Saturday night at the Fidelity Bank Worcester Ice Center, the Railers hosted an event where they announced they had a new NHL affiliate, and it’s a familiar name to Worcester hockey: the St. Louis Blues have once again become a major part of hockey in the city, returning after a 21-year absence.
While the Blues’ name is the same as the one that sold off the beloved IceCats and saw the franchise move to Peoria, Illinois, for the 2005-06 season, the ownership group and hockey operations are completely different. So while there might be a few who still hold a grudge against the NHL team, most will see the Railers teaming up with the Blues as nothing but a positive after the less-than-ideal partnership Worcester had with the Lamoriellos and New York Islanders.
Partnering with St. Louis also brings our old friends from Springfield into our organizational family. In the AHL, it was an odd rivalry between the IceCats/WorSharks and the Falcons, where the teams hated each other on the ice, but off the ice, at least in the IceCats years, the organizations worked well together.
In one of the classiest things, on March 4, 2000, the IceCats, completely unannounced, had a ceremony where IceCats players individually presented an IceCats special third jersey to the immediate family members of the W6 firefighters who lost their lives in the Cold Storage Fire. The jerseys were adorned with the same “WFD” patch the IceCats had worn since the December 3rd tragedy. Each was also embossed with the firefighters’ names and the number “6” in honor of the six fallen heroes. The opponent that night was the Falcons, who, upon hearing about the pregame event, decided to head out of their dressing room and stand at the visitors’ bench in support of the families.
Even though the Falcons are long gone, replaced by the Thunderbirds, the same thing that connected Springfield and Worcester in hockey remains, which is a commitment to community.
While the Islanders organization and the Railers had no joint marketing efforts, that will likely not be the case with Worcester and Springfield, as there will be greater opportunities with both franchises being under an hour apart, and sharing parts of each other’s market. Fans will probably see ticket packages created by each team focusing on dates where the other is on the road or is off for the night, plus other potential enticements to travel between the cities.
Despite all that, what fans in Worcester really care about is the hockey relationship between the Blues organization and the city, and the type of players that will be sent our way. Currently, the Florida Everblades have several Thunderbirds contracted players on the roster, including goaltender Cam Johnson, defender Zach Berzolla, and forwards Kyle Betts, Tarun Fizer, Jett Jones, Kyle Penney, and Anthony Romano. Blues draft picks Quinton Burns and Nikita Susuyev also saw action in Florida this season.
Contrast that with what the Railers have usually gotten from the Islanders, and if the Blues/Thunderbirds continue to support their ECHL affiliate the way they did in Florida, Worcester should see an exciting team next season.
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