As I vainly tried to find a reason to root for, rather than against, one of
Sunday's Super Bowl teams, I finally latched onto a couple justifications for
tepid support of Tampa Bay -- 1) I still consider the Bucs to be an NFC Central
team, so their ultimate victory would reflect well on the Packers; and 2) What
else do people in Tampa have to root for?
Explaining my stance to fellow members of the Super Bowl gathering, someone said, "What about the Devil Rays?", further illustrating my point.
"And the Lightning," I added.
"Who's that?" came the response.
Well, the Tampa Bay Lightning, in fact, are currently the second-best team in the National Hockey League's Southeast Division. Atlanta, Florida and Carolina also play in the NHL Southeast, along with the more established Washington Capitals.
After various witticisms regarding the Lightning's right to exist, we arrived at the following question: Why does Tampa have an NHL franchise but not Milwaukee? And the same could be asked of Miami, Phoenix, Atlanta, Nashville and even Anaheim, towns whose respective Super Bowl parties were likely lacking requisite thermal underwear, wool scarves and chili recipes.
Should Milwaukee have an NHL franchise? Would the city support one? Does anyone really care?
As Gregg Hoffmann pointed out in his most recent article, Milwaukee is already considered to be at the saturation point when it comes to pro sports team. He cited a recent Street & Smith's SportsBusiness Journal report that listed Milwaukee as the sixth-most "over extended" sports market in America -- meaning, in short, that we already have too many teams and not enough cash to support them.
The NHL question also came amid the recent shuffling in the city's professional outdoor soccer scene. The A-League champion Rampage folded earlier this month under financial duress, but Milwaukee Wave (of the MISL) owner Tim Krause picked up the slack with a new entry in the A-league (the top league below Major League Soccer); the "Wave United" will open play this May.
Of course, the city already has a professional hockey franchise, the American Hockey League's Admirals. The Admirals serve as the top minor-league affiliate of the Nashville Predators and play at the Bradley Center. But the team is averaging fewer than 5,000 fans per home game this season (4,860) and has little cachet in the community.
To wit: name the Admirals head coach. No, it's not Phil Whitliff -- it's Peter Horachek, former minor-league right wing with the Rochester Americans and the Flint Generals, among others.
The Admirals have been around for awhile. They started out in 1970 as an independent minor league team before participating in the USHL from '73-77; Whitliff starred on these teams, scoring 341 points. From there, they were stalwart members of the old International Hockey League, a small, Midwestern grouping of 8-10 teams with names like the Fort Wayne Komets and Muskegon Lumberjacks. Game summaries were usually good for a couple of inches on page 5 of the old Milwaukee Sentinel sports section. {INSERT_RELATED}
As hockey's minor leagues merged and served to act as more of a traditional farm system for the NHL, the Admirals joined the AHL in 2001.
The team has always had a core group of fans, but it's never been much of a story in southeastern Wisconsin (or anywhere else). The Admirals have never won any type of league title in their 30-plus years, and the lack of consistent (or any) local TV coverage has left them largely a mystery to even area hockey fans.
It doesn't really seem to follow, however, that Detroit, Minneapolis, St. Louis and Chicago would all be solid hockey towns, but not Milwaukee. History may have ultimately conspired against Milwaukee folks like the Pettits (original owners of the Admirals), who tried to get an NHL franchise in town around the time they were saving the Bucks by building the Bradley Center. Without an NHL franchise to hearken back on, a groundswell of support for a new one cannot emerge. Without the Braves, would Bud Selig have made attaining the Seattle Pilots for Milwaukee his life's ambition?
Should Milwaukee be considered for an NHL franchise, either via expansion or relocation? Are two "big league" teams already enough for this burg?
Probably so. While the Bucks were recently put up for sale and there has been an outcry about upgrading the Bradley Center, the city can undoubtedly support both the NBA and MLB's Brewers. It would help, however, if either or both started winning consistently.
Minor-league franchises in both soccer and hockey are probably sufficient, though, even if Milwaukee would seem to be a better fit for a relocating or expansion NHL franchise instead of another Sun Belt city.
Still, the Admirals' average attendance of less than 5,000 doesn't exactly cry out for a bigger, better and more expensive product. Buffalo and Ottawa, two more traditional hockey towns, are currently in danger of going bankrupt. And while it's hardly a powerhouse league, the city couldn't even maintain its hold on the Arena Football League's Milwaukee Mustangs.
Despite the SBJ report, Milwaukee is still a good sports town. The PGA and CART regularly make stops here, the NBA, MLB and NFL (by extension) are all long familiar, and hockey and soccer fans have solid outlets for their support. Any over-saturation would quickly be wiped up by the answer to all of life's sporting problems: winning.
Sports shots columnist Tim Gutowski was born in a hospital in West Allis and his sporting heart never really left. He grew up in a tiny town 30 miles west of the city named Genesee and was in attendance at County Stadium the day the Brewers clinched the 1981 second-half AL East crown. I bet you can't say that.
Though Tim moved away from Wisconsin (to Iowa and eventually the suburbs of Chicago) as a 10-year-old, he eventually found his way back to Milwaukee. He remembers fondly the pre-Web days of listenting to static-filled Brewers games on AM 620 and crying after repeated Bears' victories over the Packers.
