The NHL Is Out Of Their Gourd If They Try To Bring The Atlanta Thrashers Back, But At Least They'll Sell A Million Jerseys
"If at first you don't succeed, try again" - Wayne Gretzky.
There's not a single entity on this planet which loves to force something to work quite like the National Hockey League does. Whether it's hockey in Arizona or hockey in Atlanta, this league simply refuses to take a hint. Crowds don't show up and the teams constantly lose money and screw up escrow for the players? Gary Bettman don't give a shit, he's still going to keep forcing it to happen time and time again.
So if the Atlanta Flames didn't work out in 1972 and the team got shipped off to Calgary 8 years later? No big deal. Because just about 20 years later they could give it another shot with the Atlanta Thrashers.
If the Atlanta Thrashers didn't work out in 1999 and the team go shipped off to Winnipeg 12 years later? No big deal. Because it's starting to sound like the league has its sights set on bringing another team back to the Atlanta area sooner than later.
Live look at Gary Bettman every time hockey fails in Atlanta.
In the long-term, it only seems like it's destined to fail within the next 10 years whenever a new team from Atlanta enters the league. But in the short-term? Well there's definitely some money to be made. Because if the Thrashers truly come back, they might sell a million jerseys in the first week alone. I mean just look at these beauties.
The only way the Thrashers ever possibly work again is if you bring back these sweaters. If they bring back the "Thrashers" but it's some rebranded nonsense that looks nothing like this, well then you can just get ready for the team to move to Quebec City in 2040. But you bring back these exact uniforms and preferably find a way to de-age guys like Dany Heatley and Ilya Kovalchuk to throw them on the roster? Now you've got a good thing going. At least enough to buy you a few extra years before relocating again.
So from a hockey perspective, this sounds like it's destined for failure and yet another reason why the NHL should probably start looking into sending Gary into retirement. But from a gear perspective? Fuck yeah, bud. Sign me up for more Thrashers jerseys in the wild.
Sidenote: I'm currently writing this blog from the Houston airport. It's an absolute shit show at this place. So part of me has a terribly difficult time believing the "Houston Aeros" would ever become a successful franchise in the NHL.