AHL Admirals Calder Cup Ce.JPG

The glory days of Norfolk AHL hockey: J.P. Cote, Mike Angelidis, Mark Barberio and P.C. Labrie soak in the love at a championship parade after the Admirals won the 2012 Calder Cup. All four subsequently skated for the Syracuse Crunch when Tampa Bay moved its affiliate from Norfolk to Syracuse the next season.

(Vicki Cronis-Nohe | The Associated Press)

When the players who would become Syracuse Crunchers left Norfolk three years ago, that city never really left them.

Tampa Bay moved its AHL affiliate from Norfolk to Syracuse after the Admirals won the Calder Cup in the 2011-12 season. But several of the returning players carried over their southern climate habits, such as bicycling around downtown, wearing shorts and flip-flips to practice and riding skate boards from the parking garage to the War Memorial.

Then fall turned to spring here and all that was out the window.

Still, the players who skated in Norfolk retained their warm glow about that part of their careers.

Soon, such memories will be all that's left of AHL hockey in Norfolk.

According to several reports, including this one in The Virginian-Pilot, parent club Anaheim (Syracuse's previous affiliate) is going to purchase the 15-year-old Admirals franchise and move it to San Diego. That new club would be part of an expected AHL expansion to the West Coast next year.

Three current Syracuse Crunch players remain from the Norfolk era: Mike Angelidis, Eric Neilson and J.P. Cote. After practice on Thursday, they reflected on the news and their time in the city.

Cote

"To me, thinking back on it, the most attachment I have to the city right now, it's not the hockey part of it. It's really the fans that have been really good throughout the whole run we had that year. It's sad for these guys, most of all.

"We go back there, we still have friends. You win somewhere, it's just intoxicating, the whole city wants to get behind you. We saw it a little bit here in Syracuse (in the Calder Cup runnerup year of 2012-13) and I'm sure we'll see it down the road. Obviously, that's what makes you appreciate a city even more. It is kind of sad.''

Angelidis

"If they get moved I think it's sad for the city of Norfolk. It's a great city, great fans. If they get at least a (ECHL) hockey team in there at least they'll have something. It was a great city, made a lot of friends. I think from a hockey player's standpoint it's a great place to have your family and play. From a business standpoint, you've got to understand that (Anaheim's move). But for the city of Norfolk I feel like they should put a team in there. They have great fans and it's a great city.

"The people there were amazing. They opened their doors to us, their hearts. Not just when we were winning, when we were losing. I remember meeting all these people, and hanging out with them. I wasn't just hanging out with guys on the team. There was other people in the community that got involved in our lives, and I think that was huge to see in that city.''

Neilson

"We had the best record in the AHL. You could feel the excitement in the town. And we were right in Norfolk. All the guys lived there. We knew the business owners. We knew the restaurant owners. We went to the same places. It was just like one big community. Over half the guys were long-boarding from where we lived over to the rink.''

Apart from Neilson's loss, he said he liked the concept of an AHL west division. Such a group could include affiliates of Anaheim, Calgary (Adirondack), Edmonton (Oklahoma City), San Jose (Worcester) and Los Angeles (Manchester).

"I think it's great,'' he said. "I think it's good for the game. I think it's going to help a lot with your development for the West Coast teams. Guys flying from Manchester to L.A. to play, sometimes in the same day, because of the time change is possible. It's a lot for those guys to do that. I think it's going to be really beneficial for the travel for those guys too.

"I'd really like to see more east-west teams playing one another. I know now with the way the American League is set up we don't get a lot of east-west rivalries. We don't do a Texas trip. We don't do a California trip. For me, as an older guy, I really would like to see that because a lot of guys see the same thing over and over.''

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