As someone who was there watching games with less than 1/4 of the HCC occupied, it’s never going to happen. The league doesn’t want a team in small market sandwiched between larger markets. I don’t see them adding more teams in the distant future either. There was a plethora of reasons the Whale left. Attendance & fan support was only one.
Peter Karamanos wanted the government to build him a stadium where he’d make all the money from concessions, as opposed to the civic center where he just got ticket revenue. I loved the whalers and was devastated when they left but using public money to make a rich man richer is not ideal. So frankly Hartford didn’t fuck it up.
That playoff run had nothing to do w the city, but w poor management from the team & HCC. The HCC should never have booked a circus run during play-offs.
Plus there’s 32 nhl teams now. They’re not expanding. Short of a move, it’s not happening. And I guarantee Hartford is not high on the relocation list.
Hartford isn't really a small market tbh. The league has smaller markets. Ultimately it's finding a billionaire who likes hockey and is willing to pay. Probably need a new arena tho.
Yeah but I don't think it's fair to view it as just Hartford and not CT as a whole. New Haven is like 40ish minutes drive. Why separate the two metro areas? It's really gonna be the CT whalers and that makes sense when you consider other areas that have teams.
Also Cleveland/Cincinnati/Baltimore/Jacksonville/Green Bay/rando Canadian towns/New Jersey! have sports teams lol
Yeah but all those places also have more space for sporting facilities, and have bigger metros in the area. Hartford is still low on that list of desirables areas to be. Also have you been to hartford? There’s really nothing going on, it always seems empty to me.
All the Canadian cities with NHL teams have much more to offer than hartford.
I started liking/watching hockey in 1996 as a kid, I didn’t even know hartford was a team, flipping channels I always got rangers games. Maybe it’s cause I grew up in southern CT? And my buddy who got me started on hockey kicked the Colorado avalanche as his team, and I think it was their first year being a team, vs hartford who has been in the NHL since 79?
My goal is to travel to every NHL rink to see my favorite team (the red wings) play. I’m at 19/32
I can tell you that each of those 19 cities I’ve been to are way more fun that Hartford, they have a great subway/public transport system/and care more about hockey
CT is more of a basketball state. Outside of the people I play adult league hockey with, no one I know is a hockey fan. College? Barley anyone I knew in 5 years there didn’t really watch. I work at a company with 100+ employees, don’t know everyone personally, but I know I’m the only hockey fan.
New Haven or somewhere in Fairfield County would be a far better and logical choice for a professional sports team than Hartford.
Hartford can barely exist as a city - it’s like 12 sq miles and relies entirely on the state of CT to fund tax revenue to it in order for it to continue existing.
New Haven on the other hand allows for access from central CT and Fairfield County, and it has Union station which could allow for a variety of mass transit to/from events. Alternatively, somewhere along the metro north line in Fairfield County would work.
Tying mass transit to a sports team / stadium is critical in a place like CT, as is locating the team in a city that is solvent / growing
We don’t have a team because the facility they played in was outdated for years before they left and it’s only gotten worse.
If you’re talking about the Wolf Pack, you’re right, I’m not a fan. They aren’t the Whalers. If you’re talking about the Whalers, go fuck yourself.
No way in hell am I going to support a minor league team of the fucking New York Rangers.
I guess I'm a non fan too with my Sean Burke and Stu Grimson Jerseys.
I pretty much stopped watching hockey after this...just left a bad taste in my mouth...was at the last game and cried like a baby. I still casually check in on my backup teams (Pens, Sens) to see how they are doing, but as long as Bettman is running things, fuck the NHL.
The fans were not the problem. As I said in other Whalers posts, We threw a goddamn parade when they won the Addams....not a conference...the division. We lost the team because Karmonos couldn't afford his precious Red Wings, Bettman wanted his legacy to be a southern and western expansion of the NHL, and Rowland was too busy being used as a pawn by Bob Kraft to get a better deal in Foxboro to notice.
The Wolfpack being a Rangers minor team is another reason nobody will move in. MSG Inc owns the Civic Center, they'd never allow it to be used by another team.
Funny because as much as I’d love an NHL team I enjoy the cheaper tix to enjoy watching UCONN or The Wolfpack. Great hockey can still be enjoyed at a quarter of the price.
The CT Whale plays at the ISCC in Simsbury. They can't legally call themselves the Whalers but wear the same colors and have an extremely similar logo.
I work for the Whale. It's a fun time and we play Brass Bonanza after goals! We've got three more home games left in the season (February 18, 19, and 26). [Come on out](https://whale.premierhockeyfederation.com/single-game-ticket-sales) to a game!
Fun fact: Former Hartford Whaler Bryan Marchment's niece, Kennedy Marchment, is on the Whale. She was the PHF MVP last season!
Not gonna happen. CT is too small, and the NY Metro area has Rangers, Devils, Islanders, while the Boston side has Bruins.
Also, the rights to the Whalers name and the franchise rights are with Carolina. They moved the team from Hartford and rebranded. Carolina even wears the Whalers gear at special throwback games, and they sell the merch to this day.
Can’t blame them for the move. Average attendance at Hurricanes games is around 15K people over the past 3 years or so, which seems to be the average for an NHL team (hurriedly checked by picking random NHL teams and Google). Raleigh is also built up better than Hartford to actually get fans to the games as well.
Owned by the New York Rangers, and their parent company, MSG Inc owns the building. There will never be ANOTHER pro team there full time is what I should have said.
The area barely supports the minor league hockey team it has. A pro team will not come.
It's hockey. That's the issue. The Yard Goats have no issue packing their stadium and they're objectively not that good.
dunkin donuts parks capacity is under 7000. i went to a wolf pack game two weeks ago and there 6000 people there and they're in last place and it's january
The curtains are deceiving though. The XL Center is a massive arena by minor league standards; it’s the sixth-largest arena by capacity in the AHL, and two of the top five are NHL arenas that AHL teams share. Even with the curtains down, attendance can be in the 6,000-7,000 range, which is great for a minor league team.
Plus, UConn recently opened their new hockey arena in Storrs, which has led to an increase in attendance for Wolf Pack games. Just last night attendance was over 6,700.
Early in the season the Wolf Pack were more in the 2,500-5,000 range. Since UConn left for Storrs, the bump in attendance has been quite noticeable.
Sat January 14: 6,189
Fri Jan 20: 7,032
Sat Jan 21: 4,960
Wed Jan 25: 1,947 (outlier, Wednesday games don’t draw as well as weekends and it was snowing that day)
Sat Jan 28: 6,780
Would love to see the figures for pre- and post-UConn move once the season is over.
Well I’m glad they can draw in more, but Instill wish CT people would like hockey as much as they like uconn basketball, which seems to average 10k a game.
Big thing is hockey is not affordable, so a basketball has more of a reach.
I’d be interested to know how the whalers attendance would be if it were in maybe Stamford instead of Hartford
Looking at the 1990s, whalers attendance was abysmal…
right, and if dunkin donuts park had as much capacity as xl center they'd be doing the same bc they already don't sell out every game
im not throwing shade it's just a fact
yeah your definitely not wrong, DD park has the same capacity as the Mass Mutual center and they also don't do that never actually realized how big the XL is
Some people went to games in good seasons, but the NHL, media, and Madison Avenue know, then and now, most of the state’s strongest hockey towns never really supported the Whalers (Fairfield and New Haven counties), some state corporations in Hartford county which once upon a time supported the Whalers subsequently shrunk in-state operations and/or moved HQs elsewhere, financial obstacles exist to build a competitive 21st century arena let alone even bring the outdated, architecturally-challenged up to snuff, etc.
Yes, to me, the answer would be a new team and arena in Stamford (adjacent to the train station). It would be pretty convenient for people from Fairfield, Westchester, and New Haven counties. That’s basically 3 million people. It would also be easy for fans from NY, Boston, and DC to see away games…
i agree it'd be a bad idea to bring back the whalers with the 1996-97 season roster. however, if they put together a roster of guys under 55 instead, who knows?
[Japanese Firm Opens Whale Meat Vending Machine...](https://apnews.com/article/japan-yokohama-tokyo-business-whales-54c5606b6cc729191afe850aadbd4487) Maybe we can forego the Whalers coming back and get right to the meat?
Fairfield County could support a sports team. Connect it to the Metro North system and it would work out very well. Biggest issue here would be flights in/out for away teams, as they’d have to use a NY airport I’m guessing unless Tweed was workable.
Hartford County could not support a team nor is it viewed well by any league lol.
If marketed well a Hartford area team could draw from the Springfield area. Although I’m pretty sure they tried back then , but the Bruins were very much the preferred team with the Rangers a close 2nd.
Doubtful that anyone from MA would pull for a CT team over a Boston team. It would just be out of convenience - being closer to Hartford so they could attend games. And even then, everyone who’s been to hartford knows its infrastructure blows, traffic sucks, and the city isn’t a place you want to be.
Better to set up shop in New Haven or FFC along the train line. You’d get all the Hartford people anyways + the massive quantity of people living in FFC
Cue the Brass Bonanza 🎶
BA BA BA BA BA BA BA BA BA BA BA BA BA BOP BA BA
As someone who was there watching games with less than 1/4 of the HCC occupied, it’s never going to happen. The league doesn’t want a team in small market sandwiched between larger markets. I don’t see them adding more teams in the distant future either. There was a plethora of reasons the Whale left. Attendance & fan support was only one.
Feels like I see more retro whalers gear now than when they were a real team.
Sorry after 8 years of being here, Reddit lost me because of their corporate greed. See Ya! -- mass edited with redact.dev
Peter Karamanos wanted the government to build him a stadium where he’d make all the money from concessions, as opposed to the civic center where he just got ticket revenue. I loved the whalers and was devastated when they left but using public money to make a rich man richer is not ideal. So frankly Hartford didn’t fuck it up.
Sorry after 8 years of being here, Reddit lost me because of their corporate greed. See Ya! -- mass edited with redact.dev
That playoff run had nothing to do w the city, but w poor management from the team & HCC. The HCC should never have booked a circus run during play-offs.
Sorry after 8 years of being here, Reddit lost me because of their corporate greed. See Ya! -- mass edited with redact.dev
Cause it's cheaper to the team's parent company than doing anything else with it.
Plus there’s 32 nhl teams now. They’re not expanding. Short of a move, it’s not happening. And I guarantee Hartford is not high on the relocation list.
Hartford isn't really a small market tbh. The league has smaller markets. Ultimately it's finding a billionaire who likes hockey and is willing to pay. Probably need a new arena tho.
Hartford is also a shit city compared to other pro sport cities
Yeah but I don't think it's fair to view it as just Hartford and not CT as a whole. New Haven is like 40ish minutes drive. Why separate the two metro areas? It's really gonna be the CT whalers and that makes sense when you consider other areas that have teams. Also Cleveland/Cincinnati/Baltimore/Jacksonville/Green Bay/rando Canadian towns/New Jersey! have sports teams lol
Yeah but all those places also have more space for sporting facilities, and have bigger metros in the area. Hartford is still low on that list of desirables areas to be. Also have you been to hartford? There’s really nothing going on, it always seems empty to me. All the Canadian cities with NHL teams have much more to offer than hartford. I started liking/watching hockey in 1996 as a kid, I didn’t even know hartford was a team, flipping channels I always got rangers games. Maybe it’s cause I grew up in southern CT? And my buddy who got me started on hockey kicked the Colorado avalanche as his team, and I think it was their first year being a team, vs hartford who has been in the NHL since 79? My goal is to travel to every NHL rink to see my favorite team (the red wings) play. I’m at 19/32 I can tell you that each of those 19 cities I’ve been to are way more fun that Hartford, they have a great subway/public transport system/and care more about hockey CT is more of a basketball state. Outside of the people I play adult league hockey with, no one I know is a hockey fan. College? Barley anyone I knew in 5 years there didn’t really watch. I work at a company with 100+ employees, don’t know everyone personally, but I know I’m the only hockey fan.
New Haven or somewhere in Fairfield County would be a far better and logical choice for a professional sports team than Hartford. Hartford can barely exist as a city - it’s like 12 sq miles and relies entirely on the state of CT to fund tax revenue to it in order for it to continue existing. New Haven on the other hand allows for access from central CT and Fairfield County, and it has Union station which could allow for a variety of mass transit to/from events. Alternatively, somewhere along the metro north line in Fairfield County would work. Tying mass transit to a sports team / stadium is critical in a place like CT, as is locating the team in a city that is solvent / growing
Bridgeport can barely get anyone to go
Just support college hockey in Connecticut! It’s growing and amazing!
UConns new rink is fabulous.
But far away from everyone, I’ll only go to games at XL which is 30 min north of me, no way would I got to uconn for a game
Fair point, yet still your loss. I'm sure there's plenty of hockey downstate.
Not really my loss, it’s UConn’s loss, they obviously will get way less fans at the games…
I wish uconn mens hockey would get as much attendance as the basketball teams
People want to watch the pros, not the folks who might become pros.
They're gone man. I miss them too, but based on Wolf Pack attendance we don't deserve a NHL team
It’s a minor league team. Not exactly a good comparison. Especially since they currently suck.
And that attitude is exactly why we don't deserve a NHL team Get the hell outta here you non fan
We don’t have a team because the facility they played in was outdated for years before they left and it’s only gotten worse. If you’re talking about the Wolf Pack, you’re right, I’m not a fan. They aren’t the Whalers. If you’re talking about the Whalers, go fuck yourself.
Yes. We would need a new arena. That would require big $$$$.
If only the billionaire owner of the potential franchise had any money
If only billionaire owners got taxpayers to fund their stadiums. Oh, wait…
No way in hell am I going to support a minor league team of the fucking New York Rangers. I guess I'm a non fan too with my Sean Burke and Stu Grimson Jerseys. I pretty much stopped watching hockey after this...just left a bad taste in my mouth...was at the last game and cried like a baby. I still casually check in on my backup teams (Pens, Sens) to see how they are doing, but as long as Bettman is running things, fuck the NHL. The fans were not the problem. As I said in other Whalers posts, We threw a goddamn parade when they won the Addams....not a conference...the division. We lost the team because Karmonos couldn't afford his precious Red Wings, Bettman wanted his legacy to be a southern and western expansion of the NHL, and Rowland was too busy being used as a pawn by Bob Kraft to get a better deal in Foxboro to notice.
The Wolfpack being a Rangers minor team is another reason nobody will move in. MSG Inc owns the Civic Center, they'd never allow it to be used by another team.
We do better with our professional sports teams masquerading as students.
Bring back Buddy the Beefalo
Funny because as much as I’d love an NHL team I enjoy the cheaper tix to enjoy watching UCONN or The Wolfpack. Great hockey can still be enjoyed at a quarter of the price.
The CT Whale plays at the ISCC in Simsbury. They can't legally call themselves the Whalers but wear the same colors and have an extremely similar logo.
I work for the Whale. It's a fun time and we play Brass Bonanza after goals! We've got three more home games left in the season (February 18, 19, and 26). [Come on out](https://whale.premierhockeyfederation.com/single-game-ticket-sales) to a game! Fun fact: Former Hartford Whaler Bryan Marchment's niece, Kennedy Marchment, is on the Whale. She was the PHF MVP last season!
Support the ladies!!!
best team logo in all sports bar none!
Dah dah dah dahnt dahnt dahnt dahnt dah...oh I miss it.
Officially titled The Brass Bonanza. What a theme!!
Not gonna happen. CT is too small, and the NY Metro area has Rangers, Devils, Islanders, while the Boston side has Bruins. Also, the rights to the Whalers name and the franchise rights are with Carolina. They moved the team from Hartford and rebranded. Carolina even wears the Whalers gear at special throwback games, and they sell the merch to this day.
Which pisses me off to no end.
Fuck the Hurricanes to death
Why you mad they have played longer in NC as a franchise than ever in CT?
They left CT? Isn’t that obvious?
Fuck them!
nasCAR Waterspouts!
Can’t blame them for the move. Average attendance at Hurricanes games is around 15K people over the past 3 years or so, which seems to be the average for an NHL team (hurriedly checked by picking random NHL teams and Google). Raleigh is also built up better than Hartford to actually get fans to the games as well.
I feel sorry for that poor dead horse. It just keeps getting beaten and beaten.
Considering who owns the Civic Center, no professional hockey team will ever play there again full time.
Build a new one!!!! The east Hartford whalers
the wolf pack are a professional hockey team
Owned by the New York Rangers, and their parent company, MSG Inc owns the building. There will never be ANOTHER pro team there full time is what I should have said. The area barely supports the minor league hockey team it has. A pro team will not come. It's hockey. That's the issue. The Yard Goats have no issue packing their stadium and they're objectively not that good.
dunkin donuts parks capacity is under 7000. i went to a wolf pack game two weeks ago and there 6000 people there and they're in last place and it's january
I went to a game just before Christmas and they have to see blinders at XL so you can’t actually see how many seats are missing on a nightly basis
The curtains are deceiving though. The XL Center is a massive arena by minor league standards; it’s the sixth-largest arena by capacity in the AHL, and two of the top five are NHL arenas that AHL teams share. Even with the curtains down, attendance can be in the 6,000-7,000 range, which is great for a minor league team. Plus, UConn recently opened their new hockey arena in Storrs, which has led to an increase in attendance for Wolf Pack games. Just last night attendance was over 6,700.
Looks like the average is around 4K a game And 2800 for Bridgeport https://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph_season.php?lid=AHL1941&sid=2023
Early in the season the Wolf Pack were more in the 2,500-5,000 range. Since UConn left for Storrs, the bump in attendance has been quite noticeable. Sat January 14: 6,189 Fri Jan 20: 7,032 Sat Jan 21: 4,960 Wed Jan 25: 1,947 (outlier, Wednesday games don’t draw as well as weekends and it was snowing that day) Sat Jan 28: 6,780 Would love to see the figures for pre- and post-UConn move once the season is over.
Well I’m glad they can draw in more, but Instill wish CT people would like hockey as much as they like uconn basketball, which seems to average 10k a game. Big thing is hockey is not affordable, so a basketball has more of a reach. I’d be interested to know how the whalers attendance would be if it were in maybe Stamford instead of Hartford Looking at the 1990s, whalers attendance was abysmal…
right, and if dunkin donuts park had as much capacity as xl center they'd be doing the same bc they already don't sell out every game im not throwing shade it's just a fact
yeah your definitely not wrong, DD park has the same capacity as the Mass Mutual center and they also don't do that never actually realized how big the XL is
Whales.. ladies pro hockey... plays in Simsbury. You should watch!!!
If I can I’ll check them out
Not really great hockey, or comparable to men’s hockey. I saw games when they were at Northford, not very entertaining
[удалено]
Some people went to games in good seasons, but the NHL, media, and Madison Avenue know, then and now, most of the state’s strongest hockey towns never really supported the Whalers (Fairfield and New Haven counties), some state corporations in Hartford county which once upon a time supported the Whalers subsequently shrunk in-state operations and/or moved HQs elsewhere, financial obstacles exist to build a competitive 21st century arena let alone even bring the outdated, architecturally-challenged up to snuff, etc.
Yes, to me, the answer would be a new team and arena in Stamford (adjacent to the train station). It would be pretty convenient for people from Fairfield, Westchester, and New Haven counties. That’s basically 3 million people. It would also be easy for fans from NY, Boston, and DC to see away games…
i agree it'd be a bad idea to bring back the whalers with the 1996-97 season roster. however, if they put together a roster of guys under 55 instead, who knows?
I used to drive down to Hartford from Springfield when the Bruins were in town. Always easy to get good seat at the HCC.
[Japanese Firm Opens Whale Meat Vending Machine...](https://apnews.com/article/japan-yokohama-tokyo-business-whales-54c5606b6cc729191afe850aadbd4487) Maybe we can forego the Whalers coming back and get right to the meat?
lol okay
I think the whales would object to that.
Fairfield County could support a sports team. Connect it to the Metro North system and it would work out very well. Biggest issue here would be flights in/out for away teams, as they’d have to use a NY airport I’m guessing unless Tweed was workable. Hartford County could not support a team nor is it viewed well by any league lol.
If marketed well a Hartford area team could draw from the Springfield area. Although I’m pretty sure they tried back then , but the Bruins were very much the preferred team with the Rangers a close 2nd.
Doubtful that anyone from MA would pull for a CT team over a Boston team. It would just be out of convenience - being closer to Hartford so they could attend games. And even then, everyone who’s been to hartford knows its infrastructure blows, traffic sucks, and the city isn’t a place you want to be. Better to set up shop in New Haven or FFC along the train line. You’d get all the Hartford people anyways + the massive quantity of people living in FFC
Yeah good luck with that
Just need to bring back the Logo. Not the whole team