1979-1980
1980-1981
2010-2011
All thanks to some remarkably shitty owners. RIP Atlanta Thrashers, slowly and gruesomely murdered by Don Wadell, Patrik Stefan's flop (not this one), Steve Belkin, Dany Heatley's driving, the stupidest lockout in the history of sports, Kari Lehtonen's groin, 400 draft picks for 18 games of Keith Tkachuk, Ilya Kovalchuk's insane contract demands, Joe Johnson's dumb contract and the Atlanta Fecking Spirit Group.
Of course we are talking about Bettman's expansion-era trainwreck of a league here. It sure won't be long before one of the other half dozen floundering franchises takes a long hard look at an empty Philips Arena smack dab in the middle of a city with a population of over five million and decides to become the next
Of course shitty owners tend to migrate to new cities along with their ruined teams, unfortunately.
5 comments:
Wow, is ti finalized? I read they might be on the move, but I haven't heard anything more than that. It'd be nice to see another Canadian city in the standings again, but... I've gotten used to seeing Atlanta in there. Atlanta proved itself to be a major league sports city over the past decade IMHO... why would anyone really want to leave it for Winnipeg?!?
Here's a brief summary of this mess:
in 2004, the current owners, the Atlanta Spirit Group, wanted to buy the Atlanta Hawks but Time-Warner forced them to buy the Thrashers too if they wanted a basketball team. They never gave a crap about the hockey team and grossly neglected it while the owners (there's about 10 in the group) squabbled over a trade for Joe Johnson. Eventually they all started suing each other, and because the lawyers they hired were incompetent boobs, no one could sell the Thrashers until the lawsuits were all settled. So they all kept a' suin' and the Thrashers kept a' suckin'.
Now that the lawsuits are finally settled, the franchise is a complete disaster, the true fan base is furious because ownership sucks, the rest of the city doesn't care anymore and no local buyers want to take a risk on a ruined franchise in a shitty economy. The owners in the meantime are squarely placing the blame on the fans for not showing up to watch a crappy product and say they have no choice but to sell the team to Winnipeg, a plan that they have had in the works for YEARS but were delayed by the lawyers.
So now, the current owners don't want them, no one else in the city is stepping up to buy them, and Gary Bettman is a worthless piece of shit who is stuck in a quagmire in Phoenix trying to keep the Winnipeg Jets in the desert while one of his top TV markets is about to bolt behind his back.
Needless to say I'm done with the NHL.
Oh, and the deal is not technically finalized, but is more or less inevitable unless Jason Heyward gets an Alex Rodriguez type contract and decides he wants to own a hockey team with is buddy Tom Glavine. The whole situation is fucked.
Good riddance Atlanta Thrashers. A few more teams out of the south and back into the north and hockey will be where it should be.
And it's all up in the air, still.
Love having the Jets back but not as much as I love you throwing up the Porpoise Song video!
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