NAHL Double Standards: The Circus of 2026 The NAHL Circus: Selective Relocations and Crashing Franchise Values

The North American Hockey League (NAHL) has officially entered the "do as I say, not as I do" era. Yesterday, word filtered through the grapevine that the North Iowa Bulls have been green-lit to relocate to the Houston suburb of Richmond, Texas. While the move might make financial sense for the Bulls' ownership, the approval exposes a glaring, systemic hypocrisy within the league’s front office.

How is it that the Bulls get the rubber stamp for a cross-divisional jump to the South while other owners are treated like prisoners of war? In the last three years, we’ve seen multiple teams, most notably Chippewa, denied the chance to relocate to thriving markets like Colorado. Two other clubs were blocked from moving to Alaska, a market that actually wants the product.

The logic is non-existent. The league forces teams to remain in "bad situations" to preserve a geography that is already crumbling. If a team in the Midwest is bleeding out, why are they locked into a division just to save a few bucks on a bus bill for their neighbors, while the Bulls get a one-way ticket to the Lone Star State?

The league’s "minimum standards" have become a punchline. Look at the Maine Nordiques. After losing their building to an NCDC team, they were essentially allowed to stay in a glorified recreation center in Auburn. It's a substandard facility that would have been laughed out of the room five years ago.

Then you have the Oklahoma Warriors, stuck in the Blazers Ice Centre, a facility that barely meets the criteria for a Tier II operation. If the NAHL is going to mandate "membership values" and high standards, they should probably start by enforcing them across the board rather than selectively choosing which favorites get a pass.

Nothing illustrates the "circus act" of the 2025-26 season better than the Minnesota Mallards. How Dennis Canfield managed to con his way into a head coaching gig is the industry’s biggest joke of the year. When you have coaching hires that feel more like a magic trick than a merit based decision, you lose the locker room, and the respect of the scouting community.

It’s time for a cold shower: The "value" of an NAHL or USHL franchise is a fraction of what it was 24 months ago. The facts are uncomfortable, but undeniable. The NAHL has effectively become an NCAA D3 and ACHA feeder league. Consequently, the USHL has slid down into the space the NAHL used to occupy.

League mandated membership values are a fantasy. Corpus Christi is worth 50 times what the Mallards are, yet the league treats them as equals in the boardroom. Mark Frankenfeld and the Board of Governors need a reality check, perhaps from a courtroom. Even the NHL doesn't try to dictate relocation with this level of arbitrary control. If the league won't allow owners to recapitalize in viable markets, it's not a partnership; it's a bottleneck.

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