One of the larger pieces of news this offseason that quickly fell to the bottom of the news barrel as the Stanley Cup Finals, NHL Entry Draft, and free agency got underway was the sale of the Columbus’ Blue Jackets longtime divisional foe, the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Fenway Sports Group, which had held controlling ownership of the historic franchise for the past four years, sold the majority controlling interest of the club to the Hoffmann Family of Companies, a private equity firm out of Naples, Florida.
For those few Central Ohio hockey fans that may have a fan interest in minor league hockey, the Hoffman Family should be a familiar name. They are the same group that owns the ECHL’s most successful franchise, the Florida Everblades.
Oddly, they are also my favorite ECHL franchise, as my family just happens to spend a great deal of time in Estero, Florida, where the Everblades call Hertz Arena home. (Estero is also, of course, the hometown of onetime Blue Jacket Gavin Brindley).
As soon as the sale of the Penguins was finalized, questions were almost immediately asked, would the Penguins end their longtime ECHL affiliation with the nearby Wheeling Nailers in favor of the franchise’s new owner’s ECHL club? David Hoffman, the family’s patriarch, certainly seems to think so.
"I think they would run me out of Naples if they’re not. We already have people wearing Penguins jerseys at our games, so I think the high expectation level is that’s going to happen. And we want to do that."David Hoffman
So, where would that put the Nailers?
Their relationship with the Penguins is the ECHL's longest, standing at 29 years as of the end of the 2025-26 campaign. Per the Wheeling News-Register, it was actually the Blue Jacket's pending entry into the NHL that made the Penguins look to solidify their hold on the Ohio Valley hockey market, and the relationship has been a fruitful one for both clubs for the same amount of time I've walked on Planet Earth. I have no great connection to either Wheeling or Pittsburgh, but even I would be saddened to see this long and prosperous relationship ended.
The Blue Jackets, on the other hand, have gone many years without a long-term ECHL affiliation. Following the extremely unfortunate folding of the Dayton Bombers in 2009, who the Jackets had been affiliated with since their inaugural season.
Columbus has not held an ECHL affiliation for longer than two years, most recently with the Kalamazoo Wings in 2023. The few times the Jackets have loaned a player to the ECHL since then has mainly been with Toledo (longtime Detroit affiliate), Cincinnati and the Wings on a case-by-case basis.
Many Jackets fans, reasonably, have called for looking into a relationship with the Cincinnati Cyclones, but the Jackets have never expressed interest in the Queen City's franchise for reasons that are personally unknown to me. The "i-71 Corridor" for Ohio professional hockey makes too much sense to me, but the Cyclones have become affiliated with the Toronto Maple Leafs and are not looking for an NHL affiliate at this time.
If Wheeling is looking for a new affiliation for the first time in nearly three decades after this summer, do the Jackets make sense? The 129 miles between Nationwide Arena and Wesbanco Arena is certainly not the 60 or so miles between "The Igloo" and Wheeling, but is ironically less than the 141 between Rocket Arena in Cleveland and Columbus.
There's a case to be made that the Ohio-based Jackets should look into further developing a market in the Ohio Valley, and the Nailers, also technically known as the "Hockey Club of the Ohio Valley" would make some sense.
But, until there's more of a concrete need for an ECHL affiliate, I wouldn't hold my breath if I'm a Jackets fan. The relationship the club has enjoyed with the AHL's Cleveland Monsters for over a decade now has been one of the NHL's best, and after that relationship was recently extended in the long term, I don't see another minor league affiliate in the works anytime soon.
Add us as a preferred source on Google