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OHL's Plymouth Whalers acknowledge 'identifying available and viable markets'
In all honesty, neither landing spot that the Plymouth Whalers have been linked to this week — not Chatham, Ont., nor Flint, Michigan — is an absolute slam dunk that would strengthen the footprint of the Ontario Hockey League in the all-important U.S. recruiting wars.
There is only so much a team can do once various loose threads — owner Peter Karmanos might divest himself of the team's home arena by selling it to the USA Hockey Foundation, subject to "due diligence"; Chatham city councillors are taking a meeting an unnamed OHL team; new owners of Flint's arena are seeking a high-end junior franchise but not necessarily in the OHL — get interwoven into a game of telephone that breaks out over Twitter. There is a lot of grey area with the story. On Friday, Plymouth governor Mike Vellucci issued a statement that addressed all of that, even if it was kind of opaque.
Here is it is, in its entirety:
“The arena transaction is still in its early stages and therefore it is too soon to speculate if the Whalers will be relocating in the future or about any potential relocation cities. Currently we are in the stage of simply identifying available and viable markets should we need to relocate the Whalers in the future.
“As part of the process, we intend to explore all options and work with the Ontario Hockey League, which will be required to approve any potential relocation.
“Make no mistake, (Plymouth Whalers owner) Peter Karmanos, who for the last 30 years has been one of junior hockey’s strongest supporters, remains committed to the Whalers’ organization.” (team release)
The big takeaway is the honest disclosure about "identifying available and viable markets should we need to relocate the Whalers in the future." It is not a nothing-to-see-here outright denial; no one is naive about the challenge of selling the OHL in the Detroit area. It is also far from the non-denial denial, too.
Something will have to be done; it's never been ruled out that the U.S. national team development program and the Whalers could share space temporarily. It wouldn't be ideal to do that for more than one season.
Chatham has "no commitment" to build an OHL-sized arena and, as the local Daily News reported, it might not even serve that community's best interests relative to building a multi-pad arena. So that might be a red herring, but things can change. St. Catharines, Ont., eventually came around on building an OHL arena.
Please excuse the speaking in generalities, moving a team isn't a snap decision and can sometimes take a while to put into place. The North Bay Battalion's move from Brampton was coordinated over more than a span of one year.
One should have some empathy for everyone connected to the Plymouth situation. It cannot be easy.
Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.
