The story was first brought to our attention by Tim Campbell of the Winnipeg Free Press who broke the news ‘Moose’s return to Winnipeg appears just days away‘ on March 7th.
The AHL Board of Governors have just announced that they have approved the relocation of the IceCaps to Winnipeg as of the 2015-16 season. The Montreal Canadiens will move their AHL franchise from Hamilton to St. John’s although as Brendan McCarthy of the Telegram reported today this too may just be temporary as it is thought that the Habs may try to relocate by 2017 to Laval. During the presser in St. John’s it was announced that while the team would be moving to Winnipeg the name of the franchise in St. John’s would remain IceCaps although the colour scheme will change.
The biggest question for fans here in this province is will they be called the Manitoba Moose once again? Ironic that the city could see the re-birth of two franchises that left (for different reasons of course) and then return under the same moniker they previously held.
Another question is whether the city, temporarily or not, can support two professional hockey teams? In our non-scientific poll 85% of our readers said they would support AHL hockey if it returned to Winnipeg. With the reality that fans could see the players that are drafted by the Jets organization as well as family friendly pricing I think it would do quite well in the city.
Jets GM Executive Vice-President & General Manager Kevin Cheveldayoff addressed the media about the move at 4:45 pm which you can listen to on here.
