The AHL season isn’t even over yet and we have some shuffling amongst AHL teams for next season.
If you weren’t already aware – the Adirondack Phantoms were set to move over to Allentown, Pennsylvania where they would play under the banner of the Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
Now that their old barn is free the Calgary Flames have finally managed to get the heck on out of Abbotsford and right in where Adirondack left off. With the AHL Spring Meeting taking place in Chicago earlier in the day – it was announced today that the move will be official and the Abbotsford Heat will be moving over to Glens Falls, New York. No official team name has been announced as of yet.
Abbotsford has been among the lowest of the low as far as attendance is concerned in the AHL. This past season they saw an average of 3,007 fans which put them second to only the Portland Pirates (2,185 average attendance) for the lowest in the league. Compare that to the team/location they’ll be moving into, Adirondack, who sported an average of 4,192 fans. That may have still been at the cliff of the bottom ten in AHL attendance this past season -but- it is a massive improvement as far as Abbotsford is concerned.
With no more Abbotsford Heat to speak of, sob – cry – tear, let’s look back on the most classic of classic moments in Heat history.
What do you think about this move for the Calgary Flames organization? What do you think their new affiliate should be called? If this causes a shuffle in the Conferences – who is most likely to shift to the West in their place?
Admirals Roundtable 
Its a dumb move for a team to go into a city that wasn’t really backing the team that just left cause its whole metro area is smaller than Kenosha county! The ahl keeps ober saturating the east and slowly killing the west. Whose gonna get pushed into the “west” now? Hershey WBS? Who ever it is will receive the Rochester or Utica treatment two mandatory games vs true weat teams and the rest vs east. My solution while it may piss off lots of fans several teams but take all the western teams in the ECHL, make them AHL and take the bottom 8 attendance ahl east teams and sorry make them echl teams staying true to the East Coast part in East Coast Hockey League. Don’t worry the Glenn Falls Flames will be doused and relocated to some other Waterford sized east coast team before you know it.
Geez i should really proof read and maybe I’d see my fat fingers hit B instead of a V and A instead of S…. oh well tired and probably no one cares
I’m interested to see what Vancouver does… Utica could be 1 and done! I remember the summer before Abbotsford starter their first season. The Mrs. and I were vacationing in Mexico and we met a family from Abbotsford. We chatted a bit about hockey and I made mention of stupid it was for The Flames to put their AHL team so close to Vancouver… Looks like he was correct!
dammit…. I have the same fat finger syndrome as Jon! replace “starter” with “started” and the “I made mention…” should read “He made mention…”