Is NHL Hockey Finally Coming To Houston?

Another one of the things people don't know about me besides Renee Martin is that I am a serious hockey fan.   I learned how to ice skate before I attempted to learn how to roller skate. 

My teen self not only witnessed the first game of the Houston Aeros in the Sam Houston Coliseum as they beat the Chicago Cougars, I was a passionate fan of the team   The two time World Hockey Association Avco Cup champions had Gordie Howe and his sons Mark and Marty Howe on the squad. 

Unfortunately, financial instability helped kill this team.  They went through three ownership groups despite being a successful team on the ice.  The Aeros were not admitted into the NHL, and were disbanded when the two leagues merged in 1978 and the Winnipeg Jets, Quebec Nordiques, the New England Whalers and the Edmonton Oilers were absorbed.

The Aeros 2.0 started playing as an International Hockey League expansion team at Compaq Center in 1994 and when the IHL folded in 2001, joined the American Hockey League.  That same year they also became affiliated of the NHL's Minnesota Wild and moved to Toyota Center to play their games in 2003. . 

Despite being ranked in the top 5 in AHL attendance and winning titles in both the IHL and AHL, the Minnesota Wild, who owned the team, decided to move them to Des Moines, Iowa in 2013..

Because Houston is the third largest city in the country and the largest TV market without an NHL franchise, we have repeatedly been teased and tortured with the NHL either considering expanding here or NHL teams having problems in other markets considering relocation to H-town, only to go somewhere else.

The Dallas Stars would also like that to happen so that we can start an instate NHL rivalry .

While the WHA Aeros were collapsing due to fiscal issues, the original NHL Colorado Rockies were considering moving to Houston.  They eventually became the New Jersey Devils in 1982.

The other NHL team that considered relocating to Houston but eventually set up somewhere else includes the Edmonton Oilers.  Back in the mid 1990's, then Oilers owner Peter Pocklington was battling with the city of Edmonton to get a better deal, and threatened to sell the team to then Rockets owner Les Alexander and move the Oilers to Houston.  That drama was happening about the same time that Bud Adams was threatening to move the NFL Oilers to Nashville.

That sale of the NHL Oilers didn't happen, and it probably led to why Les messed with Houston's chances to get an NHL team in the 1997 round of NHL expansion that eventually went to Nashville.   
And now, Seattle is getting the NHL's 32nd franchise to start play in 2020 once the renovations to bring Key Arena to NHL standards are completed.

With getting a team through NHL expansion being dashed once again, it appears that if Houston is going to get an NHL team. it's going to be through relocation.   We have an NHL ready arena in the Toyota Center and a diverse hockey loving fanbase ready to embrace our own NHL team instead of flying or driving to Dallas to see NHL hockey.

We have rumors that the Arizona Coyotes and possibly the Calgary Flames may be eyeballing a possible move to Houston. 

Both teams have arena issues, and more fuel was added to the rumors when the NHL Board of Governors voted to move the Arizona Coyotes into the NHL's Central Division, the same one that the Dallas Stars (and Calgary Flames) happen to play in. 

As to whether it will happen, not getting excited about until the announcement is made an NHL team is moving here and will playing its games in downtown Houston..

But I do have a suggestion if it happens for the team's nickname if it does. .   

Will UH Be Heading To The Big 12?

Ever since the Southwest Conference broke up and TCU and UH were shadily left out of the merger of the SWC and Big 8 no thanks to former UT athletic director DeLoss Dodds, the end goal has been to get UH collegiate athletics back into a Power 5 conference where it belongs.

Dodds motivation for dissing UH during the formative stages of the Big 12 besides his burnt orange hatred for UH probably includes the fact he wanted to be able to have the lion's share of the Houston metro area's elite high school talent coming to Forty Acres instead of their local university on Cullen Blvd.

He knew firsthand that UH while in the SWC routinely and gleefully spanked the Longhorns and a University of Houston in the Big 12 would continue doing so.

But with the Big 12 having only ten teams (you need twelve to host a conference championship game) and with Texas A&M now being a member of the SEC, if the rumors and reports I'm hearing are correct looks like UH may finally get what it has been seeking since 1996 and become a member of the Big 12.

ESPN.com is reporting that UH, Memphis, Colorado State and UCF are lobbying the Big 12 in anticipation of the next round of league expansion.   If the Big 12 was wise it would expand to 14 teams, not just 12 as an insurance policy in case someone leaves for greener conference pastures.

Will we get to see the #HtownTakeover at a Big 12 stadium near you?  Maybe  Since they were unceremoniously kicked to the curb, things have changed.dramatically on campus.  It is a Tier One research institution like UT and Texas A&M, and is the third largest school in the state of Texas.

It is still sitting in the fourth largest city in the United States, is in the top area for Texas high school talent in all sports, is in a Top 10 TV market (number 7), and now has a METRO light rail line rolling past the west and south sides of the campus with a stop on the doorstep of the west gates of  the 40,000 seat (expandable to 60,000 seats) on campus TDECU Stadium.

UH is also a natural fit for the Big 12, and has rivalries with the four current Texas schools that would instantly be rekindled should they be extended an invitation to join the conference.

Also in UH's favor is many schools in the Big 12, with SEC member Texas A& M nearby, continue to express the sentiment that the league needs to decisively act to take back the Houston area as a Big 12 bastion before another Power 5 conference snaps us up.

In addition, the Big 12 North schools want Houston in the conference so they have a crack at recruiting the talent rich Houston area.  Their recruiting pipelines to the Houston area vanished after Texas A&M SECeded, and they need the ability to play a regular scheduled game in Houston so that they can have a shot at recruiting the Houston area's talented kids against the Texas Big 12 schools.

Even the current players in the Big 12, when they are surveyed, would like to see UH extended an invitation to join the conference.

And even more delicious for Cougar fans, UH membership in the league in addition to accomplishing a mission we've been on since being dissed and dismissed in 1996 means that the Texas based Big 12 schools could no longer run from playing us anymore.

While the Big XII continues to publicly downplay they are expanding, University of Oklahoma president David Boren,  Kansas State coach Bill Snyder and Baylor head coach Art Briles have been pushing for Big XII expansion.  It was confirmed that University of West Virginia president Gordon Gee, who sits on the Big XII expansion committee, paid UH a visit back in November.  

The November 30 UH campus visit wasn't for expansion purposes, but Gee quickly found himself in UH president Renu Khator's office for an hour, met UH head football coach Tom Herman, and was escorted by UH AD Hunter Yurachek, several members of the UH Board of Regents on a tour of the UH athletic facilities.  

So will we see the Cougars in the Big 12?  Sure hope so. UH will get a taste of Big 12 play when they open the season with Oklahoma at NRG stadium September 3, and we'll find out next month whether it happens for us.

If it does, I'd love to go to the Jerrydome and watch my boys play in a Big XII title game, or see a basketball game at a sold out renovated Hofheinz Pavilion against Kansas

And I'd love to see my Cougars once again routinely beating the hell out of Texas.

The First College Football Domino Falls

Ever since the Big Ten Conference announced they were looking to expand by as many as 16 teams in order to split into two divisions and set up a championship game, the talk and rumors of which school was going where and to what conference has dominated the sports pages and ESPN for weeks.

It has non-BCS schools wondering what the college football landscape would look like id such a feeding frenzy of realignment got jumped off.

That may have just started, but it's coming from an unexpected quarter.

Instead of Texas or Notre Dame getting a conference invite to the Pac 10 or the Big Ten (yet), today the University of Colorado announced they would leave the Big 12 Conference to accept an invitation to become the 11th member of the Pac-10 Conference in 2012.

This is happening amid rumors that Nebraska may be on the verge of leaving the Big 12 for the Big Ten Conference and would announce it at a press conference after its Board of Regents meeting on Friday.

If that turns out to be the case, it would be a huge shock to Missouri, which has made no secret that it wanted to leave the Big 12 for the Big Ten and pissed off their Big 12 brethren in the process.

As a UH alum, watching this impending round of conference realignment has the same deja vu feeling of watching the 1993 breakup of the SWC that started with Arkansas leaving for the SEC in 1990. Many UH alums still have extremely bitter memories about being Left Behind during the formation of the Big 12.

TCU and UH both finger Texas as the major culprit as why they were Left Behind in the first place. We believe they slimed both schools so the Longhorns could use the non-BCS status of those schools as a recruiting tool to access football recruits in the talent rich Dallas-Ft. Worth and Houston areas.

Of course, the Orangebloods deny it, but I note that they never miss an opportunity in local Houston Chronicle forums to trash the University of Houston every chance they get.

Must be because UT never got over those football buttkickings the Coogs administered on a regular basis during the 70's and 80's, including sending Darrell Royal into retirement with a shutout loss in front of a sellout crowd enroute to our first SWC football title.

TCU alums also have much Hateraid for Baylor. They feel the Horned Frogs would have gotten membership in the Big 12 if it hadn't been for the fact that Baylor leaned on an alum who was in the Governor's mansion (Ann Richards) at the time in order to secure its spot in the new conference.

So we're both sitting on the sidelines feeling for the current members of the Big 12 who are about to be tossed aside like empty beer cans as the rest of your former conference brethren leave for mo' money.

Payback is a witch, eh Baylor?

Stay tuned, the conference realignment drama is only going to get more interesting.