The Calder Cup Finals pitted America’s oldest hockey team, the Hershey Bears, against the newest, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, in front of more than 10,000 fans last Tuesday night in Game 3.
It brought total attendance for the NHL’s Premier Development League playoff game to over half a million spectators, and it was the third consecutive game in the AHL Championship Series to be sold out. The nearly 90-year-old league set a new revenue record with that performance, which President and CEO Scott Howson believes is 15% to 20% higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Finally, business is thriving for the AHL again, three years after the playoffs were canceled and after two years of struggling through a shorter season with barely any spectators in the stands and few clubs choosing not to play at all.
Howson, who was picked to the position shortly before the pandemic began in February 2020 and succeeded veteran chairman David Andrews that summer, has given the NHL credit for helping them get through the days of empty slots and daily viral testing. From its last full season in 2018-19, AHL revenues are down 85% to 95%, and some teams have applied for federal aid.
According to Howson, some of the 32 teams, of which 21 are owned by NHL clubs and 11 are independent, have not fully recovered from the pandemic, but none of the teams are in danger of folding or ceasing operations, as was feared in all minor sports by this time three years ago.
“There are really no weak points,” Howson said. “Obviously some are doing better than others, some markets are better than others, but we’re really stable from an ownership standpoint and from a market standpoint.”
The AHL has recovered beautifully, as evidenced by the championship game between Coachella Valley and Hershey, which will continue to air on the NHL Network. Unlike the Bears, which are a central Pennsylvania tradition, the first-year Firebirds had to promote hockey in the California desert, 120 miles east of Los Angeles.
In fact, they had to do it twice. The Snowbirds made up a large portion of their fan base during the season, but when they left this spring, Coachella Valley changed its marketing strategy to attract locals, who subsequently embraced the team as they embarked on what could be a year-long tournament. Being.
Howson claimed that the Henderson Silver Knights, a team owned and operated by the newly-minted Stanley Cup-winning Vegas Golden Knights, and Coachella Valley, a team owned by the Seattle Kraken, had “raised everyone else’s bar” in terms of revenue producers. Given its history, heritage, and passionate fanbase, Hershey has been described as a model club that the AHL would dearly love to emulate in other cities.
Given the financial difficulties caused by the pandemic and their reluctance to play in crowded arenas, even for the Bears, the rebuilding process took time. Early playoff games in Hershey and Coachella Valley never sold out, but crowds have recently reappeared in droves.
“It’s a big job to get her back on track, but I really think she’s done it,” said John Walton, a Washington Capitals radio play-by-play announcer who spent nine years as the voice of the Hershey Bears. “You can look at what happened and say, ‘Hey, they’re back now.'” “
Missing the playoffs in 2020 and 2021, according to Walton, who had the opportunity to broadcast three Calder Cup Finals games before being called up to the NHL, is a challenge for AHL teams. To complete the 2021 season and avoid losing an entire year of development, players took 48% of their salary.
Larry Landon, executive director of the Professional Hockey Players Association, said Thursday, referring to the next round of collective bargaining talks. “It’s great to see hockey. I think the whole sport has bounced back.”
The NHL went from 30 to 32 teams in 2017, which was challenging and eliminated nearly 50 players from the skill set. However, the AHL continued to stick to its standards.
“There are a lot of positive things going on with the league we have now from a business standpoint, and I think it starts with hockey,” Howson said. “The entertainment value is really high, and that translates to business.”