How I will do Central and American Hockey League coverage

American Hockey League

After some ideas on how to do AHL and CHL coverage with their schedule's close to coming out. I have made my mind on how I will do it.

First with the American Hockey League, Since theirs only 3 teams from the southwest, I will cover the Texas Stars, the Houston Aeros and the San Antonio Rampage a lot more then the CHL Teams. First for obvious reasons, they much bigger leagues with players hoping to get a shot in the NHL and the coverage being easier to find and they also in bigger markets. In addition to the rest of the league, I will go more in depth for the rest of the AHL when it comes down big stories that break and keeping up with stats leaders (ESP. the top scores and Goaltenders, plus league standings.) The AHL plays an 80 game schedule with most of the games playing within your division with some games against your division within the Western and Eastern Conference.

Since theirs only 3 teams in the Southwest U.S.A., I will be able to give you the team news all at once allowing more time for coverage of the rest of the league. The 80 schedule for the American Hockey League 2009-2010 season is expected to be out during the first week of August.

In case you haven't seen the division alignment for the 2009-2010 season. Here it is again.

Eastern Conference:

Atlantic Division
Bridgeport Sound Tigers
Hartford Wolfpack
Lowell Devils
Manchester Monarchs
Portland Pirates
Providence Bruins
Springfield Falcons
Worcester Sharks

East Division
Adirondack Phantoms
Albany River Rats
Binghamton Senators
Hershey Bears
Norfolk Admirals
Syracuse Crunch
W-B/Scranton Penguins

Western Conference

North Division
Abbotsford Heat
Grand Rapids Griffins
Hamilton Bulldogs
Lake Erie Monsters
Manitoba Moose
Rocester Americans
Toronto Marlies

West Division
Chicago Wolves
Houston Aeros
Milwaukee Admirals
Peoria Rivermen
Rockford Ice Hogs
San Antonio Rampage
Texas Stars

Central Hockey League

As for the CHL, I will cover the league in 2 parts. It will be divided into the North and South Zones due to the high number of teams in the region. For the North Zone, it will be the 2 D/FW Teams in the defending CHL Presidents Cup Champions Texas Brahmas and the expansion Allen Americans, in addition, it will also include the Tulsa Oilers and the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs which play in the league's Northern Conference. As for the South Zone, it will be the other 5 teams in the Lone Star State, the 3 teams down south in the Corpus Christi Icerayz, the Laredo Bucks and the Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees. Also the 2 west Texas teams as the Odessa Jackalopes and the Amarillo Gorillas. I will take turns covering the leagues (Mostly weekly) during the regular season then a lot more during the playoffs depending who gets in and how far they may go.

As for the league schedule, it's a 64 game schedule that's expected to come out some time this week as the season usually gets underway sometime in mid October and is usually one of the last pro hockey leagues to start it's season in North America. The biggest change this year is that the Divisions are gone, it's just going to be straight Northern and Southern Conferences.

Here's the Conference Alignment for the 2009-2010 season in case you haven't seen it yet.

Northern Conference
Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs
Colorado Eagles
Mississippi Riverkings
Missouri Mavericks
Rapid City Rush
Tulsa Oilers
Wichita Thunder

Southern Conference
Allen Americans
Amarillo Gorillas
Arizona Sundogs
Corpus Christi Icerayz
Laredo Bucks
Odessa Jackalopes
Rio Grande Valley Killer Bees
Texas Brahmas

The American Hockey League (AHL) coming to Oklahoma City?

Theirs been rumors over the last couple of weeks that the Edmonton Oilers may consider moving their AHL Franchise which is currently in Springfield, Massachusetts called the Falcons may consider moving their team. Right now, the Falcons team are down to the final year of their agreement with the city of Springfield with the Mass Mutual Center which is their home arena about possibly bringing their team to the Ford Center. It hasn't worked either on and off the ice, not making the playoffs since the 2003-04 season and having problems getting quality players to their team. Right now, their a long way off from making a decision on where they are going to stay in Springfield, Mass or move elsewhere right now. I will keep track if theirs any movement on this story.

Here's a show to check out.

Just before the NHL Draft, I recently found out about a show that features the top prospects that play in different junior leagues, the NCAA and the AHL and all the major events across North America. It's called the Pipeline Show which stars Guy Flaming and Dean Menard as they take into the world of prospect hockey to take a look at who could have a shot of making the NHL in their future.

At different parts of the year, they have the "Grand Slam Events" as they biggest focus of the year. These events are the NCAA Frozen Four in April, the CHL Memorial Cup in May, the AHL Calder Cup in June, the NHL Draft in the Summer and the World Junior Championships during the Winter Holidays.

This show comes on Tuesday nights from 8-10 PM where you can listen on the Internet and also have a huge media archive where it goes back most of it's history where you can listen to different interviews from the shows history. The show is based in Edmonton, Alberta and the radio station is called the Team 1260.

Here's some links to check out.

The Pipeline Show: www.thepipelineshow.com

Team 1260 in Edmonton: www.theteam1260.com

The Pipeline Show Blog: www.thepipelineshow.blogspot.com

Dean Millard Bio: www.thepipelineshow.com/team_dm.php

Guy Flaming Bio: www.thepipelineshow.com/team_gf.php