivalent about this. This won't be happening at Providence Park, so it'd be another sport in Hillsboro. Like with hockey before Arizona State declared, it'd be pioneering the sport (for the men) this far west, although Oregon has a women's program and there's a growing number of schools fielding women's teams over the past few years... when Arizona State adds women's lacrosse, the Pac-12 will have the 6 teams necessary to start their own league. Something to consider.

 

[Pounder]

If Paul Allen simply wanted to spend $500 million on an NHL franchise, it'd be in Portland by now.

Las Vegas was awarded a team yesterday. Bill Foley spent $500 million. We're quite unsure on how he will get that much money back when the arena the Las Vegas, um, Black Knights (which has been a bit of Foley's wish, but he backed off that yesterday) won't be either under his control or the control of the city that, mind you, didn't fund it. It's a curious expansion to say the least. Quebec ended up being the only other bidder, they originally pledged to spend the $500 million, the NHL claims that the weakened Canadian dollar drove up their requirements somehow, but some suspect they couldn't get other investors to buy in... despite a suitable new arena.

It also seemed very much like the NHL was targeting Seattle, but that's one freaking mess. If you have a few minutes, I can tell that story, too.

Here's the thing: $500 million makes no sense, but it's no accident. That is simply league owners trying to drive up the value of their own franchises. It'll probably only mildly succeed at that. But what happens is that Paul Allen's dream of, maybe, buying the Arizona Coyotes for $45 million (the amount in cash actually paid by the current "so-called" owners, "enhanced" by loans that are now all owned by the league) will NEVER fly with the owners. Even $170 million. I suspect they want a minimum $330 million. Chuckle. And perhaps a good reason to question the viability of the NHL with current management and ownership.