Over a decade has passed since the Whalers headed south to Raleigh, leaving Connecticut with just an AHL tenant at the former Hartford Civic Center (also known as the Mall, the building now carries the bland title of the XL Center).But, with a couple of franchises apparently in some financial distress, Hartford's mayor is looking to see if he can bring the NHL back to the city with a new arena on the horizon.
Hartford's Mayor Eddie Perez headed down the Merritt Parkway to Manhattan to meet with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman Wednesday morning to talk about the possibility of landing a franchise with a new building in the city, and delivering in no uncertain terms the city would want to get in the running for a new - or more likely, a relocated - franchise.
Now, with today's tough financial climate, it's a tough sell to build a new arena, but the one blue chip Perez and new arena proponents will have is that the new building would house the state's most popular teams - the UConn Huskies men's and women's hoops squads - and that would be a strong driving force to try and get it built. And, with the limited dates of college basketball home schedules, it would be key for the city to land another tenant, and in this case, an NHL team.
So while teams like Phoenix, Nashville and the Islanders having murky futures in their current locales, there are a couple of cities looking to land squads. Kansas City is still looking for a tenant for the brand-new but unoccupied Sprint Center - and apparently booking one possible relocation candidate for an exhibition game next season, BlackBerry magnate Jim Basille wants a team for the Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario, either in Hamilton or Toronto, and Las Vegas is has backers to put a team in the desert. If you then toss Hartford into the mix, the NHL will be considering the perceived positives - and negatives - of another team in the Connecticut Valley.
The pluses certainly are the team's history in the city, as the team arrived from Boston in the mid-1970s as a World Hockey Association franchise and then joined the NHL in 1979, skating for nearly two decades at the Mall (with the exception of a stint up I-91 in Springfield, Mass. when the Civic Center roof collapsed under heavy snow in 1978) and was able to take advantage of the Whalers' status as the only pro sport in the state. The team peaked in 1986 with a strong playoff run, taking the eventual Stanley Cup champion Canadiens to seven games in the Adams Division Finals, even leading to a parade for the team advancing out of the first round.
Even after the franchise's departure from New England, the Whalers have developed a cult status among hockey fans who remember the team's quirky fight song in "Brass Bonanza" as well as a brush with "Pucky the Whale" and even sporting long pants with Cooperalls during the 1980s. And despite the NHL's embrace with "vintage" merchandise with other departed teams such as the Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets and Colorado Rockies, a dispute with the city of Hartford (which inherited the logos and wordmark when the team left) kept it from being available until recently.
In addition, the city offers the 30th-biggest U.S. television market, bigger than a pair of existing U.S.-based teams in Columbus and Buffalo, and also larger than possible relocation options in Kansas City and Las Vegas.
The problem the original Whalers had was that the team traded away franchise icon and Future Hall-of-Famer Ron Francis to Pittsburgh in 1991, a move that fueled the Penguins' back-to-back Stanley Cup wins in 1991 and 1992. The trade also was the beginning of the end as the team turned into what one Boston columnist referred to the Whale as the "Forever .500s." After struggling at the gate and owner Peter Karmanos sparring with then-governor John Rowland over constructing a new building for the team, the franchise moved south in 1997 to become the Hurricanes, leaving an AHL team in its wake at the Civic Center.
The city's location also is a bit tough for an NHL team, since the territory north and east of Hartford spills into Bruins country and the much-larger Boston market, and south and west among the New York teams, particularly the Rangers (currently the parent club of the AHL Wolf Pack). And, with the Whalers having already relocated, NHL owners would probably opt to put a team in a new city rather than one that failed - and unlike Kansas City, it's unclear if the proposed arena's new owners would have strong NHL ties.
However, for those fans that want to see the return of the Whalers to Hartford, Perez paying a visit to Bettman is a positive step, but it could be a while before "Brass Bonanza" ever returns to the city of Hartford.
