Today is a sad day in the city of Manchester, New Hampshire. The Manchester Monarchs have folded, and their membership in the ECHL has been terminated. The Monarchs have been operating for 18 years in both the AHL and ECHL combined as an affiliate of the Los Angeles Kings. Winning the AHL's Calder Cup in the 2014-15 season with the help of legendary bench warmer Paul Bissonnette, the signs were pointing in the right direction. However, this changed in the 2015-16 season where the Kings decided to move their AHL affiliate to Ontario, California which then lead the Manchester Monarchs to be bumped down - to the ECHL.
The ECHL is the "AA" tier of professional hockey in North America, and in the 2018-19 season, no team averaged above 8,000 fans per game while most arenas can hold over that number. Including Manchester's. In the 2018-19 season Manchester averaged around 2,500 fans per game in an arena which can hold over 11,000. This obviously was one of the reasons that lead to their downfall. Their attendance was clearly down from their AHL days.
The ECHL has no issue with having teams that were "booming with fans" such as the Alaska Aces fold. Yes, they were in Alaska which did lead to high travel costs which can cause an issue, BUT you remove this team and leave this die-hard fanbase with no other team in sight, and you take away all they had when it comes to a professional sports team in Alaska. Sure, theres 2 teams in the NAHL from Alaska and 2 NCAA D1 teams but that in reality isn't close to an ECHL team.
In reality, the AHL is what lead to the downfall of the Manchester Monarchs. It was because of this "California Division" which is actually the Pacific Division (5 out of the 7 teams in this division are from California and its honestly stupid). If this "California Expansion" of the AHL did not happen, Manchester would still have a hockey team. Period.
