Thrashers, Atlanta were never given a chance
Thrashers fans tried hard to keep hope, season after season. But the deck was stacked against them. (Hyosub Shin/AJC)
(Updated: 12:30 p.m.)
This is how it ends: With the weasel of a commissioner not stepping foot in the city, with another season passing without a playoff game, with a lying ownership group maintaining it did all it could to save a franchise that in reality it spent most of seven years wrecking.
Atlanta has lost an NHL expansion team to a Canadian outpost for the second time. The Thrashers are going to Winnipeg just like the Flames went to Calgary in 1980. A press conference was held in Winnipeg, while the Thrashers sent out this warm-and-fuzzy news release: “The Atlanta Thrashers announced today that they have entered into an asset purchase agreement with True North Sports and Entertainment …”
This isn’t about the fans or the market or certainly Gary Bettman’s fictional “covenant” with fans, which I believe he left in the same sock drawer with his conscience. It’s about greed and abandonment, plain and simple. It’s about a disingenuous ownership group, which had long lost any semblance of credibility, serving up fans swill and gruel and then wondering why the turnstiles sleep at night.
They’ll tell you they care. They don’t. They’re walking away with a fat check. While you mourn the loss of a franchise, they’re waving goodbye with one middle finger.
The NHL is leaving a city that never really was given a chance. It’s going back to a city that it left 15 years ago and that has grown by about 60,000 people and a couple of doughnut shops since. They will be discussing this decision one day at business schools, right after the sections on Charles Ponzi and Enron.
Atlanta didn’t fail. The franchise failed. But the NHL doesn’t care about that. This is a league that survives on franchise fees and relocation fees. It collected $80 million from Ted Turner for an expansion fee in 1997. (He joked in the Board of Governors meeting that followed that he could’ve saved $70 million by purchasing the Flames from Tom Cousins for $10 million. Nobody laughed.) The league reportedly will collect another $60 million for permission to move the Thrashers to Manitoba.
In five years, when another failing franchise wants to move into Philips Arena, Bettman will be happy to collect another fat relocation fee, and he’ll deliver the same canned, phony speech about how he always believed in this market. The guy has told so many lies, it’s a wonder he’s not an Atlanta Spirit partner. (One postscript: Bettman referred to them as the “Atlantic” Spirit on Tuesday.)
Now living in Calgary.
There are hockey teams in Tampa and San Jose and Raleigh, and I could go on. There’s still one inexplicably in Phoenix, which the NHL is floating for another year, maybe because Bettman plans to retire and open up a pawn shop there one day. Is Atlanta an inferior market to any of those cities? Or does product have something to do with it?
There was no reason to do this now. When the Phoenix-to-Winnipeg deal fell apart, the NHL (which owns the Coyotes) was out $170 million. Bettman panicked. So he crossed out Phoenix and wrote in Atlanta. But why couldn’t he have waited a year to see if another owner for the team
Now living in Winnipeg.
emerged? Winnipeg wasn’t going anywhere. Was Bettman that desperate for the $60 million?
“I have absolutely no doubt that this market can support an NHL team,” said Bob Hartley, a native Canadian, a Stanley Cup winner in Colorado and the only coach to get the Thrashers to the playoffs. “It’s a huge disappointment to see the Atlanta franchise leave before so many other cities in the league. I loved it there. My last two years in Atlanta were as exciting as what I went through in Colorado. We had only two [home] playoffs games but it was a Stanley Cup atmosphere. But Hoss [Marian Hossa] left, Kovy [llya Kovalchuk] left, I was gone. It felt like the organization was drained of its energy.”
First player: Damian Rhodes. First draft pick: Patrik Stefan. First coach: Curt Fraser. First general manager: Don Waddell. That was only the beginning. Eleven seasons: one playoff berth, no wins.
Turner was followed by AOL/Time Warner, a bad marriage that was followed by an even worse one: Atlanta Spirit, LLC. Hossa saw no future here. Kovalchuk, given so many misdirections by part-owner Bruce Levenson in negotiations, wasn’t even sure the team would stay. Both wanted out.
There never was a commitment. There never was hope. There never was a plan — at least not one that worked.
A city just lost a franchise. While you mourn, they laugh. It’s nothing less than shameful.
By Jeff Schultz
♦
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1,115 comments Add your comment
FU ATL
May 31st, 2011
2:55 pm
Pretty mediocre piece of journalism. Now you know what Winnipeg and Quebec city, went through…. Oh wait you do, it’s the second time your city couldn’t support and NHL team. I am sure the one Thrasher fan will be disappointed the team has left….
gled13
May 31st, 2011
2:56 pm
It’s unfortunate for the hockey fans in Atlanta to lose their team again but the 2 of you were not able to support the team, juste like your grandfathers couldn’t support the Flames. Sorry to be a kill joy but hockey DOESN’T belong in the south and after 2 tries I believe the NHL experience is over in Georgia….NOw if we can bring the Florida teams back to Canada and get rid of Pheonix somehow it would be perfect. You have to wonder though, Gary Bettman doesn’t like Canada so the situation must have been really terrible to the point of going back somewhere where hockey means something. Welcome back Jets (Thrash the Thrasher name please)
enrique palazzo
May 31st, 2011
2:57 pm
Billsen: i understand what you’re saying, and you make sense… But you have to understand demographics @ sporting events. Falcons games draw minorities in much larger numbers, and whites from the south Atlanta suburbs. Hockey is a white sport, and the Thrashers PROBABLY would have benefited from being in the northern suburbs.
gcs
May 31st, 2011
2:59 pm
Is the city of Atlanta going to be able to keep the name “Thrashers” the way Cleveland kept the name “the Browns”? We should make those Winnipeg jokers come up with a new name.
The Thrasher is the Georgia State bird and Atlanta was actually called “Thrasherville” back in the 1800s.
.
C from the WPG
May 31st, 2011
3:01 pm
nothing I say here hasn’t already been said by one person or another…..except….
everyone posting here KNOWS that the Germans did not bomb Pearl Harbour right….you all just chose to ignore that stupidity…either that or the Education system in both countries is seriously flawed…hey look something we have in common!!!
Matt from MN
May 31st, 2011
3:02 pm
I bought my 11 year old daughter her first Thrasher jersey for Christmas last year. She loved the game we went to and asked when we could go again. I’m sad that I’ll never get that chance now.
Ol_skol'd
May 31st, 2011
3:03 pm
The name is called “Jets”…you must be as dumb as the former owners of the team…can you not read? On yeah…you are from the South…
hockeyfan
May 31st, 2011
3:05 pm
TCF, that sucks. Sorry. At least he’s young and will soon channel his energies elsewhere.
And you hit the nail on the head with your third-to-last paragraph.
Heartbroken Hockey Mom
May 31st, 2011
3:05 pm
Thank you for expressing the anger and sadness so many of us feel over this royal screwing over. The fans were shut out and powerless to save their team. The NHL should be ashamed for letting this happen to the same city twice. I hope Bettman and the Atlanta Spirit ownership get all the bad karma they deserve, and then some – their souls iced over a long time ago.
shannon
May 31st, 2011
3:06 pm
Dont know why this is a winnpeg vs atl thing.. Its all about the sad ownership. All i say is boycott the hawks until we get new ownership
fan
May 31st, 2011
3:06 pm
can someone list all businesses of ASG so I could make sure I’ll never use it again?
Steve-o
May 31st, 2011
3:07 pm
So, a Thrasher player calls his wife and says ‘honey, we’ve just been transferred to Winnipeg.’
Okay, so I’m open to your thoughts. What do you think she said?
————————————-
I’m sure the wives will get over it. Anyway, is ATL really the center of the universe? Hardly.
And, as for the Cousin Curtis’s out there – we’ve already read plenty of lame comments about how you don’t care about hockey. Please, get it through your thick skulls that not everyone in this town lives for college football. The number of backward hayseeds in this town is truly astounding.
Matt from MN
May 31st, 2011
3:08 pm
“C from the WPG” clearly you’ve never watched “Animal House”.
Kane337
May 31st, 2011
3:09 pm
Great article Jeff. I 100% agree. A very sad day today in Atlanta sports. A big thanks to Bob Hartley that belived in the city and gave us our only playoff birth.
enick755
May 31st, 2011
3:09 pm
I hereby want nothing to do w/Atlanta Spirit and will not renew my Hawks season tickets. Boycott the Hawks!
Time
May 31st, 2011
3:09 pm
No disrespect to any Thrashers fans. I feel you pain.
But good riddance. The fact of the matter is that Atlanta is a better city than this two bit bush league operation that is the NHL. In a decade or two, when these franchises fail AGAIN in the same Canadian cities they failed in the first time they’ll wish they showed more of a commitment to places like Atlanta. Instead of penalizing the fan and the city because ownership never once put a product worth of the cost on the ice.
Pete
May 31st, 2011
3:10 pm
The franchise, badly owned as it was, died the day Dany Heatley crashed.
Proud Winnipegger
May 31st, 2011
3:10 pm
For those of you dissing on Winnipeg: you’re ignorance is showing! Winnipeg is a thriving provincial capital of close to 1 million people, with a new football stadium in the process of being built for our professional football franchise (in a league that even Joe Montana recently said he would have liked – maybe even preferred – to have played in), a world-class Human Rights museum close to completion, and a new state-of-the-art international airport ready to open.
Unlike in 1996 when the Canadian dollar was worth 60 cents as compaired to the US dollar, our currency is now valued HIGHER than the US dollar. We have growth, prosperity, clean fresh air and -oh ya – an NHL franchise!
C from the WPG
May 31st, 2011
3:11 pm
LOL oops! you got me thank you matt
TheAntiMe
May 31st, 2011
3:11 pm
nothing I say here hasn’t already been said by one person or another…..except….
everyone posting here KNOWS that the Germans did not bomb Pearl Harbour right….you all just chose to ignore that stupidity…either that or the Education system in both countries is seriously flawed…hey look something we have in common!!!
rotfl – I just had to step back in for this one. Actually, C from the WPG, “When the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor” is a classic line from John Belushi’s character in the classic movie “Animal House”. I thought that you dudes up there party? Animal House is the quintessential party movie.
However, I don’t totally disagree that education everywhere leaves much to be desired.
fan
May 31st, 2011
3:12 pm
@AJC: can you block all manitoba jerks (by IP) from expressing their fun on us?
ThrasherFan
May 31st, 2011
3:13 pm
@TCFATL
That’s spot on… haven’t told my son yet but it’s going to be a similar story.
jetfuel
May 31st, 2011
3:13 pm
One would hope that Bettman and Levenson would take their checks and just leave town. I sincerely hope they had no plans of remaining with ASG. Wait – I know – they’re going to take all the money they make from today’s sale and put it BACK into the Hawks right??
LOL
Steve
May 31st, 2011
3:14 pm
Sad day in Atlanta lousy ownership ASG lousy management Don Waddell lousy location should have been on the north side of town lousy product what do you expect if the hawks don’t change ownership,management and coaching they might be next to leave
Joe
May 31st, 2011
3:14 pm
Once these same thrashers stink up winnipeg, let’s see how many of you eskimos become “true” fans. Good luck winning with dump n chase Rammer as head coach lol.
Winnipeg Jets= new york islanders of canada.
Time
May 31st, 2011
3:14 pm
“We have growth, prosperity, clean fresh air and -oh ya – an NHL franchise!”
Congratulations. You also evidently have a nation full of internet trolls that are choosing to dance on the graves of Atlanta Thasher fans instead of enjoying your new team. Maybe they’ll all show up on your little internet site and dance on yours when the NHL, your national sport, leaves your city again, chasing dollars somewhere else.
Good riddance to the two bit, half a**ed, bush league meaningless can’t even get on TV hockey league.
Relocationist
May 31st, 2011
3:14 pm
Billsen
Uh, you’re talking about the NFL when if everything goes right, the Falcons have what? 12 or 13 home games a year (counting play offs). NHL teams need us there not just at 1 PM on Sunday afternoon but on weeknights for at least 41 games a year. Apples and Oranges.
Steve-o
May 31st, 2011
3:16 pm
Proud Winnipegger,
The well-kept secret that most Americans don’t realize is that Canadian cities are great– clean, safe with bustling downtowns. I’ve liked every Canadian city I’ve travelled to, and I’m sure Winnipeg is a fine city too. I think Jeff Schultz wrote a column that was spot on about Bettman and the ownership group, but the jabs calling Winnipeg and Calgary “outposts” was unnecessary. Anyway, from what I’ve read, Calgary in particular has a thriving economy. Anyway, a lot of us Thrasher fans are bitter today, so it’s not surprising that some of us are taking out our frustrations on ‘Peg.
Northerner
May 31st, 2011
3:16 pm
Not sure why you’re taking cheap shots at Winnipeg here. Bettman screwed you guys, as they did to Winnipeg 15 years ago. Anyway, we’re used to the cold and have enough money to buy winter jackets. You guys can enjoy your racism, murder rates and poverty. I’ll be at the donut shop if y’all wanna a hand-out one day.
Joe
May 31st, 2011
3:18 pm
I hope nashville and tampa stomp you canadian egoists everytime they play you.
Once canadian dollar looses value just watch this team get shipped out by rat-faced betman
ChippersLoveChild
May 31st, 2011
3:18 pm
“in a league that even Joe Montana recently said he would have liked – maybe even preferred – to have played in”
LOL, now I have nothing against Winnipeg or the fact that they have the Thrashers now…. but… Come.On.Man…. do not start trying to compare the CFL to the NFL.
Big Bear
May 31st, 2011
3:18 pm
To all of you who say “Oh, the players are going to hate living in Winnipeg with its cold weather, blah blah blah”….again ,you dolts show just how little you really understand the game of hockey.
Newsflash for ya, good ol’ boys: most hockey players are FROM towns in Canada, Michigan, and Russia that are far smaller far more desolate than Winnipeg. In additino, most of them played junior and minor hockey in places that are far further “off the map” than Winnipeg. (I hate to tell you, but ABSOLUTELY NO ONE outside of Georgia has any idea or cares where the hell Gwinnett is, so playing for the Gladiators is pretty much like being sent to the gulag…)
On top of that, the cost of living in Winnipeg is pretty low compared to Atlanta, so these guys making NHL salaries are going to live like EMPERORS there.
Somehow, I think the players will be okay, even if they do have to occasionally do up their jackets.
ChippersLoveChild
May 31st, 2011
3:19 pm
Big Bear,
I am from Wisconsin.. I love going home to see my family… that doesn’t mean that I ENJOY the cold weather. NO ONE ENJOYS the cold weather! That’s why people tend to retire in warmer climates… that is why Lebron went from Cleveland to South Beach… all things being equal people prefer warmer weather 90% of the time.
Tommy
May 31st, 2011
3:20 pm
The garbage being spewed by the Canada trolls on this site makes me support legislation requiring email or IP addresses being displayed with every post. People sure are brave when they can be anonymous.
Lawrence
May 31st, 2011
3:20 pm
Maybe hockey is returning to a place that truly supports it? The only “outpost” is Atlanta, which has now failed twice (yes, TWICE) is keeping a team.
Enjoy an empty Philips Arena next season… oh wait, it was empty even when the Thrashers played there. Perhaps you would have had better owners if the team was a better NHL market thus was more inviting to competent business people?
It is correct that Bettman is a stooge. That is why I wouldn’t be surprised to see the NHL try Atlanta again for a third time in the future. That is, if an ownership group can be found to try that market again.
In the meantime, keep making your little backhanded remarks about Winnipeg as the fans their actually support the franchise.
Joe
May 31st, 2011
3:21 pm
Winnipeg is the armpit of Canada. Just like Dubai, you guys are just having a period of economic growth and will soon have a century of poverty.
Hockey Fan
May 31st, 2011
3:22 pm
To Richard Alpert:
The Gwinnett Gladiators will not be going anywhere. They are a farm team however under completely different ownership. They are a solid franchise and have been for over 10 years so you have nothing to worry about. Hopefully more fans will catch on with them. Their average attendance last season was over 5,400.
TheAntiMe
May 31st, 2011
3:22 pm
@ Northerner – Why are you here on this ajc.com sports blog? It could only be to gloat over someone else’s misfortune which is a totally classless thing to do. I believe that most of us have nothing really against Winnipeg – that would mean that we actually care about Winnipeg and frankly, we all have better things to do with our time.
I must say though that you folks coming down here to our blog to dance on our NHL grave are the most visible criteria we in Atlanta have for judging Winnipeg and thanks to folks like yourself, I’m afraid that it’s not a very pretty picture.
C from the WPG
May 31st, 2011
3:23 pm
Northerner you should have just stopped at” Winter jackets”
Jason
May 31st, 2011
3:23 pm
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=burnside_scott&id=6611534
Duck a Fawg
May 31st, 2011
3:23 pm
Excellent article on the whole mess: http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=burnside_scott&id=6611534
allen981
May 31st, 2011
3:25 pm
Winnipeg is a great city, and the Thrashers will thrive there. I’m an Atlantan who’s been there several times, and love it…in the summer. Good for them.
For all those calling anyone from the South a ‘hayseed,’ ‘redneck,’ etc., just because they don’t like hockey, get over it. We didn’t grow up with it, just like you didn’t grow up with college football.
Coke outsells Pepsi in Atlanta; Pepsi outsells Coke in Canada. It’s all in what you know and like, and Atlantans – most of us anyway – find hockey a useless, boring sport.
Besides, Winnipeg’s people need something to do when it’s 20 below in the winter. In Atlanta in January, we’re playing tennis – outdoors – riding bikes, playing golf, visiting a park. Sit in a cold arena for 3 hours to watch a dozen guys skate aimlessly up and down an ice rink?
Same goes for anyone who complains about lack of support for any pro sports team, here or elsewhere. Why is it my civic obligation to support a bunch of out of town vagabond athletes in any sport?
If you want my entertainment dollar, give me a reason to spend it, i.e., make it fun. But no one will ever make me feel guilty for choosing to actively participate in a sport rather than watch it.
I don’t owe the Braves, the Hawks, the Falcons one dime of my money. They’ve got to earn it with community involvement, an exciting team, a vibrant arena.
Philip
May 31st, 2011
3:26 pm
I feel for you Thrasher fans. I was 11 years old when the Jets left Winnipeg. My dream of a team returning is coming true. Here’s hoping your NHL dreams one day come true again for you.
Proud Winnipegger
May 31st, 2011
3:26 pm
@ Steve-o:
Yes – I fully understand the frustration and feelings of dismay felt by Thrashers fans today: don’t forget, we were in your very same shoes 15 years ago. That being said, we only lost one team, not two. So I assume that it may be twice as hard to swallow. There were a lot of boos in the crowd when Bettman stepped up to the mic this morning, as there is no love for that man in this town, as there isn’t any in your town either. To whoever called me a troll: I came to this site to see how the news was being taken in Atlanta as, like I mentioned, we’ve ‘been there, done that’. What got my juices flowing though was all the references to my home being referred to as an ‘outpost’. There is no need to be casting dispursions on anyone outside of the NHL, which has now left you guys with out an NHL team twice now.
Yes – make no mistake – we are VERY happy to have the NHL coming back to town and will celebrate until the first puck drops. But the joy here is in the celebration of the new beginning, not in rejoicing in Atlanta’s loss.
Al13
May 31st, 2011
3:29 pm
Couple comments…First, sorry to Atlanta hockey fans.. You are losing the best sport in the world. Despite a few idiots that post here Canadians in Winnipeg sympathize. Understand the misplaced venom and the pointless and untrue anti-Winnipeg comments but that kind of nonsense does nothing but make the poster look like a goof.
–Schmeckdawg- Your comments show that you really need to get out of your basement and read a book or something …Summers are gorgeous here….fall is even better. Babes are gorgeous and Eskimos live 1000 miles North of us. Winters are cold which is what happens when you live in the North…(Go figure ). You make yourself and other Americans look bad with your uneducated comments.
—Billsen; The hate comments are from idiots (on both sides) and we have em up here just like you do. Heard a lot of good comments too. If you read all the comments you will see a lot from locals that could care less about the team and were “part” of the reason for the empty seats. I’ve watched highlights on many occasions and seen miles of empty seats and that is not a criticism….just what it is.
Last thought to Atlanta fans…..We lost our team 16 years ago and have been pissed off and ever wanting the team back since then. Do you really think in 16 years you will be longing for the return of hockey to Atlanta?
Ron
May 31st, 2011
3:30 pm
I don’t rejoice in the fact Atlanta lost a team but am glad Winnipeg is back in the league.
The fact that Winnipeg and Calgary are classified as “Canadian outposts,” however, is a tad insulting. What’s next? Canadians live in igloos? We wear parkas and snowshoes 11 out of 12 months of the year? We’re nothing more than people who sit in doughnut shops and say “eh” all day?
I understand the frustration over losing the team particularly since it had crappy ownership. But waiting a year is not an option, as Mr. Schultz naively suggested, as no one wanted another year of massive financial losses in Atlanta.
DMR
May 31st, 2011
3:31 pm
A hockey team moved out of Atlanta today. The City of Atlanta did not “LOSE” the Thrashers. If the term lose is being used in the context of the fact “they won’t play here anymore”, then this would be accurate. What I am sick and tired of as an Atlanta resident is the idea that ATLANTA is the reason this team was lost. You can bend and twist the English language in several ways. The “loss” of this franchise falls squarely on the shoulders of the ASG, the NHL, and Bettman the coward. LET’S BE CLEAR! This is not about Atlanta as a sports town, but the inadequacies of another franchise that took up residence here.
rooster
May 31st, 2011
3:35 pm
Good riddance indeed. Don’t let the doorknob goose you in the bohunkus on the way out.
Big Bear
May 31st, 2011
3:35 pm
@Chipperslovechild, my point is that these guys aren’t going to find living in Winnipeg a particular hardship. That’s especially true of the guys who played junior hockey in the Western Hockey League, all of whom come from Alberta and Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and who spent their teens bumping around on buses playing in places like Red Deer, Moose Jaw, Medicine Hat, and Saskatoon in the middle of January and February. Any of them who have been through the minor pros will have also paid their dues in glamour holes like Rockford, Glens Falls, Grand Rapids, and, oh yes, a little frozen place called Milwaukee.
If they’re making NHL bucks and living in Winnipeg, they’ll look past the black flies and nut-freezing cold. Trust me. Winnipeg will seem like paradise compared to the places that some of these guys come from and where some of them have played.
Atlanta? No longer relevant. Already a dot in the rear-view mirror by now.
Lum
May 31st, 2011
3:36 pm
Putting a hocket team in Atlanta is roughly equivalent to putting an NFL team in Guadalajara. Stupid.