Albany River Rats to become Charlotte Checkers

[mscaniac]

Looks like we have River Rats no more as the Canes prospects will be re-locating to Charlotte and be re-named the Charlotte Checkers.
Linky here... (DG are you celebrating?)
hurricanes.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=517100&navid=DL|CAR|home

[Melindaaaaaa [26]]

This is what, their second move in the last handful of years? Is that normal?

[dewaltgirl]

It isn't abnormal for teams affiliations to change really, maybe not quite that often but not so weird.

I'm excited the kids will be closer. It will make it easier for the big club and it will help grow hockey in the Carolinas. Charlotte certainly deserves the bump up to the AHL but no, I'm not celebrating. LOL I could ignore the Checkers when they were the ECHL. Now that they're our kids? Not so much. *sigh*

[mslarose27]

I think there's been a team in Albany for a while, just not with our affiliation.

I'm excited the kids will be closer too. But ya know, we'll have quite a handful of new faces there too next year since quite a few of them will be up in Raleigh.

[Khabi Fan]

Living near Charlotte, I'm going to actually miss the ECHL Checkers. We've been going to their games for several years now and have enjoyed the team. We're going to miss the guys.

That said, we're looking forward to the AHL Checkers. It'll be closer to the level of the Canes than the ECHL team was, and we'll get to see some new opponent teams besides the Gwinnett Gladiators and Florida Everblades. I just hope the Bobcat Arena will allow them to play more home games than they did for the ECHL team.

[dewaltgirl]

Guess who is now a season ticket holder for the 2010/2011 Checkers?

[mslarose27]

I feel like I'm cheating if I answer. LOL

[mscaniac]

Mar 31, 2010 13:15:52 GMT -5 dewaltgirl said:

Guess who is now a season ticket holder for the 2010/2011 Checkers?

Hmmm.. I couldn't possibly venture a guess either..