NHL Expansion: Could San Diego be added after Seattle?

San Diego is home to one of the most successful AHL team with the San Diego Gulls. Could they be the next spot for NHL expansion?

NHL expansion into non-traditional hockey markets has yielded mixed results. For every success story like the Vegas Golden Knights, there’s a story like the Arizona Coyotes, who have struggled ever since their move from Winnipeg in the late 1990s. That’s why it’d be surprising to propose that maybe San Diego, California is ready for an NHL team.

Yes, San Diego. The beach-loving California city where Anchorman took place. Yes, the place that needs to stay classy. That’s the San Diego we’re talking about.

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Is San Diego really a hockey city, let alone one worthy of an NHL team? It is currently home to the San Diego Gulls, the American Hockey League affiliate of the nearby Anaheim Ducks. This incarnation of the Gulls began play in 2015 after the Norfolk Admirals relocated following the AHL and ECHL re-alignments.

The Gulls may only be a few years old, but they follow a decade-long tradition of minor league hockey in the city, dating back all the way to the 1960s with the original San Diego Gulls. Various teams in various leagues have come and gone throughout the years, most baring the well-known “San Diego Gulls” name.

San Diego also became the hockey landing spot of Willie O’Ree, the first black hockey player to play in the NHL. After his various stints with the Boston Bruins in the late 1950s and 1960s, O’Ree settled down to play on the Gulls for seven years starting in 1967. O’Ree has countless memories of the San Diego hockey atmosphere, including his own fan group.

"“I knew the fan appreciation, how the fans supported the team, because when I’d come down on the weekends they’d have over 14,000 here in the Sports Arena,” said O’Ree. “Every weekend this place would be full”His fans sat in section 9B.“There used to be a banner up there that said ‘9B loves O’Ree,’ and every home game this banner would be up there”"

O’Ree also explains that average attendance was more along the lines of 7,500, although crowds could approach 14,000. Former Gulls staffers explain the local fire marshals were unhappy with their high attendance, as the arena, the same arena the current Gulls share, was not built to handle those crowds.

To put in perspective, a crowd of 14,000 would surpass this past season’s average attendance for New York Islanders, Florida Panthers, and Coyotes.

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The current version of the Gulls was the AHL’s top team by attendance in the 2018-2019 season. They averaged over 9,000 fans per game, the only team in the AHL to do so. The new team’s success has also been matched on the ice, as the Gulls are currently playing in the AHL’s Western Conference Final.

San Diego could follow in the footsteps of Las Vegas – a non-traditional hockey town with a long history of minor league hockey finally getting its own major league hockey franchise. When the Golden Knights came to town, Las Vegas had no major league sports franchises. If San Diego becomes an NHL city, they would be sharing the area with Major League baseball’s San Diego Padres.

One interesting argument to San Diego getting an NHL franchise is the amount of media attention their AHL team has received. Since their return and success in the region, the San Diego Gulls have routinely been featured on major television stations in the San Diego area.

While most NHL games end up televised on various cable channels, the Gulls are being featured on major stations available to every household. Quite an impressing feat for a sport that struggles to get media attention in comparison to the other four major sports.

Their media coverage might be skewed by one factor: the loss of the San Diego Chargers. When the city’s former NFL team left for Los Angeles, it left a void in the sports landscape that the Gulls were more than happy and ready to fill. The timing was perfect, with the Gulls arriving in 2015 and the Chargers leaving in 2017, and hockey has built a solid footing in San Diego since then.

Unfortunately for San Diego, the Southern California market is already a hockey saturated area. There are already two NHL teams – the Los Angeles Kings and Ducks, each playing a short drive away.

While Vegas was unconventional, the market didn’t have any hockey competition. Three teams in Southern California might be too much. Fans would react positively to a San Diego NHL team, and there’s little evidence to prove the region’s hockey allegiance lies with the other Los Angeles based teams. But for logistical reasons, it hard to see the NHL committing to the area.

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The loss of their NFL franchise put San Diego in a similar situation to St. Louis, in which they both ended up with renewed enthusiasm to their city’s respective hockey teams. While St. Louis is cheering on their St. Louis Blues to the Stanley Cup final, it’s hard to imagine a day when “San Diego” will be engraved on the Stanley Cup. San Diego is one of America’s greatest minor league hockey cities, and the city clearly loves their team.

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