Oklahoma City's New AHL Team Will be The Barons

By Jenni Carlson  Published on: Thursday May 20, 2010

Hockey fans filled the seats and lined the walls around the temporary stage. On the afternoon that Oklahoma City’s new American Hockey League franchise was set to unveil its nickname, they talked and laughed and speculated about what was behind the black curtain. They had the foyer inside the Cox Convention Center buzzing. Only when Bob Funk Jr. stepped to the microphone did they hush.

"Ladies and gentlemen,” the Prodigal Hockey owner and president said after thank yous and niceties, "I give you the Oklahoma City Barons.” The curtain pulled back revealing a spiffy logo while the crowd hooted and hollered its approval.

For months, hockey fans here have wondered about this team’s name. While it’s become a not-so-well-kept secret in recent weeks, the several hundred folks who showed up for the official announcement at 4 p.m. on a Wednesday were evidence of the enthusiasm for hockey in OKC.

Now that Oklahoma City has a hockey team again and the team has a name, what’s next? How about the thing that should really get folks here fired up about hockey? The players.

Skilled players come with the territory in the AHL. The best 700 or so players in the world are in the NHL. The next 700? They’re in the AHL.

This will be a huge step up from the Central Hockey League. "Just think of it as Single-A baseball versus Triple-A baseball,” Edmonton Oilers assistant general manager Ricky Olczyk said.

Consider this: there were 135 players in the Vancouver Olympics earlier this year who had AHL experience. That’s an average of nearly a dozen AHL alums per Olympic squad. That’s good news for Oklahoma City’s hockey future.

But the even better news is that Edmonton is a franchise with a growing core of up-and-comers. Jordan Eberle tops the list. The 20-year-old forward has played in the Western Junior Hockey League the past four seasons, but at the end of the last two, he was called up to play for the Springfield Falcons, the Oilers’ previous AHL affiliate.

Eberle has also played for Team Canada twice in the prestigious World Junior Championships. He is the hockey-loving nation’s all-time leading goal-scorer at the tournament. He ranks above Jarome Iginla, Eric Lindros and Wayne Gretzky. Eberle has a shot at making the Oilers’ roster this fall, but if not, he’ll be wearing Baron blue on opening night.

There’s a good chance that numerous players with NHL experience will be joining him here, too. The Oilers had a crippling rash of injuries last season with players missing 500-plus games. That meant the franchise called up numerous players who were a year or two away from being NHL ready.

With many of the injured veterans now healthy, there won’t be enough roster spots for everyone to stay with the Oilers. Some will come to the Barons.

Even though the Oilers’ injury-laden season produced the worst record in the NHL, it prompted an organizational change that could benefit the Barons. Edmonton has been one of the NHL’s storied powerhouses, but after this past season, the franchise was forced to re-evaluate everything. The front-office brass realized the franchise has strayed since the lockout that canceled the 2004-05 season.

"Prior to that, we were a grassroots, blue-collar team,” Oilers president of hockey operations Kevin Lowe said. "We were always a little understacked in terms of talent but overstacked in terms of heart and will and quality of character. "For whatever reason, we got away from it.” The Oilers thought they needed to bring in high-paid veterans to get to the next level. "Unfortunately, that didn’t work,” Lowe said.

So, the Oilers have decided to return to what did work. They are going to grow their own talent. They are going to develop their own crop of players. They are going to seed their own future success.

Lowe said the Oilers intend to use as many resources as any other NHL franchise to achieve those goals. "Which, of course, bodes well for Oklahoma City,” he said. "It will be a better product here.” Talk about exciting.

A sport’s return and a team’s name are all good and fine. They get people talking. They get folks buzzing. But if the Barons are really going to excite Oklahoma City, it’s going to be because of the players. Right now, the prospects look good.