BBA Alternate History: What If Charm City Never Left Portland

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lordtoffee
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BBA Alternate History: What If Charm City Never Left Portland

Post by lordtoffee » Thu Jul 16, 2020 8:56 pm

The BBA has had many turning points throughout it's history. 1995 is considered the clear demarcation line in which everything happened either before or after that year is radically different. 2040 is probably going to go down as a demarcation line, but there was one decision that has been lost in the mists of time and is the most interesting relocation in the league's history. I am of course referring to the 2029 expansion. If you remember, Portland was announced as one of the expansion teams, and then suddenly moved before playing a game to Baltimore to become the Charm City Jimmies. This feature will aim to try and answer the question what if Charm City never left Portland. Before we get into what the BBA could look like today, a couple of ground rules. I'm not going to speculate on GM history or where players are going to end up, because a GM might be running a team based on certain reasoning, and this is a hypothetical. Another rule is that if a team ends up moving or an expansion round happens, a team might not be named the same. Remember, there is a different lay of the land in this exercise. Lastly, this is just a fun exercise and should be cause for discussion.

It's important to remember what the BBA alignment was in 2028 before the realignment was to get a better idea of what the initial impact of Portland joining in 2009 would have. The 2028 alignment was follows:

Frick League:
Atlantic City Montreal Carolina Havana (Atlantic)

Las Vegas Calgary Seattle Tuscon (Pacific)

New Orleans Birmingham Des Moines Indy (Midwest)

Johnson League:
Louisville Jacksonville Brooklyn Halifax (Atlantic)

Vancouver Hawaii Valencia California (Pacific)

Huntsville Yellow Springs Madison Omaha (Midwest)

The four expansion teams in 2029 were Edmonton, Twin Cities, Phoenix, and Charm City. The league realigned into two divisions per league. Twin Cities joined the Heartland, Edmonton joined the Pacific, Charm City joined the Atlantic, and Phoenix joined the Southern. But what would the divisional alignment look like if Portland was included?

The problem would be that Portland would be bound for the Pacific in place of Edmonton, and that would cause a problem for the divisions. Someone would have to be an outlier or an expansion team would have to move. I would imagine that Edmonton probably wouldn't have a team, and I would have considered moving it to Hartford. The reasoning for that would be that Hartford would be a reasonable flight for most teams in the Atlantic, and New England is a region that has not had a BBA team in years in our timeline. I would call the team the Hartford Whalers, and have them share the colors and branding of the old NHL team for the nostalgia and selling tickets. Brooklyn would complain about losing a huge area, but adding a New England team would be successful if the rules still prohibited a team in Boston.

If the league expands to 30 teams sometime around 2035, it would have been a different landscape. Baltimore would have been open, and I would have chosen Baltimore over Wichita. Nothing against the Aviators, but getting into Baltimore later would have been worth it unless another team had already moved to Baltimore. So no Aviators potentially. The other expansion team would have gone to Colorado Springs. The reason being is that Colorado is a great sports state, and you could build a stadium near the Air Force Academy. I would name the team the Colorado Springs Top Gun. And yes, Top Gun Night is mandatory. The Baltimore team would be named the Baltimore Crabbers.

For the final expansion to 32, there would probably be an avoidance of the West Coast assuming that San Fernando and Long Beach both still move. I would add the Cougars as an expansion team, but the final BBA expansion team would be the Kansas Jaycats. The team would play in Wichita, and would have a mishmash of Jayhawks and Wildcats branding.

So yeah, the league would look pretty different. What do you guys think? Was there something I missed?
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Re: BBA Alternate History: What If Charm City Never Left Portland

Post by bcslouck » Fri Jul 17, 2020 6:25 am

So I believe Edmonton was initially going to be VA Beach. I had requested to be the Jimmies but originally was denied (I think. Either way, I wasn't going to be that.) and I believe that's why I took (or was given) Portland. Then I was given the green light for it when it was decided to have Edmonton over VA Beach.

And me personally, if I went with Baltimore instead of Charm City, I may of brought back the old minor league hockey team, the Skipjacks.
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Re: BBA Alternate History: What If Charm City Never Left Portland

Post by RonCo » Fri Jul 17, 2020 2:08 pm

Interesting to think about.
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Re: BBA Alternate History: What If Charm City Never Left Portland

Post by StormZ_23 » Fri Jul 17, 2020 7:12 pm

Now this is a series I can get behind, I love alternate history scenarios
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Re: BBA Alternate History: What If Charm City Never Left Portland

Post by lordtoffee » Fri Jul 17, 2020 11:04 pm

StormZ_23 wrote:
Fri Jul 17, 2020 7:12 pm
Now this is a series I can get behind, I love alternate history scenarios
Thanks Taylor. If you want to write some features about it, I would be curious to see your thoughts.
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