Talk:Hamilton Bulldogs (AHL)

Cape Breton Oilers

I've stumbled upon hintings that this is the relocated Cape Breton Oilers franchise. Can anyone confirm or deny this? ccwaters 01:22, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

Hrm. Not without dragging old THNs out of crates in my basement ... RGTraynor 05:38, August 24, 2005 (UTC)

It's all coming back now and its going to get me into trouble. The Hamilton Canucks became the Syracuse Crunch. The Cape Breton Oilers became the 'first' Bulldogs. They became the Toronto Roadrunners and the Quebec Citadelles become the 'second' incarnation of the Bulldogs. So, there were 2 separate Bulldogs, an Oilers related team and a Canadiens related team. I'm looking for references now... ccwaters 02:18, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Press release announcing Quebec move to Hamilton: http://www.theahl.com/AHLNews0207/03_ham.html That's the most important reference. ccwaters 02:25, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

More.. mentions that the fans voted to keep the Bulldogs nickname: http://www.theahl.com/AHLNews0303/20_ham.html

Split

I split the two incarnations into separate articles. See the Edmonton Oilers related franchise at Hamilton Bulldogs (1996-2002). I went throgh the tedious task of making sures links go to the appropiate article. For most cases of a someone playing on both teams, I kept the link that goes to the current Hamilton Bulldogs. The only except is Ales Pisa where his link explicitly referenced the team he made his debut with, the Hamilton Bulldogs (1996-2002)

My apologizes. I was refering to the Hamilton Bulldogs website where they say they are celebrating their 10th season this year, but you have the proof. SFrank85

No problem. I blame it on the Edmonton Oilers inability to manage their farm team. Sydney, Nova Scotia (Cape Breton) -> Hamilton -> suspended (with partial affiliation in Hamilton) -> Toronto -> Edmonton -> suspended (with partial affiliation in Hamilton and Des Moines, Iowa). Its a confusing situation especially in Hamilton. I'll be removing the older seasons for this article. ccwaters 17:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

It is kind of confusing, considering that most people, in spite of the split mentioned above, consider the Bulldogs franchise as continuous from 1996 (hence the team marking their 10th year). Invalidusername 02:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's were marketing and reality differ. Similar situations have happened with Ottawa Senators, Cleveland Browns, Fort Wayne Komets, etc... Need an identity for your new team? Co-opt the history of a previous team. ccwaters 15:34, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

While many franchises have had two different ownership groups/affiliations, the franchise currently has been one un-altered organization for 11 years. The website should represent teh 'Hamilton Bulldogs Franchise' as both the AHL and the Club itself do, as one continuous team. Who their NHL affliate is is irrelevant.

The sections are now mostLY merged - the 1996-2002 Section should be eliminated....

Media

Is there another daily newspaper in Hamilton that covers the Bulldogs? One that you don't have to pay to read online? ccwaters 12:31, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Nope the Spectator is Hamilton's sole daily newspaper. Invalidusername 03:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Merger

I'm so happy this merger happened over the weekend without discussion. ccwaters 13:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it should have been discussed also. It seems contributors were not aware of the AFSD protocol. But I'm not opposed to the merger. Flibirigit 04:58, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for not following propocol on this, but the merger is accurate. I would be happy to explain at length, for those in opposition Chesterfield99 21:21, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, if I recall correctly: the Quebec Citadelles franchise was wholly owned by the Canadiens and the Hamilton Bulldogs franchise #1 was wholly owned by the Oilers. Edmonton was shutting its club down and a local group bought the Citadelles and relocated them, and acquired the naming rights. Montreal stayed on as the primary affiliate, while the Oilers signed a one year agreement. Fans voted to keep the name (other options were the Habs and Canadiens). Edmonton reinstated its franchise in Toronto the following year, then moved it to Edmonton during the lockout. It is currently suspended while the Oilers finally signed a real affiliation with the Springfield Falcons]] for next 3 years. So currently the old Bulldogs are the only franchise out of 30 in the AHL not slated to skate in 2007-08. Speculation would be that Edmonton has decided owning its own AHL is in it interest would be looking to sell. Like I mentioned before I had league press releases confirming the Citadelles sale and the naming fan vote, but the AHL revamped its website. You profess to a connection to the sports world: Do you have access to Hamilton newspaper archives? ccwaters 23:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

That is partially correct. The decisions were not done independantly - the Montreal Canadians (who owned 100% of the Citadells) worked with the Edmonton Oilers to complete the transaction - while yes the Oilers moved their 'franchise' to Toronto - the fact that the Hamilton Bulldogs continued play without interruption (same coach, staff, joint affiliation for one year, no interruption) does not relate to the examples you gave (Ottawa Senators, Rockford, Cleveland, etc...). Just because the Oilers 'franchise' went to Toronto, does not reduce the consistency of the Bulldogs or the Bulldogs franchise - again Montreal, Edmonton and AHL jointly managed the process with a specific objective of keeping the history of the Bulldogs in tact. It must be clear that these transactions were all interreleated - and happened at the same time. No I dont have Spectator archives, but I am not sure what you will gain from them Chesterfield99 01:50, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

The Oilers could have just as easily bought the Citadells and sold their franchise to the Hamilton local ownership group. It would have been identical, as the Canadians and Oilers made all agreement together. To suggest that the Bulldogs is two franchises is a case of symantics overriding reality on the ground which is the Citadells folded; the Roadrunners were born, and the Bulldogs continued operationChesterfield99 02:01, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about not following protocol with the merge, it was my first time doing it, so I just read the instructions and put it up on Categories for Discussion on April 5th. Apparently I missed a step in the process. Just so I know for next time, what step did I miss? --LuigiManiac 17:49, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I am happy with Flibirigit's wording..in the AHL listing, it now says 'merged with Quebec Citadells in and then demerged to create Toronto Roadrunners for 2003' This works for me. Chesterfield99 17:57, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I have recently been doing some timeline cleanup on hockey leagues. This is an interesting case that seemed to have differing opinions on its history. While I think this being one merged page for the one franchise, I was wondering what is the best way to show the franchise history in the infoboxes? Officially this franchise seems to share history with the Quebec Citadelles, Fredericton Canadiens, and the Nova Scotia Voyageurs teams on all their pages and timelines but this page only shows their Oilers franchise history. It seems like it is the odd one out. Should the infobox be changed to reflect the franchise as originating as the Voyageurs since this would be consistent with other pages. And if so, should I change the AHL Timeline to reflect this? Yosemiter (talk) 01:11, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

I went ahead and added the dual franchise history anyways because looking into the change history it actually used to be there but someone deleted it. Yosemiter (talk) 15:55, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

Quebec Bulldogs

out of curiosity, was the name Hamilton Bulldogs decided on as respect to the Hamilton Tigers (former NHL team that was known as the Quebec Bulldogs before moving to Hamilton)Charwinger21 (talk) 10:58, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Article Naming

Following this season, I recommend this article to be renamed "Hamilton Bulldogs (1996-2015)" and the current Hamilton Bulldogs (OHL) article to be renamed simply "Hamilton Bulldogs." Thoughts? Grande (talk) 02:27, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest using Hamilton Bulldogs (AHL)to be better since the team has only ever played in the AHL. This is used more frequently such as Bakersfield Condors (AHL), Ontario Reign (AHL), and other teams with retained names from other leagues. Dates are usually only used for teams that have played in multiple leagues. Also it would leave the article open to having an AHL team under the same owner return someday without having to rename the article again. Also, unless you plan and changing every redirect to Hamilton Bulldogs for the current incarnation so that it doesn't lead to the OHL team I would suggest leaving the OHL team article name as is. Yosemiter (talk) 02:42, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Good point on the naming; "Hamilton Bulldogs (AHL)" probably makes more sense. Redirects will be a pain in the ass, I agree, but may be worthwhile to give an accurate view. Oh, and we should also add a "not to be confused with..." at the top of each article. Grande (talk) 17:24, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

First & Second Franchises

The first franchise was founded in 1969, though it only adopted the Hamilton Bulldogs name 'after' the second franchise (founded in 1984) did. GoodDay (talk) 19:16, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

But it wasn't the First franchise to be the Bulldogs. This article is about the Bulldogs, not the franchises. Yosemiter (talk) 19:17, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

My version is less confusing. GoodDay (talk) 19:18, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Less confusing to use Second franchise before First franchise? (To be fair the Bulldogs Franchise History is confusing all by itself considering it was two franchises at the same time).Yosemiter (talk) 19:21, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

This article needs to be spit up, into 2 Hamilton Bulldogs articles. GoodDay (talk) 19:23, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm not totally against that but previous consensus for hockey has been Teams > Franchises, so teams get articles regardless of franchise history. (This is pretty much the opposite of other WikiProjects such as Basketball/Football/Baseball but it mostly works). You can see an above conversation about actually merging it from a few years ago. They are somewhat of a special case because for one season they were operating with two franchises. But the Bulldogs aren't the only team to have multiple franchises, see St. John's IceCaps, Maine Mariners, and Fort Wayne Komets. Yosemiter (talk) 19:27, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Do as you wish. But, jeez it's confusing. GoodDay (talk) 19:29, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

On that, I don't disagree. Yosemiter (talk) 19:30, 6 May 2016 (UTC)