Obligatory Thrashers Updates That You Were Already Familiar With

I'll start with what's already been written about and I'll finish with something of personal relevance and, possibly convenience, mmmkay? Let's go!

The Atlanta Thrashers announced their schedule for the '08-'09 season. Yahoo! Now it's time to pinch pennies so that I can make my annual purchase next month for the home opener and the season closer.

The Atlanta Thrashers also signed the following players to contracts for the immediate future: Joey Crabb, Nathan Oystrick, Kari Lehtonen (yay?), Marty Reasoner, Brett Sterling, and Angelo Esposito. I question the Kari signing because I hope it's not a prelude to him getting dealt. It's no secret that I enjoy Kari's presence between the pipes for the Thrash, so I'd hate to see him shipped away. The Thrashers are lookin' good in goal for the short-run, though, with the re-signing of Da Moose and Ondrej Pavelec waiting in the wings. Just like everyone else, I'd hate to see my one of my favorite players shipped away. My favorite Thrasher was (and possibly still is) Marc Savard, so while I didn't like the idea of him moving north to Boston, I understood it because he was a UFA at the time and he controlled his destiny. Kari, not so much. Let's hope he sticks around Blueland for this season and that everything works out swimmingly well.

Former 99x DJ and Thrashers announcer Steve Craig will leave Atlanta for a new radio job in New York in the coming weeks, meaning that the voice of Blueland will be replaced come October. Steve's one of those guys who had a fantastic voice and had genuine passion and knowledge of hockey as opposed to some random filler guy who could possibly butcher last names at the drop of the hat and not know the difference between a power play and off-sides. Steve's presence in Blueland will be missed and we hope he does well in all of his ventures in New York!

Lastly, something that was tossed around lately is the idea of a practice facility moving down south... south like Peachtree City. Considering I'm a resident of a neighboring town, this is cool news. While I don't expect there to be a full move from Duluth to PTC, the prospect of a rink on the southside of Atlanta is awesome. I wasn't around when there was a rink in Newnan (and it's now an aquatic center, I think), but I visited the IceForum in Morrow back in '01, right before it closed. If there's one thing I really hate about living on the south side of town is that the closest rink is in Duluth, which is about 90 minutes north of me (roughly).

Basically, I'm not too sure about this idea simply because it will be in Peachtree City. I honestly don't think the residents of the bubble town would approve of it because of the failures of the previously mentioned rinks. While I'm overwhelmingly in favor of it, it will be hard to convince the casual golf cart riders of the world to approve of something that doesn't look promising... and to fund it with tax money for years and years. I remember when the tennis center was sparkling new and how there was talk about hosting some local and possibly national tournaments there. When I worked in that part of town at that time, I only remember one, maybe two, tournaments occurring there. As of right now, it's simply a members only club without any prospect of anything more becoming of it.

Unfortunately, I could see the same thing happening with this new ice rink/fitness facility. There's hints that it could provide revenue to the residents of Peachtree City and Fayette County and prospective tournaments held there, but who's to say that will actually happen? I'm sure that the rink would create interest and that all of the transplants (myself included) would flock there early on, but what about in the long run? I know of the existence of a roller hockey league in PTC, but is there enough interest for an ice hockey league to sustain such a place? I like the argument that this new PTC facility is closer to the airport than the rink in Duluth, and I think that even a place like PTC's Falcon Field could be used in a similar argument. And it's common knowledge that transportation is a little smoother on the southside as opposed to the tightly-congested northside of town. We'll see. It proves exciting for me, but probably not so much for PTC residents and Delta families.

Coming up next week - an unforeseen trade that has everyone scratching their heads, ticket prices are reduced and somehow revenue increases, Kovy gets the captaincy, Don Waddell steps down, the Atlanta Spirit Group gets bought out by members of the Nasty Nest, and the proclaiming of "KNIGHTS!" during the National Anthem is deemed illegal with jail-time for repeat offenders. Oh, who am I kidding here?!