Talk:Springfield Express

Do junior hockey teams really need a separate page for each relocation?
I know for professional hockey teams it is typical to make a new page for each relocation, but for junior hockey relocations are so frequent that it seems to be the standard to just rename the page. It prevents the teams from just being a bunch of stubs and gives a more complete view of the teams history. Your opinion? Yosemiter (talk) 18:15, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Generally yes, we have split minor league/junior teams as they move as well. I definitely see your point about them being small articles if they are split. The problem with combining them on one page is you give one team name prominence that it doesn't necessarily deserve over the others, in this particular case Springfield is still playing so I can see the article being named that, but say this team stops playing completely and doesn't move anywhere. Then you have 4 different teams all on one page with a name that doesn't necessarily best reflect the topic. Personally I prefer to split articles because I feel people in the older cities are more likely to expand information on the team when it was in their town than they are if its a section of page on the team when its in another town. But yeah it is definitely an issue with all minor league teams, not just junior level teams that teams move more often than the majors. -DJSasso (talk) 18:19, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Splitting does seem to be the case with Tier I and II teams since there is a bit more stability and notability for the teams in those leagues, but finding notability in Tier III teams is very difficult. Some leagues have a good deal of published information to source and make team pages for many of them. The Western States Hockey League for example is about half complete, mostly with poorly written or low information (stub) articles. Others, such as the United States Premier Hockey League which is newer, barely has any team pages. The Eastern Hockey League (2013–) on the other hand is nearly complete, but each team page is almost completely lacking citations, not to mention several incorrect teams (Capital District Selects has been called the Connecticut Oilers since 2012 but has never received a new page). It just seems easier to the non-regular but loyal hockey fan type contibuters to edit a team if it was entirely on one page. Yosemiter (talk) 18:42, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I guess I see it from both points of view. For a junior team especially a Tier III one, I doubt fans continue to follow the team once it leaves their city. As such they aren't likely to continue updating a page about a team that isn't "their" team. However, they might update a page that is specifically about the team when it was in their city. Teams at this level are not likely to get edits from the general public other than those in the city the team is in, most are going to come from the more hardcore hockey editor who specializes in the dark depths of Tier III junior hockey. As such I personally prefer to do all I can to cause that rare non-regular editor to make an edit on the page about their team. As your research suggests, its hard to even get the pages created for teams. I'm personally not sold that all teams in Tier III are notable even but not interested enough to look into it. (no need to ping me I am watching the page.) -DJSasso (talk) 18:48, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Honestly, I don't think Tier III teams are notable enough to warrant their own pages and the league pages could possibly be separated into a statistical historical section and current information. The historical section would refer to season records and which teams participated in each season and notable events (relocations/expansion/ midseason foldings). The main page would just be an overview of the league with a list of current teams, possibly directing the current teams website (which would likely be more up to date than any 4 regular contributors here could do). The only team page I have created so far was for the Lake Tahoe Blue only because I came across a bunch of other pages that directed to the Bay Area Seals (a former soccer team) and needed a place to direct it to. But then again I am not from Canada/Minnesota/Michigan where junior hockey is pretty big and they care about what is currently happening in the OHL/NOJHL/NAHL/USHL. Yosemiter (talk) 19:14, 9 April 2015 (UTC)