It has been foretold: The Hockalypse is coming.
And if this truly is the end of days for Atlanta’s hockey fans, the last rites were Saturday.
Despite the persistent reports that they will be sold soon and moved -- lock, stock and Byfuglien -- to Winnipeg, the Thrashers went ahead with their select-a-seat promotion for a 2011-12 season at Philips Arena. Plenty of helpful sales representatives were on hand Saturday to take your order (one little catch, you may have to travel 1,300 miles to catch the home opener next season). It was business as (un)usual.
And precisely because of those same reports, a few hundred Thrashers fans held a tailgate gathering outside the arena that afternoon, one final opportunity to come together as residents of Blueland should their fictional ice realm get relocated north of the border.
The mood at both locations was a little sad, a little nostalgic, something akin to an Irish wake for this 11-year-old franchise.
It can be reported that Covington’s Mark McCallum put down a refundable $466 deposit on a Thrashers season ticket for next season. He had said for years that he would return to the fold if the Atlanta Spirit Group ever sold the team -- and now he was banking on the slim possibility of a sale to local interests rather than to those in Canada.
“I’ll quote a spiritualist,” he said, when asked what possessed him to invest in such a seeming long shot. “Faith is the bird that sings before dawn.”
Um, could you translate that to hockey speak?
“Yeah, you don’t stop playing until the final horn sounds.”
The sales group accepted U.S. currency, not Canadian Loonies. No, McCallum did not have to refer to a chart of Winnipeg’s arena before selecting his seat.
Long-time season-ticket holders were invited in Saturday morning for snacks and drinks, and to look over the seating at Philips in case they wanted to upgrade for that tenuous next season. Most merely used the opportunity to visit their old seats, perhaps to tell them goodbye.
The ice had long ago been cleared from the Philips floor. As fans entered, they were greeted by the odd sight of the Hawks floor enclosed within the hockey boards. Overhead, the Thrashers logo flashed, upbeat music blared and pictures of players from last year’s team went up on the big board like snapshots from a bygone era.
Milton’s Brett Lang had bought his Thrashers season tickets the first day it was announced Atlanta had a team. Now, he was in a deserted arena with his 8-year-old son, Jonas, “to say farewell to a place where we spent so much time.”
Said Lang, “We had a lot of good times here and I’m going to reflect on that [even if the Thrashers made the playoffs only once in their history]. I don’t think the NHL will ever come back here until I’m in a retirement home -- if ever.”
Atlanta’s Jamie Henderson sat in his seat -- behind one goal -- while visions played in his head. He could see the fan who every game gulped a Guinness, ran down the aisle in front of him and banged on the glass in the third period when it was time for a rally (as it often was with the Thrashers). Also there was the guy who wore a big foal Stanley Cup on his head (the real one was so unattainable).
“I’m here to say goodbye to friends,” said Henderson, whose contribution to the game-day ambiance was joining up with buddy Chris Ciovacco in wearing dog masks as part of goalie support group known as (Ondrej) Pavelec’s Dogs.
“People claim [Atlanta] doesn’t support this team; we want to prove them wrong,” said Thrashers season-ticket holder Sandra Guritz, explaining why she and her sister came over from Grant Park to visit an empty arena.
Outside, in the shabby parking area referred to as The Gulch, other fans congregated, cooking out, sipping beer, tailgating in the name of one last hockey hurrah.
Atlanta is faced with losing a second NHL franchise to Canada (the Flames moved to Calgary in 1980). They are particularly sensitive about the common slander that people in the hub of the American South will not support this foreign sport.
The clear theme from The Gulch: The fans are fine; it’s the ownership that has possibly killed hockey in Atlanta.
“ASG [Atlanta Spirit Group] Go Away. Thrashers You Stay,” read one sign at the gathering.
“Owning A Hockey Team Isn’t A Hobby,” read another.
“I’ll be jealous of Winnipeg,” said Stan Hauseman, the vice president of the Thrashers Fan Club. “For the first time, the team will have someone who actually wants to own a hockey team.”
Hauseman seemed pleased enough with the tailgate turnout, around 250 or so. “I don’t know if it would have mattered if we had 45,000. Just one more time we wanted to stand up for the hockey fans in Atlanta, and show the NHL that if you leave Atlanta, you leave us,” he said.
He certainly liked the enthusiasm when some unknown Canadian provocateur hung a sign from the overhead CNN parking deck that read “Go Jets Go,” invoking the name of the once, and perhaps future, NHL team in Winnipeg. The local fans cut down the sign, and ritually set it afire.
There was some good news Saturday.
If you are reading this now, the well publicized prediction of a larger scale apocalypse did not come to pass.
Still, Buckhead’s Andrea Meucci couldn’t help but wonder, “Maybe the world has ended and this is hell: Atlanta without hockey.”
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