New Boneyard Blog Article: The Legacy of the Hartford Whalers

[TheDoggPound]

A Hartford team would likely fall in the middle of the pack with ticket prices, we defiantly won't see Boston/New York prices except for those type of match-ups. ST's will be expensive but you have the opportunity to sell a few games off on the secondary market and recoup some of that $. And no, a Whalers team wouldn't siphon support away from UConn there's plenty of room in the marketplace.

 

[John]

A Hartford team would likely fall in the middle of the pack with ticket prices, we defiantly won't see Boston/New York prices except for those type of match-ups. ST's will be expensive but you have the opportunity to sell a few games off on the secondary market and recoup some of that $. And no, a Whalers team wouldn't siphon support away from UConn there's plenty of room in the marketplace.

what makes you think things will be different this time though with the half-empty Civic Centers of yore?

 

[TheDoggPound]

what makes you think things will be different this time though with the half-empty Civic Centers of yore?

Please refer back to post #13 that should answer 'yore' question.

 

[TheDoggPound]

If we're gonna knock attendance we at least have to look at the good with the bad. The Whalers outdrew the Bruins 4 times in their existence, had one of the highest ST bases at the time of their departure and generated the 3rd highest gross revenue in the entire NHL the 1987-1988 season.

Minus the lean years from 91-94 which skew the totals (Full disclosure: this time period included the fallout from the Francis/Samuelsson trade rated #3 worst trade in NHL history by THN, 3 GM's in 3 years and Pierre McGuire as coach) attendance always hovered at or above 12,000 and that's not some arbitrary artificial number that was padded like they are today for revenue sharing purposes.

Add to that 500,000 more people living in CT and the increased popularity in sports and the visibility of the Whalers it's safe to presume a team would do pretty well here once again.

 

[Adios]

http://www.hartfordfootballwhalers.com/

Horrible logo!

 

[Waquoit]

When the WHA merged with the NHL, the Whale was the crown jewel of the franchises. But the Bruins led the charge to make the merger terms as odious as possible. They were only allowed to protect two players.