Ari Segal, president of business operations for the San Diego Gulls and one of the architects in returning hockey to San Diego, emphatically states, “… we are not a minor league team.”

The Gulls are the American Hockey League affiliate for the Anaheim Ducks.

"You’ll never see ‘minor league’ in any of our branding, any of our collateral, anything anyone says from our staff ever says publicly," said Segal. "We’re not a minor league team."

Then what are they?

"[The AHL is] the second best hockey league in the world, and we are San Diego’s professional hockey team,” said Segal.

San Diego is part of the four team AHL expansion to California. The newly formed Pacific Division includes: the Gulls, Ontario Reign (Los Angeles Kings), Texas Stars (Dallas Stars), San Jose Barracuda (San Jose Sharks), Bakersfield Condors (Edmonton Oilers), Stockton Heat (Calgary Flames), and San Antonio Rampage (Colorado Avalanche).

Last weekend the Gulls wrapped up their first season back in San Diego in the second round of the playoffs with a 4-1 series loss to the Ontario Reign. While the end result wasn't what the team was hoping for, the return to San Diego was a success.

The Gulls last played hockey in San Diego in the 2005-06 season. A decade later, was the classiest city in the world ready for the return of the franchise?

Short answer: Yes.

Based on the AHL's average attendance figures alone, the Gulls were second behind the Hershey Bears.

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It all starts back in January 2015. The Anaheim Ducks announced they had purchased the Norfolk Admirals with the intent of moving the team to San Diego. The decision to take the team to San Diego wasn’t just because of the availability of the arena and the proximity to Anaheim (a 90 minute drive up the 5 Freeway, if you're lucky).

It was far more strategic.

“There’s a media landscape that lends itself incredibly well to us,” said Segal, “ ... you have an NFL team that plays primarily in the fall. A major league baseball team that plays primarily in the summer … from January to March - which is the peak for the American Hockey League - … total vacancy.

“Every network here has a full time sports anchor. The paper has multiple beat reporters and columnists and editorial to support those teams. There’s all sorts of bloggers ... and all of those entities are thirsty for content. We plug in right at a time where they need to fill pages and space and generate clicks and everything else, and add to that, because we’re an AHL club, not an NBA or NHL club, we don’t compete with the Padres or Chargers.

"We’re completely non-threatening to them, and in fact, complementary because we can keep their fans engaged in sports ... We can kind of be all things to all people.”

Coverage is fantastic, but what the group needed next was the buy in from the locals.

“There is a relocated population," said Segal. "People who live in San Diego aren’t even from San Diego. They’re from other places and they come here. So a lot of them have grown up with hockey. Plus, because of the military, there is a largely transient population that is from all over the country, and is coming and going and looking for activity.”

We went to Game 2 in San Diego against the Reign, and saw exactly what Segal was talking about.

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