A Tale of Two (AHL) Cities
AHL Team A:
Record:Â 1-9-0
GF/GA: 21/48
GF/G / GA/G: 2.1/4.8
Average Attendance: 3,657
Attendance Rank: 18th
Top Point Scorer: 6 pts (tied for 105th in the AHL)
AHL Team B:
Record: 6-1-1
GF/GA: 30/22
GF/G / GA/G: 3.75/2.75
Average Attendance: 4,714
Attendance Rank: 13th
Top Point Scorer: 14 pts (4th in the AHL)
If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the AHL this year, you probably will need only one guess as to which team is Team A and which is Team B. Yes, the fortunes of the current and former AHL affiliates of the Sabres could not be any more different. The Amerks are devoid of talent at every position, can’t win to save their lives, and have killed any buzz in the community that was present during the lockout. Meanwhile the Pirates boast two blue-chip prospects up front, a solid goaltender (Enroth’s 0.925 Save % ranks 10th in the league), and a few solid defencemen (two players in the top-25 points for all defencemen, not including stud prospect Mike Weber). Note that it’s 25 year-old Mark Mancari who actually leads the team with 14 points, so you could even say that there are three blue-chip prospects up front.
I recently came across two separate pieces that highlighted the difference in the state of these two teams. The first is a standard post-game write-up by the winner of the Best Polish Last Name Award, Kevin Oklobzija of the D&C:
Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial was a virtual hockey ghost town. With a 1-7 record entering the game and coming off a total disaster of a season on and off the ice, the Amerks apparently no longer matter to fans.
The announced attendance was 2,135, but there may not have been 800 ticket buyers in the seats. At least 30 years have passed since fewer fans showed up for a Friday game.
Given that the Amerks are the 2nd-oldest active franchise in the league (the Hershey Bears, founded in 1938, are oldest), this is a pretty sad state to be in. And even if the team does improve I think they’ll have a hard time packing the house again, and here’s why. The Amerks became the Sabres’ affiliate in 1980. Before then, it probably didn’t matter much who your affiliate was because an AHL team was the primary hockey outlet in any given AHL city. If you lived in Rochester and wanted to see hockey, you went to see the Amerks. Jump ahead to today. Not only can I watch every Sabre game on MSG, but between Centre Ice and the internet, I can more easily follow (and feel more connected to) the L.A. Kings than the Amerks. In addition, a couple generations of fans have grown up cheering for the Amerks and Sabres in tandem. By watching guys like Ray, Carney, Audette, McKee, Campbell, Biron, Tallinder, Vanek, and Miller grow from one team to the other, they were able to extend their love of the Amerks into a love of the Sabres. And since the stakes are higher in the NHL, I think a lot of fans became Sabre fans first and Baby-Sabre fans second. Once that relationship was severed a lot of fans kept their allegiance with the Baby-Sabres. I have to admit that I find myself in that group.
The second article comes straight from the AHL’s main page:
They have a new affiliation and almost an entirely new roster of players, but the Portland Pirates are again making their presence felt in the Atlantic Division through the first month of the 2008-09 season.
The Pirates are the new AHL affiliate of the Buffalo Sabres after three years of partnering with the Anaheim Ducks. Head coach Kevin Dineen, who led the Pirates to the Eastern Conference Finals in both 2006 and 2008 under the Ducks affiliation, was retained by Buffalo after the switch and has the Pirates at 6-1-1-0 (13 points) through its first eight games, good for a share of first place in the division.
….
Portland’s offense ranks fourth in the league overall with 3.75 goals per game overall, despite sitting 19th in the 29-team circuit with just 28.25 shots per contest.
Nothing here is particularly surprising or enlightening, but I thought it provided a nice counterpoint to the D&C article. I also can’t help but note the similarities between Regier keeping Dineen as coach when he took over, and Golisano keeping Regier/Ruff when he bought the team.
I know it’s only 10 games into the first season of the new affiliations, but you just can’t ignore the trends that are shaping up here. It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on them as the season progresses.
Oh, and go Pirates.
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The Amerks season started already? That’s news to the New here. I’m not sure that I’ve seen highlights since opening day. What’s really sad is I was an Amerks fan a decade or so before a Sabres fan and I don’t remember the last time I went to a game in the War Memorial.
I saw a couple of training camp shots on R News a couple weeks ago, but yeah….other than that, I’d have no idea the Amerks are playing right now.
I had a feeling our Rochester affliate commenters would be the first two to comment on this post. Well done, boys.
Does this mean I have give up my Miller Amerks jersey? I love that thing. Of course, my dream has been to locate one of the rare Amerks 3rd jerseys with the R in the middle set amid the stars and stripes. Sweet jersey. It can be seen here: http://www.gamewornauctions.net/viewimage.asp?id=343&bigpic=0#img
On another note, attendance is probably strongly correlated to winning. If the records were reversed, do you think the attendance would be different?
For the record,
Hershey leads league in attendance, avg. 8,742
Just sayin’
GO BEARS
Chris, no. At least not right now. Maybe by midseason. People hate the owners, don’t care about the Panthers, don’t know any of the players and just don’t care. The only way the Amerks sell a ton of tickets for a game is if they play Portland and that ain’t happening.
Yeah, probably not. If I recall, it wasn’t that good last year either when the team was brutal and the Sabres were still the parent club. I could see a small (read: a few hundred) number more, but certainly not significant.
As 289 said, most of us just don’t care anymore.
It appears to me Rochester should have reconsidered thier affiliation with Florida. All the Sabres were looking for was a chance to have thier prospects get the time and attention they needed to grow. I’m sure they would rather have them just a short trip up the 90 rather than several hundred miles away, but whats done is done. Unfortunately you have to lose something before you realize what it meant to you. Good luck boys, maybe you can renegotiate when the current contract is up.
One more thing. The woes they faced last year on the ice were contributed to by the fact that there were 2 parent clubs. Its not possible to please both organizations and still remain competetive in the A.H.L.
I would argue that when Golisano offered to buy the team and was rebuffed (mostly because he thought he could run it better – a true sentiment), that was the fissure. Interesting that the superfans in Rochester have chosen to follow the players RATHER then the team. Dave touches on that in the part how easy it is to follow the Sabres now from far away. An interesting story, to say the least.
Getting out of Rochester and then stocking the team the way he has shows just how smart Darcy Regier is.
Well it’s kind of hard to follow the team rather than players when there is no team. A bunch of no name scrubs from Florida and Sabres bouncing back and forth down I-90 don’t really make for a team. There haven’t been any Amerks in years. No Jody Gages, no Scott Metcalfes. Who enjoys a team that goes 2-18? Especially when the ownership makes Boots look competent.
I’ve been a long time Amerks fan since I was young and have been a season ticket holder for 20 years. (I’m a Sabres fan as well- long before they were affiliated with Rochester) It’s sad that management on both the Amerks and Sabres couldn’t make the affiliation work. There were years when I went to Sabres games, and the fans had lots of negative comments about the Amerks (until they realized that when the current Sabres “core” guys were called up to fill in for injured players they helped keep the Sabres in contention, especially the years after the lockout) But if the Sabres bought the Amerks, put their prospects in Rochester, would they have cared about how the Amerks were doing or would they have just wanted their young players developed? I’ll still go to Amerks games and I’ll still go to the Sabres games I picked as part of my mini-pack because I enjoy watching hockey in person. If a team starts winning some games and is competitive, people will consider spending their $$ to go see a hockey game in person.
It’s a sad state of affairs here in Rochester. And it’s going to be a very long season.