apparently a new outdoor minor-league NPSL team is moving from Galveston to Houston...welcome Hurricane http://internationalsoccernetwork.com/blog/?p=5166
Nah I highly doubt that will be the logo. They probably just put that there in relation to the owner being a Celtic fan....I hope....cause the actual Houston Hurricanes logo was a friggin hurricane. Anyway, it's always awesome seeing Houston's footie market grow. I'm back out here in the Golden Triangle(hometown area) and went to a Texas Strikers match in Beaumont. It was quite fun, decent team but they have a ways to go.
How about them Rockets last night liking how they are clicking so far looks like P Pat could be starting from the bench when he comes back.
Jeremy Lin is picking up momentum. Hopefully it keeps up. Being the youngest team in the league means we won't make it to the conference finals though
So far I believe we can at least make the playoffs from the 5th spot down, the top 4 don't look to be changing any time especially the way the Clippers have started. Well depends on how ref assist affects during some games coming up.
So our Dynamo head coach is Glasgow Celtic supporter and now that Keyes has "relocated" Galveston Pirates to Houston proper and taken a f'n 3rd incarnation of our old NASL team...oh boy I can't wait to stand with a couple other dozen folks wondering where the rest of the Houston soccer faithful are on a Saturday night. Caddman, MLSNHOUSTON n me log off right about now. Can I just love my Dynamo now. The 1836 crossover was difficult enough. I got my team Keyes. Good luck though.
http://thethirdintermission.blogspot.com/2012/05/things-that-make-you-go-hmmmmmmm.html Start getting nervous...
I'm guessing Reliant Arena (formerly known as The Astroarena), The Berry Center (Cypress, TX), or The Merrell Center (Katy, TX) will be the options if they can't play at Toyota Center before the 2013-14 season.
Reliant Arena does not have ice-making mechanisms. Berry Center was a suggestion I threw at redinthemorning but there are problems with Merrell and Berry. 1) Can an ice rink be placed and will it be cost efficient? 2) How badly will this affect attendance? 3) Would the Wild even look at these options if they get an offer from another city?
Reliant Arena I believe does NOT have icemaking capabilities, but they do host Disney on Ice at Reliant Stadium so they have some icemaking equipment, just don't know if it is up to NHL standard (figure skating generally is on thicker ice). San Antonio had an AHL team that played at the Alamodome for a few years back in the mid-90s. I have a feeling like you that this is the Aeros last year in Houston. I know their lease costs are sort of high at Toyota Center compared to other AHL teams and the lease is restrictive on other terms and they get second pick on dates to the Rockets. The attendance is not bad for the AHL, but there have been rumors for years that the Wild (which owns the team) wants to move it closer to Minnesota for call-up travel and marketing reasons (although the travel argument is sort of lame, you can get from Houston to most cities easier than Sioux Falls or Des Moines). The feeling seems to be that Les Alexander thinks he can better use those dates on other events with better terms and not have to mess with having an ice surface to maintain. Which all sounds fine and good until you look at the Toyota Center calendar and see that outside of the Rockets, Aeros, WWE, and a few concerts, they don't host that many other events. Many of the normal touring events that used to go to The Summit or even the Toyota Center years ago now goes to Reliant Stadium or Reliant Arena like the circus or the Globetrotters or the Disney ice and stage shows. Even the Comets left Toyota Center after Les sold the team! I can only think that the Toyota Center rental rates are so high and terms restrictive that those events bypass Les. So I'm not sure where he thinks he's going to make up the revenue from missing 41 Aeros games. But the reality is that outside of Toyota Center, Houston has no ready-made hockey venue. I can't believe it would be cost effective for Merrill or Berry Center to put in icemaking equipment, not to mention they may not even have the dimensions to fit an NHL-size rink in those places without significant modifications. Reliant Arena did have the Hotshots for a year or two so they can fit a rink in there.
Do you attend many Aeros' games, Westie? Do you own a Dynamo jersey that has 1836 on the back? If that was you, I was the moron that yelled out 1836 after an Aeros game one time. lol I guess you never know what may happen. Maybe the amount of money it costs to get ice-making equipment into Reliant Arena may in the longrun save them the insane amount of money that Toyota Center commands. I wouldn't move to Berry Center even if possible, since the attendance would go down drastically. Reliant Arena is the only option I'll see the Wild looking at before making the move.
I don't make it there as often as I did when they played at The Summit, which also was before marriage, kids and all the serious stuff in life. I think I haven't gone in about two years now. The old IHL Aeros were more fun IMO, even if it wasn't the NHL prospects that the AHL Aeros play with now. That's the old guy in me thinking about how good the old days were (but seriously, the old IHL had a lot of grizzled veterans that were AAAA players and there were some serious brawlers in that league and some wild games). There is a market for hockey in Houston and I'd actually postulate that an NHL team would draw excellent and better than an AHL team, because the same people that go drink at the club bar the entire Rockets game would buy tix for an NHL team and do the same thing. But Les has a hammerlock on the NHL at Toyota Center thru his lease/development agreement (in theory a separate owner could own a team but wouldn't make much money since they would be a renter only). And I wouldn't want him to own the team since it would be purely to fill dates. Who knows how the negotiations are going. I could see the Wild wanting to do a one-year extension just to buy time to find a city to relocate the team to. You can sort of tell that the Wild run this as a cost center for their minor-league operation and not as much of a stand-alone team like the old Aeros owners did. Minimal marketing, no TV games, kind of just doing the minimum to get by. Last time I went to an Aerodrome it was looking dated and worn. Reliant Arena may not even be a viable option even if you could make the numbers work with the cost to put in icemaking equipment. You'd have date restrictions around other Reliant events and you'd probably be on the road for a month in February/March around the rodeo. It'd suck to lose the team, hope they can pull it together to keep it here.
The facility in Sioux Falls would open in February 2014. That means that unless they pull a Dynamo/SKC and have shitloads of road games, that won't be plausible. They'll need that one more year before the move. They could probably find a temporary home over there, though, for a few months. I guess, I'm being a hardcore pessimist and I see the Aeros leaving us either this season or next. I just hope we keep the naming rights since we have history.
They could find another city for a stopgap year. I don't think you could feasibly have an AHL team play more than a month or 6 weeks on the road. There are numerous cities that have lost AHL teams in the last 10 years that would host them for a year to fill some arena dates. I haven't looked at it recently, but usually a few teams a year move in the AHL. I know that the Rangers deal with the Hartford arena is up at the end of the year. Des Moines had a team for a year or two. Same with Omaha. Probably just comes down purely to Toyota Center lease options.
Can we all agree that AEG made the correct decision in deciding not to allow Alexander to purchase our team?
I was being facetious when it came to the road game scenario. Yes, that would've been a ********ing mistake. I prefer AEG over Les.
That's my view as well. There is this notion that Les is a "winner" as an owner, but the Rockets went 13 years I think without winning a playoff series, while charging some of the highest ticket prices in the NBA and now moving their games to a channel no one outside of Comcast gets because they want obscene rates. Les is a winner at the game of wealth.
I like our situation as a team. As long as we keep making deep playoff runs and having a decent team on the field I don't care if we don't get a "big name" DP. The only reason that people complain about AEG is because they clearly chose a favorite and it wasn't us. If we had another owner and still achieved this much; I doubt there would be bitching.
i'm still confused though.. AEG is for sale yet AEG said we love the dynamo and we are keeping them for the long run... .. as in til AEG gets sold? Do AEG heads change when AEG gets a new owner? Tim L and them?
I'm thinking that this might not be an officially licensed product. http://www.nflcheapnow.com/houston+texans+heart+soul+orange+t+shirt-p-21470.html
I'll bet it is licensed. They have the NFL logo all over their website. The League would be jumping down their throat if they weren't paying the license fee.