The city of Abbotsford was never a particularly good home base for the Calgary Flames' American Hockey League affiliate, and it had nothing to do with the team being just east of Vancouver, in the heart of Canucks country.

Fact is, Abbotsford wasn't a good fit for a Canucks affiliate either, which is why Vancouver signed a five-year agreement to put their AHL franchise in Utica, New York, rather than waiting for the Fraser Valley city with twice the population and a love of all things Canucks to open up.

The problem with Abbotsford: it was just too far away. Not from Calgary or Vancouver, mind you, but from any other city in the AHL.

In a league driven by parity, where drafting and development have become the most important part of the game, the AHL's Western Conference teams are getting increasingly upset at having to exile their prospects to the other side of the continent, where they're harder to call up and harder to keep an eye on.

In their final season, the Abbotsford Heat finished fifth in the dubiously-named Western Conference, which also consists of such "Western" cities as Hamilton, Rochester, Toronto and Charlotte. The two nearest franchises to Abbotsford are in Iowa and Oklahoma, about 3,000 kilometres (1,864 miles) away, and only the latter plays in their division.

From a league perspective, Abbotsford may as well have been Fukagawa, its sister city in Japan.

This was a nightmare for Flames prospects, where a flight to visit a divisional rival was an all-day affair, and the youngsters were away from home 80 days out of the year -- far more than any other AHL franchise. When you're trying to turn a raw prospect into an NHLer, all that lost practice time adds up. As does the fatigue. And it's difficult to help a kid establish an organized, professional life when he's living out of a suitcase all year.

And so, for the Flames and Canucks, two teams that can't afford to fall any further behind in the Western Conference when it comes to churning out NHL-ready players, both decided that proximity to the rest of the league took precedent over proximity to them, and moved their development centres to New York. The Heat are now the Adirondack Flames of Glens Falls.

But they weren't happy to choose the lesser of two evils, and they're hardly the only clubs frustrated at what's begun to look like yet another competitive advantage for the teams of the Eastern Conference.

Which is why, beginning in 2015-16, the NHL and the AHL will be initiating a major plan to address this issue. If all goes well, Abbotsford will be the last victim of the American Hockey League's weak presence in the West.

The AHL is working on an initiative to introduce several more teams out West as early as 2015-16, something that Mayor's Manor began reporting back in April. At that time, as many as six NHL clubs were rumoured to be part of an affiliate migration that would help to establish a proper Western Conference in the AHL. Now, it could be closer to 10 teams moving their prospects to markets closer to their own backyards.

The California teams are reportedly on board, and while the Flames and Canucks have committed to the New York markets for the time being, the Edmonton Oilers are believed to be part of the plan as well.

The question becomes: Where will the AHL be getting these teams?

According to sources, from the ECHL.

With three NHL teams in California, having a trio of AHL teams in the state would be ideal, and wouldn't you know it, California already has three minor professional hockey teams: the ECHL's Bakersfield Condors, Stockton Thunder, and Ontario Reign.

The AHL covets those markets, along with every other Western market the ECHL's got, and it sounds like they can have them. After all, while the ECHL's Western Conference is better, with all eight of its teams actually west of the Mississippi River, it's not without problems: Eight teams from each Conference make the playoffs, which leaves five teams from the East on the outside, and zero from the West. That's ridiculous.

From the sounds of it, we should expect almost the entirety of the ECHL's Western Conference to join the AHL in 2015-16. Mixed with the proper Western markets already in the AHL and a dash of creativity, there might be enough to build a formal, 15 or 16-team conference.

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