From The Archives: ECHL Making Strides As Development Loop

When the East Coast League was formed in 1988, NHL teams avoided it the way a pleasure skater stays away from thin ice.

By: John Packett:

Most everyone felt it was just another roughhouse outfit in the mold of the old Eastern, Southern and Atlantic Coast Leagues. And they were right. In order to attract fans, the ECHL was a physical league the first few years. Plenty of fisticuffs-and the occasional brawl-were the norm.

“When we started,” said Pat Kelly, the league’s first commissioner and current commissioner emeritus, “we envisioned getting into a developmental stage. But we knew we had to get rid of that old stigma of the goon league.

“(NHL clubs) were reluctant to send their draft picks to these leagues because they were afraid every night somebody would hatchet them.”

The stigma remained with the ECHL for several seasons before, gradually, the American and International Leagues, and then the NHL, began to show interest in sending prospects to a league that seemed to be cleaning up its act.

“I worked with the NHL,” said Kelly, who once coached the old Colorado Rockies. “I kept telling them, ‘Don’t be afraid to send your people. We’re going to play hockey the way hockey should be played. If the tough guys don’t do the right thing, they’ll be suspended.”

With a lot of the hand-to-hand combat and bench-clearing brawls being eliminated, NHL clubs and their AHL and IHL affiliates were more comfortable putting young prospects in the ECHL.

Baton Rouge Kingfish coach-GM Ron Hansis watched the growth of the ECHL as Erie Panthers’ coach-GM for eight years.

“Once the league was able to establish an image of a developmental league as opposed to the old rough-and-tumble Eastern League-and we went to great lengths to dispel that image-we felt guys would give this league a shot They saw that guys were getting an opportunity to move on to the IHL or AHL.”

The 23-team ECHL has evolved into the equivalent of Double-A baseball. Most of its callups are to the IHL and AHL, which are the equivalent of Triple-A. Last season there were 89 callups to the IHL and 109 more to the AHL. The other four minor pro leagues are considered a step below the ECHL.

But the most significant move has come in the number of players who have gone from the ECHL, mostly via the IHL and AHL, to the NHL. Seventy-one ECHL players have graduated to the NHL - albeit many played only briefly. Twenty are active in the NHL this season.

“It has become a development league,” said Terry McDonnell, vice president of hockey operations for the Hartford Whalers. “They patterned themselves after the AHL.

“Players seem happier playing there now. A few years ago, players would go there and think, ‘This is it.’ Now they know they’re going to get a chance to get to the AHL. It gives teams the option of sending younger players there who aren’t quite ready.

“The league has really improved. I’d say 50 per cent of the players are capable of playing in the AHL.”

One of the latest examples is also one the quickest. Harry York, who starred for the Nashville Knights last season as a rookie, opened the season with the Blues. In his first NHL game, York set up Jim Campbell’s winning goal against the Colorado Avalanche.

And the beat goes on. Twenty-one of the 26 NHL teams have working agreements with ECHL clubs this season. The ultimate goal of the league is for each of its teams (23 this year and at least one more in 1998-99) to be affiliated with an NHL club.

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