We’re not far away from the ECHL expanding to 32 teams.

It won’t be next season – though the Lake Tahoe Knight Monsters, co-owned by Tim Tebow, will enter the ECHL then as its 29th team – and it probably won’t be the season after.

But make no mistake, a roster of 32 teams will be here before you know it. And if the ECHL does it right, with assistance from teams in the NHL, it should work.

“My goal is to get to 32,” ECHL commissioner Ryan Crelin told me last week. “Sometimes, it takes markets four or five years to develop. Other times, they fall in your lap, quite honestly. They’ve got to make sense geographically, they’ve got to make sense market wise and you’ve got to make sure you have the right ownership teams in there. But it’s a really big focus of mine, to bring all of that to pass.”

I’ve been interviewing minor-league hockey commissioners for 27 years, and I’ve yet to talk to one who’s painted a dire picture, rather than one of expansion, which is funny, since all the other leagues I’ve covered – the International Hockey League, the United Hockey League, the second iteration of the IHL and the Central Hockey League – no longer exist.

The first IHL stands as the biggest cautionary tale, as far as I’m concerned, when it comes to expansion. 

Founded in 1945, and a successful competitor to the American Hockey League at the Triple-A level of hockey, the IHL expanded to become a coast-to-coast league by the 1990s. But it had obscene spending on players and travel, and that pushed the small-market teams out, created an unsustainable business model and led to the IHL folding in 2001.

The UHL, at the Double-A level, seemed to give a franchise to anyone who wanted one, even if that meant putting teams into markets that had NHL franchises, such as Detroit and Columbus, Ohio, and anyone with half a brain knew they weren’t going to work. 

And while we all chuckle now about the UHL’s Danbury Trashers, who became famous (see the documentary “Untold: Crimes and Penalties”) for being owned by a mobster, with his teenage son as the general manager, and putting together a roster of high-priced playmakers and enforcers, it’s difficult to find anyone else from that time in the UHL who would say the Trashers’ influence was positive outside of Connecticut.

But the ECHL in 2023 is a different animal because everyone seems to want hockey to become a true three-tiered sport, and because the league seems to be on solid footing, even coming out of a pandemic.

“Our board recently approved going to 32 memberships,” Crelin said. “Our charter called for 30, so with board approval we moved it to 32. So, I do think that vision now for North American hockey, to have 32 (NHL teams), 32 (AHL teams) and 32 (ECHL teams) is there, we’re just not there yet.

“I like to say the NHL has 100 years (of existence), the AHL has 80 years and we’re in year 36. We’ll get there. Minor-league hockey has changed a lot over the years. Not every market works out. But we’re steadily growing. And I think everyone sees that vision of trying to get to 32-32-32. I think as you look at affiliations at all levels, they’re trying to geographically align, as well.”

Affiliations are a key part of the desire to get to 32 ECHL teams. 

The AHL already is at 32 teams, though the Chicago Wolves’ decision to go independent this season has left the Carolina Hurricanes without an AHL affiliate.

There are NHL teams who have shown little-to-no desire to fully embrace what the ECHL has to offer for developing players not yet ready for the AHL – the St. Louis Blues are one example – but that seems to be changing. 

When the ECHL season opened, there were 151 players on AHL contracts – more than any of the previous five seasons – and another 39 on NHL contracts.

The ECHL, more than any other time in its history, has become a developmental circuit. 

Multi team @ECHL veteran with @ECHLThunder @Steelheads and @AllenAmericans, Samuel Laberge made his #NHL debut last night with #njdevils

More on his journey at @TheHockeyNews https://t.co/pOj4fnI5PI pic.twitter.com/PLDn6IUCrg

— The Hockey News - ECHL (@HockeyNewsECHL) December 1, 2023

The players are young, fast and talented, and you can see more of them having the capabilities of ascending to the AHL or NHL than ever before. There are a lot of reasons for it, but it’s largely because NHL teams have recognized the need for more depth – a lesson perhaps taught to them during the pandemic when they were scared they wouldn’t have enough healthy bodies to compete – and they’ve gained more trust in the organizations and coaches in the ECHL.

And NHL teams have realized that they were putting some players in unfair positions by moving them directly from juniors or college to the AHL. 

Take Detroit Red Wings top goaltending prospect Sebastian Cossa as an example. At this time last year, he was too advanced for juniors but not ready, at age 20, for the AHL. He took his lumps with the ECHL’s Toledo Walleye, became one of the league’s top goalies, going 26-16-4 with a .913 save percentage and four shutouts, and he’s now in the AHL with the Grand Rapids Griffins, sporting a 3-5-2 record and a .902 save percentage.

The ECHL still needs a lot more help from the NHL – funding the officiating, for example, so it can use two referees in more than 25% of regular-season games – but it seems as if the NHL is starting to get it, at least based on the number of players it has been sending to the ECHL.

“We’ve tried to heighten that relationship with the NHL and AHL, but it doesn’t happen overnight,” said Crelin, whose league has been the only Double-A circuit since absorbing the remnants of the CHL in 2014. “Some of it is trust. Some of it is our commitment to improving the on-ice product. At the start of the season, we had the most ever NHL and AHL contracts assigned to our league. We’ll reevaluate that at the midseason mark, but it’s a trend we’d like to continue to see.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit in the 2019-2020 season, there were legitimate concerns about the survivability of the ECHL. What most people fail to recognize is that ECHL teams are, in almost all cases, small businesses. Losing late-season and playoff games, after the league halted play, hurt them hard financially.

Twelve teams opted out of playing the 2020-2021 season, not knowing how many fans would be allowed to attend or would show up, even if they could. Some, based on government assistance, made more money by not playing than they would have by playing. The ones who did play, did it gutsily, and some still are recovering financially, though the Brampton Beast never made it back on the ice.

Crelin believes the ECHL finally is close to being healed from COVID-19, and he said attendance this season is up 8.5% over last season.

“That surpasses where we were pre-COVID, and I think that’s a testament to getting back on our feet and people wanting to be together and come out (to games), so that’s been fantastic,” Crelin said.

ECHL teams this season are averaging 4,540 fans per game, topped by the Jacksonville Icemen’s average of 7,997, the Fort Wayne Komets’ 7,787 and the Walleye’s 7,676. 

There certainly are concerning numbers – the Iowa Heartlanders are averaging a league-worst 1,777, just below the Wheeling Nailers’ 2,035 and the Trois-Rivières Lions’ 2,345 – but Iowa recently was sold to new owners, and Trois-Rivières is in the process of finalizing a sale, too. 

Crelin believes the ECHL is finding the right ownership groups for the league’s long-term health, and there’s not much evidence to think he’s incorrect.

COMING SOON: The @ECHL's Lake Tahoe expansion team will hit the ice next season. Last night, the team which is co-owned by Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow unveiled their logo and name. Say hello to the Tahoe @Knight_monsters!

More: https://t.co/gkMS4ebJyI pic.twitter.com/NpvwSmRIL2

— FloHockey (@FloHockey) December 1, 2023

Having celebrity owners in the ECHL, such as NFL player Myles Jack with the Allen Americans and Tebow, the famed Heisman Trophy winner, with the Knight Monsters, certainly increases the visibility of the league. But it’s still not clear how much they’ll be involved in the day-to-day operations of their teams.

“It’s certainly not very often that the ECHL makes the ESPN ticker down at the bottom of the screen, and (having Tebow) did it,” Crelin said. “But I feel he’s doing it for all the right reasons, and it certainly raises the profile of the league, no doubt.”

Having a high profile is one thing, having the right people and the right business model is quite another. And that’s why the ECHL needs to be cautious as it expands.

People often make the comparison to baseball when they talk about having a three-tiered system, but a key difference is the travel. 

Baseball teams in the Double-A leagues travel only within their geographic footprints; they’re not making trips from, say, St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Boise, Idaho, as the ECHL’s Growlers recently did.

As the ECHL gets more closely aligned with the NHL, there will be the temptation to push NHL teams to buy ECHL teams. It may make sense on the surface, but it’s dangerous. 

As I’ve seen in the G League, the NBA’s minor-league circuit, owning a minor-league team often goes sideways because the NBA executives bring in their own staffs, who often don’t understand the minor-league market – what makes it tick and what the fans want – and don’t have relationships with local reporters, businesses or politicians. And they often end up losing loads of money and moving the team or scuttling it all together.

Growth is great, but only as long as it makes sense. Right now, the ECHL is growing, and let’s hope it keeps growing for the better.