Chicago way not right way

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By Craig DeVrieze | Saturday, May 24, 2008 6:49 PM CDT | () comments

IT is Memorial Day weekend, Quad-City Flames fans. Do you know where your hockey team is?

The short answer: It is spread all over Canada, enjoying Month Two of the offseason.

Meanwhile, 180 or so miles east of here, the Flames’ West Division rivals, the Chicago Wolves, are readying to pursue the fourth league championship of former Mallards boss John Anderson’s Windy City tenure.

If that is not the most welcome news in the Quad-Cities and other parts of the American Hockey League’s West Division, Flames fans might be interested to know where else Chicago’s AHL domination is somewhat less than warmly received.

Try Atlanta.

There, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently asked the question of how good the Chicago way — which amounts to taking liberal advantage of an AHL rule allowing deep-pocketed owner Donald Levin to stock up on one-way AHL contracts for past-their-NHL prime veterans — actually is for the development of Atlanta Thrashers prospects.

It’s a good question, particularly when you consider that, of the players who finished this season with a non-playoff bound Atlanta team, precisely two had spent a full season playing for the Thrashers AHL affiliate in Chicago.

This year, top defense prospect Boris Valabik got more ice time on call-ups to the NHL than he did playing behind a Chicago corps of 30-somethings who never will see the NHL again.

And Angelo Esposito, a first-round draft pick who was considered the key get in last winter’s Atlanta swap of perennial NHL All-Star Marian Hossa with Pittsburgh, recently was released from a Chicago contract he signed a few days earlier because the Wolves couldn’t find a way to get him on the ice in the postseason.

Instead, Chicago danced past Milwaukee in six games, Rockford in seven and Toronto in five en route to a date in the Calder Cup finals by enlisting savvy old-timers like Steve Martins, 36, Jason Krog, 32, and Joel Kwiatkowski, 31.

It only took a season for Q-C hockey fans to understand that is not way Calgary does its AHL business.

“That’s not the Calgary way — that’s the winning way,’’ Flames general manager Darryl Sutter notably declared in March of his franchise’s Triple-A focus on cultivating future NHL talent.

This, Sutter said, after calling himself satisfied with an inaugural Q-C Flames that was headed for sixth place in the division.

Clearly, then, he wasn’t talking about winning in the AHL.

“The American Hockey League is a developmental hockey league,’’ Sutter said. “Very simple. The teams that don’t look at it like that might have more older players, but those players aren’t NHL players.’’

Chicago, of course, is Exhibit A among teams “that don’t look at it like that.’’

The Wolves don’t even use Atlanta’s systems. Wolves owner Donald Levin also is known to charter flights for his Wolves while paying very serious cash to the key veterans who are keeping Thrashers prospects off the ice.

That’s the Chicago way.

Apparently, those two diverse approaches sit fine with AHL commissioner David Andrews and the league’s board of directors.

For the sake of Flames fans and Flames owners, Thrashers fans and actual competitive balance, perhaps they should reconsider that position.

Two ways of doing business in one league just doesn’t make sense.

Calgary is right to see the AHL as a development-first league, but Flames fans also have a right to expect a competitive outfit.

While it is true the Flames nipped the Wolves for the Western Conference title while playing in Omaha a year ago, Chicago’s perennial postseason success has exposed a flaw in the AHL business model.

It bears looking into, and not just by a big-city newspaper.

Craig DeVrieze can be contacted at (563) 333-2610 or cdevrieze@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com

More: The story on the Atlanta Thrashers' minor-league hockey system: http://www.ajc.com/thrashers/content/sports/thrashers/stories/2008/05/01/thrashers_0502.html