{"id":1519,"date":"2013-06-14T14:42:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-14T14:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.stub.com\/hq\/news\/canucks-announce-affiliation-agreement-with-utica\/"},"modified":"2013-06-14T14:42:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-14T14:42:00","slug":"canucks-announce-affiliation-agreement-with-utica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/canucks-announce-affiliation-agreement-with-utica\/","title":{"rendered":"Canucks announce affiliation agreement with Utica"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Vancouver, BC (Sports Network) &#8211; The Vancouver Canucks have announced a new affiliation agreement with Utica of the American Hockey League.<\/p>\n<p>The AHL franchise will move from Peoria, Ill. to Utica, N.Y. for the start of the 2013-14 season. The team will become the Comets and will play in the Utica Memorial Auditorium under the management of Mohawk Valley Garden.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We look forward to a new AHL affiliation and the development of our prospects in Utica, New York,&#8221; said Canucks president and general manager Mike Gillis in a statement Friday. &#8220;There was a strong interest in bringing an AHL team back to Utica and real commitment to provide a positive environment for the growth and success of players in the Canucks system.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mohawk Valley Garden is led by former NHL goaltender Robert Esche and long- time AHL owner Frank DuRoss.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As someone who benefitted greatly from playing in the AHL on the way to the NHL, I know how important the AHL experience is to player development,&#8221; said Esche, who played for the Coyotes and Flyers in the NHL. &#8220;We will make this a top notch experience for both the Canucks and their prospects.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Utica previously served as an AHL affiliate for the New Jersey Devils from 1987-93.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vancouver, BC (Sports Network) &#8211; The Vancouver Canucks have announced a new affiliation agreement with Utica of the American Hockey League. The AHL franchise will move from Peoria, Ill. to Utica, N.Y. for the start of the 2013-14 season. The team will become the Comets and will play in the Utica Memorial Auditorium under the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nhl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}