American Hockey League Re-Aligns for 2014-15

With two franchise re-locations over the off-season the American Hockey League has announced a re-alignment for the upcoming 2014-15 season.

An overview of the alignment:

Five clubs find themselves in new divisions, no team switched conferences despite one relocating across the continent. Here’s the run-down of the changes:

Abbotsford Heat have relocated from British Columbia to Glens Falls, NY and will be known as the Adirondack Flames. They stay in the Western Conference and move from the West Division to the North Division.

Adirondack Phantoms are now in Allentown, PA and have been re-named the Lehigh Valley Phantoms. They move from the Northeast Division to the East Division.

Syracuse Crunch swap places with the Phantoms and switch from the East to the Northeast Division.

Lake Erie (Cleveland) Monsters are now in the Midwest Division instead of the North.

Iowa Wild fill the void left by the relocated Abbotsford Heat and move into the West Division from the Midwest.

The American Hockey League is very northeast heavy and because of this you do get some whacky divisional placements which become quite clear when looking at a map of the teams and divisions:

Charlotte, traditionally a very Eastern city, is located in the most Western division possible. The West-West.

The state of New York has six teams spread out across three divisions and two conferences. Two of the Western Conference teams in the state are located further east than two of the Eastern Conference teams.

The two Massachusetts teams are split into separate divisions.

This might be a good example of a league which should not rely on geographical based division names, it seems forced and results in a mess (just look at New York State). How can Charlotte be in the West? How can Iowa *not* be the division named Midwest but Cleveland is?

Do you have a better idea of how the AHL could re-align itself? What should they name the conferences or divisions? Share your concepts and proposals in the comments below