I totally didn’t use this picture because I’m in the middle-left with a sign. No way that was the reasoning behind it.

In a move that may be the biggest for potential Marlies popularity growth in years, the American Hockey League and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation have agreed to a one year broadcasting deal, allowing for 10 Canadian-affiliate vs Canadian-affiliate games to be broadcasted under the Hockey Night In Canada brand (though all of them are afternoon games). Seven of these games will feature your Toronto Marlies (five of those being home games), a move that has fans of other teams doing their typical “its a conspiracy” rants they were already known for doing for the Leafs. Now, you may be going “cool, but why is this significant?” as you read this. Well, there are a bunch of reasons. Here’s a few.

1. Spreads the AHL as a legitimate league – While the AHL has cemented itself in many of its markets, Canada is still one where it struggles. Maybe because its not seen as the most important of the non-NHL leagues like it is in the states (due to the CHL). Maybe its something else. But whatever the reason, its got to be worked on, and getting a bunch of broadcasts with the most important TV hockey brand in the world is absolutely huge. As the AHL’s reputation grows, more and more people will be interested in going to these games, not just here, but Canada-wide.

2. Extends the Toronto Marlies brand outside of Toronto - Not many people outside of the GTA know about the Marlies unless they’re the most die hard of Leafs fans, ones who follow prospects intensively, and even then, the don’t care about the teams existence, only the players results. The Marlies being broadcasted will spread the teams reputation and existence to people who may never have heard of them, particularly in markets that are close but not quite in Toronto, markets that haven’t really been tapped by Marlies marketing quite yet due to focus on the immediate region.

3. Promotes the team to unaware Leafs fans – Amazingly, there are quite a few Leafs fans who probably know absolutely nothing about the Marlies. Heck, it wouldn’t shock me if there were some that still think the St. Johns Maple Leafs still exist. These are generally the people who are more casual about their game experiences, really only caring about whats on the ice at the exact second they’re watching the game. What better way to go “hey, we’re a hockey team too” to this demographic by going to the place that likely is the extent of their hockey absorption?

4. Stepping stone to more live games on TV – Something I know that a lot of us Marlies fans (lets forget the potential fan demographic for a minute) have been craving are extensive live broadcasts of Marlies games, particularly the ones that aren’t on at the same time as the Leafs. With the first game being a huge success, the 7 games this year should be the test to prove to LeafsTV whether to look into more live broadcasts for 2011/12, if ratings are good. On top of LeafsTV, you never know who’s interest you may pique – Sportsnet One+Ontario and TSN2 could always come knocking when they’re in the need of some material to kill time.

5. Gives out of town fans opportunity to keep up - The Marlies, sadly, are criminally under promoted outside of the GTA (and to some extent, here too), to the point where the internet is your best way of retrieving information. Again though, all you’d be able to get is information – videos are scarce. People who want to follow this team but are too far away to come to home games get their opportunity to see them now.

6. HD Games! CBC proved that whipping out the high definition cameras inside Ricoh Coliseum could theoretically work with the last game involved. Granted, I don’t know if we’ll see this for the two away games or the non-Marlies games, but the tech is there to get a chunk of this in high definition, something you don’t see for the AHL every day.

7. Good for Ricoh attendance – The game last year was an attendance smash hit, with one of the higher all time attendances, selling out at least 3/4 of the arena. These games tend to bring in spikes (people hoping to get on TV?), and having 5 of them at home next year (12.5% of regular season home games) just might be enough to sell some people on showing up more often. If not, they at least boost the total count for next year.

8. Sample of the big show experience for the youth – Being as 5 of these games will be in Toronto, you can no doubt expect increased media coverage for these games in comparison to your average event. Though the players won’t get the full NHL experience, they will get a bit of a taste of what its like to deal with the Toronto media, meaning they won’t be completely thrown off in the event of a call up.

9. We can see our rivals! Much like I suggested people who don’t normally see us, many of them wanting to but not getting the chance, we get an opporunity to watch the games of teams that we normally wouldn’t unless they were facing us. Its definitely going to be interesting to watch players critically without having to cheer for the Marlies at the same time (not that doing that’s a bad thing, of course). Being informed about the other teams is always cool.

Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing Ricoh nearly, if not completely filled a few times this year, and looking forward to the not-involving-us games immensely. Last years game proved that the AHL could work on such a big-audience network, but only for a game. Hopefully, this year is the year that we cement that the AHL can finally work on being in the Canadian mainstream, with our Marlies leading the way in that initiative.

The games involving the Marlies are as follows. Home in bold.

Binghamton at Toronto  October 17th, 1PM
Hamilton at Toronto, November 21st, 1PM
Toronto at Hamilton, December 12th, 1PM
Toronto at Abbotsford, January 16th, 2PM
Manitoba at Toronto, Febuary 27th, 1PM
Hamilton at Toronto, March 6th, 1PM
Manitoba at Toronto, April 3rd, 1PM

Games not involving our Marlies:

Oklahoma City at Hamilton, October 24th, 1PM
Abbotsford at Manitoba, January 23rd, 1PM
Abbotsford at Manitoba, March 27th, 1PM