Tank: Oilers should repatriate U.S. farm team to Saskatoon

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The California condor has been threatened with extinction, but the possibility has been raised that a skate-wearing flock of the non-migratory birds could fly north.

Speculation was piqued this weekend on the potential relocation of the Bakersfield Condors, the farm team of the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers amid the suddenly turbulent relationship between the United States and Canada.

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Kurt Leavins, writing in the Cult of Hockey blog published on the Edmonton Journal website, suggested the hostility from President Donald Trump could mean it’s time to consider relocating the American Hockey League team from California and spending “all those considerable dollars in the U.S.”

Leavins cited “rabid hockey markets” like Kelowna, Red Deer and Saskatoon as possible candidates for the relocated Condors that would be able to “fill their building nightly.”

This seems like an inopportune time to argue the merits of Saskatchewan over California amid what feels like months of extreme cold warnings, but clearly Saskatoon offers more for a potentially relocated AHL team than any city in Western Canada without an NHL team.

At more than 300,000 people, the Paris of the Prairies is smaller than Bakersfield, a city of about 411,000. But Saskatoon’s current arena, SaskTel Centre, with seating for about 15,000, can accommodate twice as many fans as the arenas in Kelowna and Red Deer and thousands more than the one in Bakersfield.

Plus Saskatoon is planning a $1.2-billion downtown entertainment district anchored by a new arena. So a new high-profile tenant would be more than embraced, even though the WHL’s Saskatoon Blades would be far from thrilled.

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Beyond the newly testy relationship between Canada and America, no other NHL club’s farm team is located so far from its big-league counterpart — more than 2,800 kilometres separate Edmonton and Bakersfield.

Just 525 km separate Edmonton and Saskatoon or a five-hour drive or 90-minute flight.

The other Canadian NHL teams’ AHL minor-league clubs are located close by or play in the same city like Toronto, Winnipeg and Calgary. The Flames moved the Wranglers from Stockton, Calif., to Calgary three years ago.

It makes sense for teams to keep their minor league affiliate close. Yet Edmonton has never had its AHL team located near the NHL edition with previous clubs in Cape Breton, Hamilton and Springfield, Mass.

But perhaps the Oilers’ billionaire owner Daryl Katz would rather move the club to play in the same arena as his NHL team to maximize revenue.

Or maybe Katz would see value in the plan for a new downtown arena district in Saskatoon, which is attempting to replicate on a smaller scale the tremendous success of Edmonton’s Ice District.

It could only help the precarious plan for the Saskatoon district — which depends on $400 million each from the federal and provincial governments — to have a billionaire with a vested interest in its success.

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Katz might see potential and invest in the project, which bears a close resemblance to the Ice District in its ambition for downtown development. Saskatoon city hall bureaucrats consulted Ice District officials in concocting the plan and its complex funding formula.

As for attendance, there are no guarantees, but Saskatoon has proven itself a strong supporter of sports. Nobody predicted sellouts for the Saskatchewan Rush in a city with little history of lacrosse, but fans came out in droves, although the initial enthusiasm faded.

Saskatoon also packed the arena for WHL games featuring phenom Connor Bedard when he played for the rival Regina Pats.

Another team could affect attendance for the Rush and the Blades and complicate scheduling, but Calgary’s Saddledome accommodates NHL, AHL and WHL hockey teams and the National Lacrosse League’s Roughnecks.

Relocating the Oilers farm team to Edmonton could be considered the safer move with fans of the team already there, but Saskatoon would represent an opportunity to widen support.

And that fits the prevailing mood of the country right now to expand opportunities and growth within Canada with less dependence on our erratic American neighbour.

Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.

ptank@postmedia.com

twitter.com/thinktankSK

@thinktanksk.bsky.social

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