Allen Americans Weekly Update - Hardie Returns, Roster Grows to Seven, Housing Upgrade, Affiliation Thoughts, Season Ticket Prices and Big Red Flashback

 The Allen Americans announced their seventh player for the 2024-25 season yesterday. Forward James Hardie will return after finishing last season with the Americans. Hardie was acquired from Rapid City late in the season (March 24) for future considerations which turned out to be Ty Fournier. Here is the Allen Americans press release announcing Hardie's re-signing. https://allenamericans.com/news/2024/08/americans-add-scoring-depth-up-front

 

- Here is a Hardie stat you won't see anywhere else. He played in 12 regular season games and five playoff games after joining Allen and led the team in goals with six (tied with Liam Finlay). He also led the team in plus/minus in the playoffs at +3. He is a skilled forward who can put the puck in the net. If he gets top six minutes and power play time he could be a 30 goal scorer. He had 41 goals and 38 goals in his last two seasons in juniors.

 

- The Americans will have to pick up the pace in announcing players, especially new players. Six of the seven announced thus far have been returning players, with Brayden Watts the one exception. There are eight Tuesdays remaining before the start of training camp. Allen will have to start announcing more than one player per week, they need to average at least two per week going forward.

 

- Here is the current roster with stats from last season:

Goalies

• Marco Costantini - 24 games, 3.19 GAA, .913 save percentage
   

Defensemen

• Ryan Gagnon - 48 games, 8 points (0G, 8A), 52 PIMS, +5
• Justin Allen - 38 games, 10 points (2G, 8A), 16 PIMS, -2
• Nolan Orzeck - 51 games, 27 points (5G, 22A), 10 PIMS +8  (Allen games only)
  

Forwards

• Easton Brodzinski - 62 games, 39 points (22G, 17A), 91 PIMS, 0 plus/minus
• Brayden Watts - 62 games, 58 points (14G, 44A) 29 PIMS, -34 
• James Hardie - 12 games, 10 points (4G, 6A) 12 PIMS, -1 (Allen games only)

 

- How does Allen rank in the number of players announced thus far. The Americans are in the middle of the pack in the Mountain Division but rank #20 among all ECHL teams. Player announcements range from a high of 20 to a low of one. Here are the numbers for the Mountain Division according to elite prospects:

• 14 - Wichita
• 11 - Kansas City
• 9 - Tahoe
• 7 - Allen
• 7 - Utah
  
• 6 - Rapid City
• 3 - Idaho
• 3 - Tulsa

 

- Kameron Kielly was productive in the brief time he spent in Allen last season. He had four points (3G, 1A) in four regular season games and two points (1G, 1A) in his lone playoff game. Kielly just signed in Europe (EIHL) with the Dundee Stars. 

 

-  I know from first hand conversations with players and coaches, something that came up at exit interviews the last two seasons was related to housing. Some of the housing wasn't the best and furnishings were always an issue. There is good news for 2024-25 as the players will be staying in upgraded apartments on the west side of Highway 75 near Pinstack in Allen. Owners LaSonjia and Myles Jack have purchased all new furniture for the apartments. The Allen players will now have one of the best living situations in the league.

 

- I haven't heard much about Allen's new affiliation since the announcement was made last week. It is kind of a head-scratcher when you think the owner of the Arizona Coyotes, Alex Meruelo, lost his team to Utah but still owns the AHL team in Tuscon (Roadrunners). It makes you wonder how the relationship between Utah and Tuscon will work and how that might impact Allen. The rumors are Tuscon will move after the 2024-25 season and remember, Allen's affiliation agreement is just one year. The good news is Allen's affiliation agreement is with Utah and things are on the upswing with the Utah Hockey Club. Hopefully the Utah management will see to it Allen gets players assigned. The more you read about the Utah Hockey Club owner, Ryan Smith, the more optimistic you become. You just hope all of the enthusiasm has a little trickle down to the Allen Americans. If you haven't seen this article about Ryan Smith, it gives you a great insight of what he is like as an owner. https://thehockeywriters.com/ryan-smith-building-something-special-in-utah/  

 

- I had a long time Allen Americans season ticket holder contact me last week to tell me he had checked out the ticket prices for Allen's AHL affiliate, Tuscon Roadrunners, who finished second in the 10 team Pacific Division last season, but lost in the first round of the playoffs. His center ice tickets in Tuscon (same location) would cost $1152. In Allen the same location costs a minimum of $1224. Both teams play 36 home games. While some might say the size of the market, Tuscon (1,000,000) and DFW (8,000,000) justifies the higher ticket price, but others disagree. The AHL is full of future and former NHL stars and plays a much higher quality of hockey. They argue ECHL ticket prices should not be higher than AHL prices. I looked up the AHL Texas Stars roster since 2019-20 and it tells the story. Here are a few examples of the players the Texas Stars season ticket holders saw the last few season.

• Jason Robertson
• Jake Oettinger
• Ben Bishop
  
• Joel Kiviranta
• Thomas Harley
• Ty Dellandrea
• Logan Stankhoven 
• Mavrik Bourque (2024 AHL MVP)

 FYI, according to the team websites, Allen's season ticket prices for full season tickets (36 games) range from $828 to $1994. Tuscon's range is $504 to $2160. What is your opinion on ticket prices in Allen vs Tuscon?

 

- You may have seen the recent story about a minor league baseball team from Sioux City, Iowa having their chartered bus catch on fire on the way to games in Chicago. The team made it off the bus safely, although several players lost their gloves when the overhead bins melted. Here is a article about the incident: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2024/08/05/787094.htm

 

- When I heard about the baseball team's bus fire it reminded me of a similar, though much less serious fire, the Allen Americans encountered in 2012.  

 

- For those of you that have followed the Allen Americans for a long time you will remember the early years when the team owned its own bus, affectionately called "Big Red" which was loved despite all of its warts. Here is a little background from a blog post in 2017 when Jack Gulati bought the Americans.

If you attended the press conference last February when Jack Gulati was announced as the new owner of the Allen Americans you may recall the loudest cheer of the entire event was when Jack informed everyone that Big Red was not part of the deal. The Americans owned the team bus which was bought used out of Nashville when the franchise started in 2009. The bus is 22 years old and I was told by long time bus driver Scott Alexander, who passed away in 2014, that Big Red had close to 2,000,000 miles on it.

Big Red

- As much as Big Red was the subject of ridicule the fact of the matter was the players and coaches really liked the set up on the bus. The problem was Big Red became more and more unreliable as the years went by, with mechanical breakdowns ranging from engine issues to brake problems to no air conditioning. There were water leaks and gas fumes at times.

- You could write a book about Big Red with its breakdowns, getting stuck in the Rocky Mountains, trips to Canada and driving all over the USA in search of the Kelly Cup. Because the team owned the bus they never flew, even on long trips. 

 

- One Big Red incident was captured on video in 2012, thanks to Jarret Lukin who was the American's first captain and is fourth on the all-time games played list (238).  Whether you have seen this video many times or watching it for the first time it shows the humor it what could have been a serious situation.

  

 

 

DID YOU KNOW: The number of hat tricks and shutouts in the ECHL each season is surprisingly close. Not sure why but here are the stats the last three seasons. The numbers for the Allen Americans are in parenthesis:

2023-24

82 - Hat tricks (3)

89 - Shutouts (1)

 

2022-23

81 - Hat tricks (8)

85 - Shutouts (1)

 

2021-22

102 - Hat tricks (6)

98 - Shutouts (1)