Atlanta to Winnipeg

It is all but official that the Thrashers will be moving from Atlanta to Winnipeg. The Thrashers organization is pretending that there is still a lot of negotiating left to do and potential to stay in Atlanta. Don't believe the hype, they are gone. Most hockey fans I know and the local media do not have an opinion, or seem to care, about this move. I believe that every hockey fan should care about this. Whether your opinion is positive or negative it does not matter. The reason being that the whole league will be affected by a team moving from the southeastern United States to western Canada.

I happen to think of this move in the negative. Not because of the fans in Atlanta losing "their" team. Who cares about them? If you do not go to games you will lose your team, that's the business end of sports. My two main reasons for being against the move are the effect on USA Hockey, and the loss of hockey jobs in America.

I consider myself a general hockey fan, more so than a Penguins fan. With that being the case I have a passion for USA hockey and its continued growth. The connection between the Atlanta Thrashers and USA hockey may be a little blurry, but its there. In the past 20 years the NHL has expanded from a couple warm climate teams to about ten. So in the last three years we have seen a lot of kids from California and Florida being taken in the draft. Including Beau Bennet the Pittsburgh Penguins 2010 1st round selection. Without an NHL team in Atlanta, less kids will begin playing ice hockey in Atlanta. Who knows the talent we could be missing out on? I understand Atlanta is far from a hockey hot bed, but they also have never had a winning team. Winning makes it easy for teams and fan bases to grow. They always had talented young players like Heatley, Kovalchuk, Hossa, and now Byfuglien. They just were one of the worst managed teams in the league that never got the proper players to play alongside their all-stars. I wonder how this situation would be different if they ever made one deep playoff run. Maybe we would have seen a first round pick from Georgia in 15 years.

On a more personal point of view this move takes away NHL jobs in the United States. As a person always looking for work in the sport industry, more specifically in hockey, it upsets me that a whole franchise worth of jobs just got shipped north of the border. I had friends that previously and currently worked for the Thrashers and now they're out of jobs. This may just seem like me complaining, but it is a real issue across the entire country. Not just in the sports industry, but during this recession every industry has been affected similarly.

Even if you do not care about USA hockey or the job market there is a big issue that will shake the entire NHL. Undoubtedly the Thrasher franchise will have to move to the Western Conference. With that move a Western Conference team will have to become and Eastern Conference team. That team will most likely be the Detroit Red Wings or Columbus Blue Jackets. When that happens the divisions must realign. There is no telling how the league will choose to setup the divisions after the move. That is why every NHL fan should be interested in this situation. Every team will be affected, including your favorite team. However, do not expect any divisional changes until the season after the move. That is just too much change too fast.