As the NHL regular season comes to a close, all is to play for and the many Low Cost Franchise begin to hope about Stanley Cup success and the possibility of becoming champions. We will look at these Franchises and find out how they have begun from a Franchise For Sale presented across the world to the giant Low Cost Franchise of the NHL today. The NHL business market has been unequal for numerous years from numerous clubs struggling to stay in business to a lot of clubs being able to hand out multi million dollar contracts. At this existing period the NHL franchise market is much more equal as massive amounts of money are being conserved as the world financial state has hit the hockey market. All of the Low Cost Franchise are cutting expenditure and functioning with what they have, which is having a great advantage to the proposed idea of Franchise For Sale in the market. Many managers for numerous years have looked upon their team as a Home Based Franchise, they work with their franchise on a daily timeframe and they take it everywhere with them. This is much like any Home Based Franchise in the existing market and consequently hugely beneficial to their future backer looking for a Franchise For Sale in the sports market. The sponsor will have the confidence that the franchise has been well directed and looked after as if it were a Home Based Franchise.

Here is the history of one of the NHL Low Cost Franchise that has had huge support over the years including success on and sometimes off the ice.

The Flames hockey franchise was in fact formed thousands of miles from Calgary. In 1972 a Georgia based assembly headed by Tom Cousins brought hockey to the South, with the Atlanta Flames. The Flames started play in an NHL that was tackling stiff competition from the World Hockey Association (WHA), which was making inroads within the United States. The franchise put forth competitive teams, missing the playoffs only twice in their 1st eight NHL club were sold for $16 million to Vancouver businessman Nelson Skalbania and his Calgary based associates. And so the Flames relocated north to the oil patch, playing out of the Corral in Calgary.

Cliff Fletcher traded for Doug Gilmour in 1988-89 and Theo Fleury cracked the Flames line-up. They beat Vancouver, Los Angeles and Chicago to go against the celebrated Montreal Canadians in the Stanley Cup final. Doug Gilmour would finally net the game winner and an empty netter to reassure the win, as the Calgary Flames won their 1st ever Stanley Cup by winning the Montreal Canadians at the famous Forum. Just as everything had come together for the club to win the cup, the fabric of the franchise was torn the very next year thanks to a player revolt that led to the departure of Terry Crisp. Doug Risebrough took over behind the bench but the Flames bowed out to the Edmonton Oilers in the 1st round of the playoffs.

As most of the players from the clubs championship team left, Calgary would find itself in the strange position of being a continually underperforming franchise. With rising salary costs and being a “small market Canadian team” the Flames begun to rebuild with young talent as they finished out of the playoffs.

To begin with the Flames struggled to get many of their young players into the line-up. But a smart trade with Dallas landed Jerome Iginla into Calgary and he would form the core of the Flames squad. Even with the exciting play of Iginla, the franchise continue to have financial issues as the devalued Canadian dollar, increasing salaries, and not the most robust revenue streams meant that they had to run an extra tight ship. The franchise have not been able to replicate the success they enjoyed in much of their club history. A Stanley Cup seems even farther away.