All the talk started on March 18th when Rochester Americans radio play by play man Rob Sanderson tweeted about a four-way swap of AHL affiliates of the Avalanche, Coyotes, Jackets and Panthers…and then it all went away with occasional updates from Aaron Portzline to stoke the fire.
The idea went from rumor to likelihood yesterday afternoon with the Falcons announcing they’ll have a press conference today for a major announcement and then Portzline reported that the Dispatch learned that it will be made official that the Lake Erie Monsters will become the Jackets third AHL Affiliate in franchise history.
Now, what does this mean for the Jackets? It means the team can keep a much closer eye on its prospects and also have easier access to call them up to the big club quickly in case of injury. For those of you wondering what this will mean for Jared Bednar and his staff, all of them will move to Cleveland to lead the Monsters. Similarly, all the Blue Jackets prospects move as well as they are assets of the NHL club, not the Falcons and are “on loan” to Springfield.
As for fans, it appears the Monsters have no trouble drawing a crowd. They currently rank third in AHL attendance according to Sportsnetwork.com.It also means as far as keeping track of games…pretty much the same thing as the majority of AHL games are on Friday through Sunday nights. This will probably lead to at least a few road trips for your humble prospect guru along with adding a few more jerseys to the collection (I may have already bought a Monsters 75th anniversary Barons jersey at a Cavs game).
Speaking of logo/jerseys(those of you that follow me know this is important) I really don’t see them making any major changes other than getting rid of the Avalanche’s burgundy, but I’m not sure if you’d replace it with red or blue. Someone came up with this but…no.
Now if I may put my marketing department hat on, I think the Monsters would be smart to create a ticket packages for those home games when the CBJ are either on the road or off and no playing to try and get more fans into the seats. This move will make for another angle on all the news to keep an eye on this summer.
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