BLOGS

The Wenatchee Wild and Albert Lea Thunder both joined the NAHL for the 2008-09 season, but that's pretty much where the similarities end between the two teams.

The Wild has been an exemplary franchise in just about every way imaginable, on and off the ice.

The Thunder, on the other hand, have been a mess. The team won four games — yes, four — all of last season. They've picked up that pace considerably this year, but are still in danger of being one of just three league teams to miss the division playoffs. (They do still have a chance to catch a North Iowa team that dumped several of its top players at the trade deadline.)

Albert Lea's average paid attendance was 552 last season, a number that has dipped to 405 so far this year.

One other small thing ... the owners of the team were ousted by the league in December over an alleged "pay to play" scheme, and the league has been running the franchise since then.

According to the Albert Lea (Minn.) Tribune, the Thunder got the parents of eight players to cough up $12,500 each to guarantee playing time for their sons — a huge no-no in the only USA Hockey-sanctioned non-pay-to-play Tier II Junior A league in the country.

The Tribune also reported that the ousted owner wasn't great about paying his bills around town, which is going to leave any potential new owner with some fences to mend.

If there's a silver lining to the Albert Lea situation, it's that the ownership groups for the next crop of expansion teams — Chicago, Aberdeen, Fresno and Dawson Creek — probably had to jump through a few extra hoops before being granted a franchise, meaning the risk of having such serious issues is pretty low for those teams.

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