Like other Winnipeg Jet fans he feels that no one with a nice climate deserves a team. Sure, Atlanta is having a tough time filling up the stands with a bad team, most American cities would have this problem. If Atlanta’s attendance was great and the team was performing, he’d surely say that we don’t fully appreciate hockey or some other manufactured reason to cope with the fact that his beloved team no longer plays in the NHL. Use your tears as lubricant Drew and satisfy all those other pompous Canadian jerk offs that think they deserve a team more than Atlanta, Carolina, Phoenix, Florida, etc. These large American cities have a lot of corporate money, unless Winnipeg chances its currency to moose testicles, they can’t compete with a massive American city. They may fill up the seats, but that’s only a portion of the business side of things. So Drew will continue to bitch and moan and others like him will perpetually mock our beloved Thrashers, but take solace, that the mocking derives from a bunch of crybabies that will never have a team back in Winnipeg. The NHL may contract and Atlanta, hopefully, can avoid that fate. But Winnipeg will never have a team. Their wet dream will be wasted on a giant collective sock that will just be washed away along with every other Canadian fan who thinks their snow covered piddly town deserves a team because they have an arena and people to fill it. So Thrashers fans, take solace in the fact that you have a one up on these jerk offs because YOU have a team, and THEY don’t and THEY never will and will bash the team in order to fill that void. Drew likes to give Atlanta a little acronym, but I found one for the (NCOOW) jets, that is NOBODY CARES OUTSIDE OF WINNIPEG. A great city like Atlanta can have a hockey team as an afterthought, that’s how great this city is. Drew’s vagina gets extra chaffed when he saw a town like Atlanta lose a team and get it back, something he desperately would like, but will, to his eternal douchiness, fuel his hatred and crybabiness.

I figured by asking for counter opinions people might discuss the virtue of the Atlanta franchise not rip on Winnipeg. Lots of cities (big and small) lose teams (Atlanta Flames, Winnipeg Jets, Seattle Supersonics, L.A. Rams, Brooklyn Dodgers, Hartford Whalers, Colorado Rockies to name a few).

So if you ignore what Drew said about the Thrashers what would you say if I asked you to focus on what the Atlanta franchise can do to turn things around (both on and off the ice).

“Are you a male, for example?” ……. “they fairly shout that you are”……. it’s obvious that you are trying way too hard here to sound scholarly, so obvious in fact, that most would assume the opposite is true. You are obsessed with these “sexual references” since there was 1, I believe your overdramatic response is evidence to your shelteredness or sexual repression. My first response was an attempt to diagnose the origins of Drew’s hatemongering, which I think I nailed. This whole thread was some shamelss illegalcurve.com self promotion, so I had to put one of their “columnists” in the spotlight for my fellow thrasher bloggers. I see that he’s changed his profile since my rant, not saying he did as a result, but he’s removed the Winnipeg and bitter references. Anaheim is not the South either, it’s a completely different animal. This blog is filled with reasons why fans aren’t turning up or how hockey is a tougher sell in the South, all have been belabored to a point that bringing it up here would purely be for the amusement of a few people who will never understand the dynamic of the Southern fan. You are more than happy to check out prior blog postings here, as this is a constant ongoing discussion amongst the true diehard Thrasher fans. It can be boiled down to a simple theme, if the team succeeds and can have a sustained contender than the franchise will succeed in Atlanta. The team has never been very good, and it is very hard to win over a fickle fan base that has so many entertainment options on a nightly basis. There is a mix of hardcore hockey fans and casual hockey fans and the broadcasts have not figured out whom to cater to, so watching the games on tv can often be brutal. Last season during the playoff run, you could witness the potential hockey has in Atlanta. A lot of transplants have adopted the Thrashers and embraced the team, but they’ll always wear there red wing jerseys or bruins jerseys when their old love is in town UNTIL the thrashers can put together a sustained playoff contender. This was no mystery to ownership and management from the get-go and to insult and harass Atlanta fans is unacceptable and unfair. Carolina has been a great model to southern success in hockey, they aren’t perfect and need to continually improve the franchise, but their fanbase is rabid. 89% attendance (16,500 fans a night) isn’t fantastic, but that is a small market and they have put a good product on the ice for many years. Carolina had upwards of 30% ticket revenue growth going into the 07-08 year and contine to grow their fan base. The thrashers ceiling is much higher than Carolina’s, there is so much more economic potential in Atlanta. So direct the blame and frustration at the franchise’s failures at ownership and management, because they’ve turned it into a hot mess. Not the fans. The insinuation that Atlanta is LOW class is a cheap shot. Drew says they should be more focused on putting a quality team on the ice rather than poking fun at Alexander Ovechkin. Hmmm, yes, marketing department, in charge of creating the video, you should put your cameras and film degrees away and get to signing Kovalchuk to an extension! Mindell previously states that “god willing” they will be in Winnipeg soon. Well, guess what Mindell, I hope you choke on your dinner tonight thinking that with all the awfulness associated with the Thrasher franchise, that it’s still looked upon as a better longterm option than ol’ Winnepeg. You’ll never have a team and I hope you stew in your anger and get a hate boner at every empty seat you see in Phillips Arena next year. Because you weren’t in the crowd when Heatley made his return to Atlanta or during our playoff push to see what this team and these fans could be. The fanbase here isn’t non-existant, they are frustrated, and really, the only thing non-existant is your dream of a team returning to Winnipeg. They’ve failed to cultivate the casual fan base in Atlanta, but it exists and only a good team will bring them out. The potential is there and it wouldn’t take long to erase all the bad years in the minds of these fans. Feel free to browse our blog history and read in on the many discussions related to the direction and failures of our franchise.

Bob said “i’m going good cop” which is in fact astute as I think that I have been pretty civil during this discourse. I’ve asked questions throughout. And I have admited that I know very little about the Thrashers franchise or hockey in the South (as can be seen by me lumping Anaheim in as part of the South).