The city of Atlanta hasn’t exactly had a love affair with their hockey teams over the years. In part, that is the fault of the teams that have played in the market not giving the fan base an organization to get excited about on the ice.
The Flames tried to make a go of it there in the 1970’s, but are only remembered for Jim Craig’s brief interlude with the NHL following his goaltending brilliance with the ‘Miracle on Ice’ squad. They moved to Calgary in the fall of 1980, where the franchise went onto win a Stanley Cup nine years later.
The Atlanta Thrashers have been the second attempt to re-boot hockey fans in the Peachtree City when an expansion franchise was granted in 1999. Yet in the ten seasons that the new club has existed, the only highlights have been the 2007 post-season appearance, which resulted in a four-game sweep by the New York Rangers in the first round of the playoffs, and the brilliant if seemingly petulant play of star forward Ilya Kovalchuk. The trading to New Jersey last March signaled a turning point in the franchise towards yet another rebuilding effort.
But all of that seems to be changing in the post-Kovalchuk era that exists in Georgia, and a great deal of the credit should go to a man that has done this sort of thing before in other stops along the way. Yet when Rick Dudley is offered congratulations for the job he is doing in turning around a Thrashers franchise that has just one playoff appearance in franchise history, he is quick to deflect the credit from himself, which is a surprise to no one that knows him.
“I’ve been in this game since 1969, so I hope that I’ve learned a lot being around a lot great people in this game,” Dudley recently told me. “Experience is a great teacher, and the experience that I’ve gained through the years has been an incredible help to me.”
To say that Dudley has been a lifer in the game of hockey is a bit of an understatement. With more than 40 years of experience under his belt, including stops with Buffalo, Chicago, Florida, Ottawa, and Tampa Bay, Dudley has had his teams show improvement every season in every stop.
He wasn’t necessarily looking for the job in his service last season as associate general manager of the club. But when then general manager Don Waddell was looking for a replacement in order to step away from his post, he approached Dudley and found someone ready to step into the position.
“Don and I worked closely together, and I’ve known him since 1985,” Dudley said about his role as associate GM,” and he asked me to (take the point) on the coach hiring process. Then one day, Don asked me to go to lunch and the owners were there. They asked me to take the job, and it was primarily because of my relationship and trust in Don that I took this job.”
So far, so good for the Thrashers.
They enter play Wednesday with a 15-10-3 record, good for a fifth place tie in the Eastern Conference with another surprising team from the Southeast in Tampa Bay. Dudley knew that in the off-season, there would be a chance to possibly improve his team and not mortgage the future.
“The character of the players that we acquired from Chicago were players that I knew about from when I worked (as a scout) for (then Blackhawks GM) Dale Tallon. When you looked at what might have to happen because of the salary cap situation, you knew they weren’t going to deal guys within their conference. And all I wanted to make sure of was that those players weren’t going to play in our division against us.”
“But when it comes to adding those players,” Dudley continued, “you have to look at things with a dual purpose: the now and the long term. You have to have players to build the foundation of the franchise, and you need to have players that can help you be competitive now as well as in the future.”
And with young and talented players like Zach Bogosian, Evander Kane, and Anthony Stewart, the Thrashers are on their way to having success without Kovalchuk. Dudley had great things to say about the young nucleus of the franchise.
Still, the key is to continue to build and develop the organization the way that Dudley is capable of. If they continue to stay the course, the South will rise again; or in a hockey sense, it’ll rise for the first time.
Jon Moncrief is serving his third season covering the Kings for Examiner.com and you can follow his thoughts on the Kings by clicking this link to follow him on Twitter. In addition to his Examiner duties covering the NHL, the Kings and the Dodgers, Jon also is a featured contributor for Bowl Gamer, and is the co-host of the weekly web-TV show INSIDE SPORTS.
Be sure to read about the Thrashers every day on Examiner by clicking here to read the latest from Phil Foley.
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