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
♦
Follow me on Twitter @JeffSchultzAJC; friend me at Facebook.com/JeffSchultzAJC
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
1,115 comments Add your comment
Winnipeg = Poverty
May 31st, 2011
12:20 pm
Breaking News: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not be attending today’s NHL’s return to Winnipeg announcement in Manitoba because no bush pilot was available to take the Prime Minister by float plane west to Winnipeg. The Prime Minister’s office is sorry but he will be in Winnipeg sometime in July as soon as the new Greyhound bus schedule is created that includes a trip from Ottawa to Winnipeg and the Prime Minister can make other travel arrangements for the trip back to Ottawa.
Rick
May 31st, 2011
12:20 pm
@Melissa W., the Braves have drawn at least 2 million fans every season since 1991. I’m not sure there’s another team in baseball that can make that claim. If you’re going to hurl insults, at least make them accurate. Otherwise, you just expose your own ignorance of the situation.
tina
May 31st, 2011
12:21 pm
just an observation. This article seems to have the same tone as the ones written in Winnipeg in 1995 when that team left for Winnipeg. I think the pathetic showing of the so called save the thrashers rally (~200 participants) was the last straw. As a Canadian, I’m happy to see the league rectify it’s mistake. Winnipeg should have never lost a hockey team in the first place. The problem is the NHL has expanded too much and there’s not enough talent for all 30 teams to be competitive year in and year out. Fans want to see teams that win and Atlanta I think made the playoffs once maybe twice and not past round 1. I expect Winnipeg to make the playoffs within 5 years
TGT
May 31st, 2011
12:21 pm
Couldn’t care less. Hockey doesn’t belong in the south. I love the Falcons, Braves, Hawks, Bulldogs, and usually even pull for the Yellow Jackets, but the Thrashers weren’t even an afterthought. Kids down here don’t play it, and there was little chance it was ever going to make it. Is anyone really surprised by this?
TheAntiMe
May 31st, 2011
12:21 pm
You Winnipeggers that come to our ajc.com sports blogs are really something. The only reason any of you are here is to gloat over someone else’s misfortune. Condolences notwithstanding, you are only here to rub our noses in it. Very classy, indeed. If there is any such thing as karma then things do not bode well for your relocated franchise. Were the situation reversed, you would never see me or any real sports fan from Atlanta on your Winnipeg blogs gloating over you losing your franchise to us. That is just totally classless, IMHO.
Feel free to dance on Atlanta’s NHL grave now because I will be laughing while you bring up the rear in the NHL standings for the next 7 years until you too lose your 2nd NHL franchise. With a town of under 750,000 it’s inevitable.
wat
May 31st, 2011
12:23 pm
Old ownership better fly up to canada too. B/c they deserve what’s coming to them. They played with fire and we got burned. great.
thank you for a decade plus of bad sports you expect us to pay for. Idiots.
I hope to never see Gearin around town. He’d better hope that no one sees him, either
timthebrave
May 31st, 2011
12:24 pm
This is all about money for them so I will hit them the only way I can. I will no longer attend Hawks games are even go to any concerts in Phillips arena as long as the spirit group has anything to do with them. I will also no longer watch NHL hockey…Good bye Thrashers. I for one will miss hockey in ATL
ATL Observer
May 31st, 2011
12:24 pm
Congratulations to Winnipeg and the rest of Manitoba and Canada. Good luck with the franchise.
Kyle
May 31st, 2011
12:24 pm
I’m not a big hockey fan but I’m an Atlanta native and if the ownership had put a winner out there I would have paid more attention but from the beginning they never really put the money into it and like with most of our Atlanta sports the money they spent was always on the wrong players / coaches and the GM should have been gone after 5 years and probably before that. They will win in Canada because I’m sure whoever this is that is buying them will care about winning and put the right people in place who will make the right decisions to make them winners.
Joey
May 31st, 2011
12:24 pm
Thrashers were the only Pro team in ATL not to make the Playoffs last year. Good Riddance Losers!!!!!!!!
Pittsburgh Pirate Fan
May 31st, 2011
12:25 pm
Tina-please leave and go back to Canada. The posts by Canadians on the AJC blogs show us all what “ay” holes Canadians are. sucks being the 51st state.
I have drank my last Molsons
Chris
May 31st, 2011
12:25 pm
All I can say is I hope Gary Bettman and the Atlanta Spirit Group have terrible car accidents in the next few days.
Bryce
May 31st, 2011
12:25 pm
Agree, no reason to take shots at Winnipeg. They certainly deserve a team, and most of the trolls are not from Manitoba, I’m sure.
But enough of the crap about Atlanta not deserving a hockey team. We were about the worst team in the NHL over the last 10 years, and still drew almost 14k a game. No offense to Phoenix, but I’m baffled at how Bettman saw fit to save them, when they had a playoff caliber team most of the last decade and drew less than us. Leave the stupidity about the “rally” alone – it was a frickin’ tailgate party for fan club members, mainly to say goodbye. We’d been hearing for a week before that the team was 100% gone, so hardly surprising not many folks there.
A hearty screw you to the following:
- to the transplant hockey fans who cheered their own team when they came twice a year, and otherwise didn’t show. Have fun flying back to Pittsburgh or Detroit to watch hockey.
- to my fellow Atlantans, some of the least passionate sports fans I’ve ever seen. Most of the jabs other cities take at us are true. Aside from college FB, there’s no passionate fanbase in this city.
- to Bettman, for not lifting a finger to save us. Nice covenant with your fans. I’ll be a hockey fan for life (started being one 4 years ago with Thrashers) but I’ll never spend a dime on the NHL.
- to our “mayor”, Kasim Reed – even if you weren’t willing to spend a dime, thanks for announcing to all who would listen that Atlanta wouldn’t spend a dime to keep the team. I have no doubt that you’d marshall the support of the city to keep the Hawks.
- the ASG – you guys are vile beyond comprehension. In case anyone hasn’t been following this story, these jackwagons started trying to sell the Thrashers the day they bought them. Hope you’re happy with your basketball team while my kids cry their eyes out over the Thrashers leaving.
Schultz, thanks for caring enough to write about the Thrashers. You’re right on the money about this one.
Piss on this city. I’ve lived here more than 20 years and consider it home. But I’m done considering myself an Atlantan. I will stay OTP, and when my kids move off to college, I’ll move somewhere else.
askip32
May 31st, 2011
12:25 pm
I just threw up. Thats all I can say. I will miss the Thrashers badly.
deserve more than this
May 31st, 2011
12:26 pm
how can the same lousy gm be kept through three ownership groups? the owners and waddell are fully to blame for this. if they keep dudley, look for winnipeg to be contenders in a couple of years.
BillS
May 31st, 2011
12:26 pm
I never went to a Thrashers game. Only have been to 3-4 Hawks games each season. Now I’ll never go to another Hawks game. NEVER as long as the Spirit management is in place. I hope fans more serious than I have been will consider boycotting the team to show their feelings about being totally screwed over. I have no grudge against Winnipeg or Canada — good luck, guys.
hockey fan
May 31st, 2011
12:27 pm
FU ASG and Bettman. You are such a bunch of incompetent losers
lombardi
May 31st, 2011
12:28 pm
Wishing the Peggers the best, but as that bred-to-love-hockey community couldn’t support the Jets, I can’t see them doing it this time around when player salaries are up about 80% since then, and average Winnipeg household income is below any current NHL market.
dbot
May 31st, 2011
12:29 pm
Jeff – thank you for the Bob Hartley quote. We haven’t heard from him in a while, but he was a great chapter in the Atlanta hockey story.
juice sourcer
May 31st, 2011
12:30 pm
A quote from Gary Bettman:”The only time we move is when we don’t have a choice, and that typically happens when nobody wants to own a club there anymore,” Bettman said. “The prospect of leaving Atlanta isn’t something that I’m particularly fond of. So I can’t even contemplate the notion of what would happen after that in terms of coming back. We respect the importance of Atlanta as a city. It’s a big market, but this is a franchise that’s got a problem in that market.”
KB
May 31st, 2011
12:31 pm
This is a sad commentary of why this current ownership needs to break up. The Tharshers are a viable sport team (they need to get rid of Don Waddell, their current GM). They just have a bunch of clowns owning the ship. I hope Steve Belkin tries to take over the Hawks for these bozos. You can forget about hockey ever coming back to Atlanta. The NHL will not let another hockey team come to Atlanta ever again. I don’t blame them. This city has proven twice that they can’t hold down a hockey team.
schmeckdawg
May 31st, 2011
12:31 pm
D. Scott
May 31st, 2011
11:51 am
Insider report that the team name may be “The Polar Bears”
That would be perfect. A minor league name for a minor league team!
KB
May 31st, 2011
12:31 pm
This is a sad commentary of why this current ownership needs to break up. The Tharshers are a viable sport team (they need to get rid of Don Waddell, their current GM). They just have a bunch of clowns owning the ship. I hope Steve Belkin tries to take over the Hawks for these bozos. You can forget about hockey ever coming back to Atlanta. The NHL will not let another hockey team come to Atlanta ever again. I don’t blame them. This city has proven twice that they can’t hold down a hockey team.
Pittsburgh Pirate Fan
May 31st, 2011
12:32 pm
Kasim Reed, I will be campaigning hard for the candidate that opposes you in the next election.
Less jobs in the city.
Less people in eateries
Less people in hotels
fewer events at Philips
Nice job you jerk
C
May 31st, 2011
12:32 pm
@Bryce-Please….leave Georgia. Now. *ss.
Ted M
May 31st, 2011
12:32 pm
“The guy has told so many lies, it’s a wonder he’s not an Atlanta Spirit partner.”
funny stuff
Realtalk
May 31st, 2011
12:34 pm
Time to Get a Rail for the Atlanta Spirit. Would love to help get all of those losers out of this Town.
You are a Complete Joke. Worst Owners in Atlanta history and all Sports. That is really saying something too! You make me wish for the days of the Smith Family!
Pittsburgh Pirate Fan
May 31st, 2011
12:35 pm
KB-the way this team was ran it would have failed in any city.
Nashville, Tampa and Raleigh are all NHL success stories
EA
May 31st, 2011
12:36 pm
What a fantastic article. I hope they all rot in hell.
Ed Peskowitz
May 31st, 2011
12:36 pm
Rutherford, you little punk. Keep avoiding me and see what happens.
OHL
May 31st, 2011
12:37 pm
Mr. Schultz,
You say the Thrashers were never given a chance and it’s always someone else’s fault. But on the right of the screen here, there is a link to your archives. I just went and looked at the 3 oldest months, Feb, Mar & Apr of 2009. That’s right in the prime of hockey season. You wrote articles about the Braves, Richt the college coach, Boise State, Ken Griffey Jr., Falcons, an overwhelming # of Hawks articles, but NOT ONE ARTICLE ON THE THRASHERS! Keep blaming everyone else.
Supes
May 31st, 2011
12:38 pm
Jeff,
Thank you for writing this article. I feel like you’ve captured everything essential about this moment in it’s content.
To all the Canadian fans gloating right now…KARMA is a BIATCH remember this DAY!
To all my fellow Thrashers fans…I feel gutted and betrayed by ASG and the NHL Commish…we deserved better and I’m confident that someday in the future we will get another NHL team here to support (with a caring and passionate owner(s) ) and hockey will succeed in our city!
To the ASG…You vultures who never gave a FRAK about hockey and putting a winning product on the ice…you will never EVER see another dollar from me or any of my friends who feel the same way…I will boycott all HAWKS, CONCERTS or anything related to Phillips as long as you OWN the team/arena. You all are the picture of inept ownership, and you failed the CITY of ATLANTA and the THRASHERS fans…and where is Bettman…you coward you lied and hid through all of this…COWARD. KARMA is a BIATCH mister commish…you will get yours SOMEDAY!
The 7th Man
May 31st, 2011
12:38 pm
Well stated, Jeff. The bottom line is that Bettman needed the team to move to collect the $60m fee in order to shore up the losses that ALL of the league owners are paying to inexplicably keep Phoenix afloat. The Thrashers moving north just helped him save a ton of face with all the owners and everyone NOT in Atlanta. ASG never wanted the Thrashers, never cared about the Thrashers, and never put a penny into trying to make them a winning product. They had to keep them until December 2010 as they didn’t hav eclear title to sell. So, thety let it tank and tank and tank, until they are legally allowed ot sell it and there is no real fight to keep them as they are not a winning franchise and the “fans don’t support them”, when in reality, the fans weren’t supporting an absentee owner group. I have been fed up with the NHL wince the lockout, and this is the final nail in the coffin. Hopefully, the Gwinett Gladiators will not get re-loed. Better yet, resurrect the Knights! Farewell, Thrashers. I will never forget the wonderful memories I have of my late father and I attending every game of the first 4 seasons. I am just glad he didn’t live to see this injustice served on the residents of Blueland.
Jimmy Crack
May 31st, 2011
12:39 pm
If I were Don Waddell I would look for my name to be on a short list of major sports GMs who completely failed at their job.
As for goodbye, good riddence to the NHL whores. The only thing I will miss will be Dan Kamal and Darren Eliot. Good job guys. As far as Bettman and the ASuckG and the whole NHL, puck them all.
Thoroughbred
May 31st, 2011
12:39 pm
WHO CARES? This is the South and we don’t care about hockey. If you liked the thrashers move back north or go to Russia. Hockey what a stupid stupid sport. 11 seasons for the thrashers that was 10 seasons to many. 90 percent of the time I saw someone in thrashers shirts, jersey’s, or hats they were the fat unathletic type or a know it all Yankee living down here. What a GREAT day. Suck one thrashers.
three jack
May 31st, 2011
12:40 pm
imagine if aol/time warner would have honored their deal with david mcdavid instead of switching to atl spirit…we would have an active, single owner running the hawks and thrashers with winning as the strategy.
bigget villain in this whole mess, aol/tw.
Jay Dubbe
May 31st, 2011
12:40 pm
Here’s the truth about hockey in Atlanta: most of the fans are in the suburbs, and all the schools that have hockey teams are in the suburbs. All the ice arenas and inline hockey arenas are in the suburbs. Build an NHL arena in Roswell or Alpharetta and attendance will skyrocket. No one wants to ride the Marta train from the ‘burbs and get accosted by bums and weirdos all along the route. Simple economics, folks.
EMerckx69
May 31st, 2011
12:40 pm
Thanks Jeff for a great article on the joke that is the ASG and NHL.
This is a sad day and it will be worse once I get home and tell my 12 year old son and 6 year old daughter. I too grew up in Georgia and played basketball, baseball and football. I never watched hockey until I moved to Atlanta and watched the Atlanta Knights. Both my kids play ice hockey and I know this will be devastating to them. I’ve abandoned baseball and basketball, because they are painful to watch after experiencing NHL hockey. And what will make this worse is when Buff, Ladd, Little, Kane, Boulton and the other former Thrashers win a Stanley cup in Winnipeg in the near future.
To hear Gearon and his fake tears on the radio was disgusting.
Kinkade to Gearon – What is one thing you can say to the hockey fans of Atlanta today?
Gearon – I don’t know… We appreciate really did appreciate the fans.
At least your $110 million will help you sleep better at night, because you know how hard this will be on your kids. Well all you did is crush the dreams of a lot of kids in Atlanta today. Thanks for nothing ASG.
Scorch
May 31st, 2011
12:40 pm
This ‘journalist’ sounds butthurt.
PureEvil
May 31st, 2011
12:40 pm
Top 10 Hockey team names for next Atlanta team:
1. The Atlanta Leaf burners
2. The Atlanta Rebels
3. The Atlanta Listings
4. The Atlanta Ryderstrucks
5. The Atlanta Movers
6. The Atlanta Shortsales
7. The Atlanta Budget
8. The Atlanta Sold
9. The Atlanta Foreclosures
10. The Atlanta Carpetbaggers
MJL
May 31st, 2011
12:40 pm
Sorry day indeed mainly because there is no chance another team comes here, no local ownership that is willing to invest in the product. It was all a marketing experiement gone bad. Go Gladiators!!! Bring back the Atlanta Knights!!!!
shannon
May 31st, 2011
12:40 pm
Kaseim Reed= Mayor of the Year lol… How do you allow this to happen to your city without a fight … Wow Im not even a hockey fan but my fiancee who is canadian is and she loved watching the thrashers… I just dont understand how a league even allows this to happen twice to a city ..
ATL Observer
May 31st, 2011
12:41 pm
To Bryce, who I quote:
“A hearty screw you to the following:
- to the transplant hockey fans who cheered their own team when they came twice a year, and otherwise didn’t show. Have fun flying back to Pittsburgh or Detroit to watch hockey.”
I know you’re upset, but this is totally uncalled for. Transplant hockey fans (of which I am one) should be commended for retaining their loyalty to the teams they grew up supporting. I am not one who will become an “instant Atlanta sports fan” just because I happen to currently reside here.
blackassassin
May 31st, 2011
12:42 pm
wasn’t given a chance? BE REAL JEFF…
Ed Peskowitz
May 31st, 2011
12:42 pm
I just called Gearon and it went straight to voicemail. I’m going to pull a Belkin if I don’t get my $20 back from baby Rutherford. The liquor store has stopped taking my credit cards. Cash only.
hockeyfan
May 31st, 2011
12:42 pm
OHL, you’ve got a great point there. Were the Thrashers front-page material on the AJC sports page ever? Seldom? Definitely not often. Georgia has SEC and ACC football, baseball and basketball; an NFL team (that draws when it’s good); a MLB team (that sometimes draws when it’s good); an NBA team (I have no idea whether any attention is paid to them or not, but from the remarks, it looks like the fanbase will boycott them and drive them to Seattle). There’s a LOT of competition for sports attention in Georgia, and the Thrashers didn’t get much of it. Again, it’s not that the team wasn’t given a chance (it was) or that the city wasn’t given a chance (it was, twice); it’s that the community had other sports priorities. So now this one’s gone.
Doo Rag
May 31st, 2011
12:42 pm
Take the “c” out of hockey… and what do you get? Just sayin’.
Tommy
May 31st, 2011
12:42 pm
The guy moving the team from Atlanta to Winnipeg is a billionaire????? Sound business decision there, hot rod. Reminds me of a line from my old boss: ‘the smartest thing he ever did was inherit his dad’s money.’
Lee
May 31st, 2011
12:43 pm
I am a lifelong Caps fan and Thashers hater. I have been living in Atlanta for the past 6 years.
I want to say to the Atlanta fans that I am truly sorry that this happened. I am crushed more than a division rival should be. You did not deserve this. You are good and passionate fans, and I hope you and the city will be rewarded with another franchise soon — one with functional ownership who might actually care. You deserve better than ASG and DW.
give me a break
May 31st, 2011
12:44 pm
Hey ATL Observer,
Screw you. Move back to your old trash heap of a city if you love it so much.