The Wenatchee Wild moved to Rio Grande Valley Texas to become the Killer Bees. A few days later the Fresno Monsters mover to Wenatchee Washington to become the Wenatchee Wild.
Bliss Littler, the Head Coach of the Wenatchee Wild moving to Rio Grande Valley is now the Head Coach of the Wenatchee Wild that came from the Fresno Monsters? Confused yet?
Littler has agreed to a five year contract to stay in Wenatchee and coach the Wild under franchise owner David White. A five year contract at the NAHL level is unprecedented. Sources from Wenatchee are saying that the scope of power given to Littler in the deal is nearly all-encompassing, essentially making him team General Manager and the person making the decisions on and off the ice for the business.
Also noteworthy is the retention of Assistant Coaches Tom Rudrud and Chris Clark, both of whom worked with Littler last season.
The timeline of these moves is worth review. On May 14th, it was officially announced that Wenatchee was moving to Rio Grande Valley. The date of announcement would likely indicate that the move was in the planning stages in early to mid April. This would indicate that the Arenas in both cities as well as the NAHL and its member teams all knew of the potential move to Rio Grande Valley leaving plenty of notice for Fresno to go and talk with Wenatchee.
The Town Toyota Center, home arena for the Wild, purchased the rights to the Wild name and logo around May 21st. Those negotiations to purchase the name and logo began around May 17th. Sources are reporting that the conversations with David White in Fresno were already ongoing at that time.
Between May 21st and May 30th, the purchase of the name and logo were completed. The purchase price was largely made up of forgiving the debt owed to Town Toyota Center by outgoing ownership.
Considering Fresno’s move to Wenatchee was announced on May 31st, it is easy to see that those negotiations had to have begun in mid April or early May to reach a conclusion before the end of May.
TJHN sources are reporting that Littler was kept informed of negotiations throughout the entire process. Sources are also reporting that Littler informed both the departing and incoming ownership groups that he would only leave Wenatchee if the Fresno move was not approved. This easily explains the fact that Littler, Rudrud and Clark never made plans to leave the area when all three could have easily had new employment within days of the Rio Grande Valley announcement.
The Wild have their work cut out for them. The NAHL draft is Tuesday and they will have a large amount of draft picks to use since the players from the first Wild team are now property of Rio Grande Valley.
