User blog:BJFRacing14/IHA Commish: We may be getting too far ahead of ourselves

Upon hearing the reports from various sources of how the International Hockey League is feeling pressured by the overwhelming popularity of the Intercontinental Hockey Association, IHA commisioner Corey Stack was very open and on point.

"I think we have the best the IHA offers, but let's get to reality. I think we may be getting too far ahead of ourselves and we hear the concerns of IHL commisioner's office about a lot of things that they feel are not allowing them to succeed as much as we are. I think if we can get other arenas for some of our 60 teams that currently share arena space with IHL and NHL teams, that will help free up the congestion issues. We have several of our teams sharing arenas in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, Houston, Baltimore and Portland as named in that report. Scheduling I believe has been a big factor as well. Namely the Las Vegas Thunder have had troubles getting in to T-Mobile Arena to play their games because of our Scarlet Trojans and NHL's Golden Knights. I've looked around for a more IHA exclusive arena in Henderson which is north of downtown Las Vegas where we can have IHA games for the Scarlet Trojans without interfering with the Thunder and Golden Knights. It appears that a new arena is there for the Scarlet Trojans to occupy by the beginning of this upcoming season."

Stack comments on the Thunder situation:

"We can see why they're frustrated with what's been going on. I'm sad they're moving out of the Las Vegas market along with the Baltimore Bandits. I feel bad for these two franchises. I don't think we came to these sites to intentionally dry them up, and we're so sorry if they feel that's been the case."

This means that the IHA has to now seriously look at other alternate sites to prevent future IHL teams from being forced to move away from their current sites as Las Vegas and Baltimore have to move the Thunder and Bandits to other sites.

For IHL's Chicago team, the IHA is proposing to move the Windbreakers to nearby Comiskey Arena which sits on the site of the old baseball stadium lot that hosted Chicago White Sox games and early Chicago Cardinals (now known as the Arizona Cardinals) National Football League games which will also be completed by the beginning of the 2018-19 season. By having Seattle go to RangerDome and Chicago to Comiskey Arena, it will allow the IHL Seattle Ice Dogs to occupy KeyArena and the Chicago Flames to occupy United Center. Portland's IHA Suns and IHL Pirates share Memorial Stadium. IHA has made recommendations for the Suns to move out of Memorial Stadium to nearby Moda Center where the NBA's Portland Traiblazers occupy and allow room for the Pirates to stay at Memorial Stadium. Kansas City has two teams sharing Kemper Arena. IHA made one last recommendation to move the IHA Comets to nearby Sprint Center to clear space for the IHL Blades to play at Kemper Arena. Las Vegas will move the Scarlet Trojans to nearby Allegiant Airlines Center in Henderson, north of downtown Las Vegas.

The owners of the Windbreakers, Rangers, Scarlet Trojans and Suns  have thirty days to file for relocation and IHA and the owners of RangerDome, Comiskey Arena, Sprint Center and Allegiant Airlines Center has seven days to confirm the relocation and approve the measures.

Says Commisioner Stack: "We do acknowledge the major inconveniences of moving franchises to other locations throughout our sanctioning body, but in fairness to Mr. Bill Lawrence of IHL, Mr. William Hancock of the future Tulsa Thunder and Mr. Kevin Joiner of the future Charlotte Bandits, Mr. James Prock of the Seattle Rangers, Mr. John Jenkins of the Chicago WIndbreakers, Mr. Steven A. Louden of the Portland Suns and Mr. Christian M. Slater of the Kansas City Comets, ii is what we must do. We must move our four well known franchises out of the congested arenas where these issues occurred. Otherwise, other IHL teams may be forced to move in the same way Las Vegas and Baltimore are having to do and that was our fault for not having done our due dilligence. That's inexcusable and I will not allow that to happen again."