A gallon of gas cost $1.20 in 1995 and while those days are likely gone the way of manual transmissions, at least one thing from that year is coming back here in the fall.
The St. Louis Blues are the Railers new NHL affiliate. The move was announced Saturday afternoon during a press conference at the Worcester IceCenter.
The Blues first arrived in town in the 1995-96 hockey season as the NHL partner of the American Hockey League IceCats. St. Louis was the IceCats’ first NHL affiliate after the team played as an independent in their inaugural season of 1994-95. The Blues stayed in town for the duration of the IceCats stay here and owned the franchise for the last few seasons before moving it to Peoria, Il. after 2024-25.
The Railers agreement with the New York Islanders and their AHL Bridgeport franchise expired at the end of this past season. Worcester’s management talked with both New York teams, the Islanders and Rangers, as well as St. Louis. The Islanders have re-aligned with the new ECHL team in Trenton, N.J. with their AHL affiliate having moved to Hamilton, Ontario.
Worcester’s AHL partner, its direct connection in the Blues organization, will be the Springfield Thunderbirds. The Blues are in the midst of a longterm agreement with them. Prior to its new deal with the Railers, St. Louis’ ECHL partner for two seasons was the perennial powerhouse Florida Everblades.
The Railers and Blues have agreed to a five-year deal with some flexibility.
“We wanted consistency,” Railers COO Mike Myers said, “and we both wanted longer term. The discussions could not have been more agreeable.”
There was a good crowd on hand for the announcement, about the same number of fans who come to watch a pre-season game at the Ice Center. Railers owner and founder Cliff Rucker was among those in attendance.
“I am very excited about next season,” he said. “I’m always excited about the next Railers season. That’s why I keep doing this. But, yes, this upcoming season has a different feel to it.”
Rucker was not critical of the Islanders partnership with Worcester. Essentially, though, the bottom line was that it just wasn’t working as the Railers had hoped.
“Eight years without being in the playoffs,” he said. “I’m a believer in the insanity theory — doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Bridgeport’s move to Hamilton made it a good time to take a look at where we were.
“We had a great relationship with the Islanders, with (GM) Chris Lamoriello and those who came before him.”
The alliance with the Blues had nothing to do with their IceCats days, COO Mike Myers said. The alignment with St. Louis was about things like how smoothly the negotiations went, how close Worcester and Springfield are on the map, etc. — strictly business.
The Islanders and Railers had been partners since Worcester joined the ECHL for the 2017-18 season. Along the way the Railers also had a short half-partnership with St. Louis. As an Islanders affiliate, Worcester made the playoffs in 2017-18 but has not qualified since.
The Blues affiliation may bring back good memories from the IceCats years, but it won’t bring back the name.
“That never even came up,” Myers said of a possible name change from Railers. “We talked about it (using IceCats) when we started but Cliff was adamant. If we’re starting something new we want our own identity. At the time, I thought there might be benefits but now it would seem a little weird.”
The Railers plan for another IceCats Night during this season but will not be re-creating IceCats uniforms.
The agreement was actually finalized weeks ago but the Falcons made the Calder Cup playoffs and the Everblades won the Kelly Cup for the fourth time in the last five seasons. So the announcement was delayed.
There will be some flexibility in the relationship with Springfield, according to Railers GM-coach Nick Tuzzolino.
“I don’t think we’re gonna be all about numbers, for lack of better term,” he said. “We’ve talked about some free agency lists that I can put porth and we can talk together. They’ll help us when they can and vice versa, when it comes to signing goalies and some players around the league, but there won’t be as much guessing going on.”
Tuzzolino has been identifying players he wants back from last year’s team, and other available talent.
“I have a really good sense of that,” he said. “I’d say I’ve talked to 99 percent of my core that Chris (Rumble) and I want back. All of them are fair game. I’ve also had some reach-out from some pretty high end players across the league that were just coming off AHL deals that are free agents.”
At this point in the off-season, ECHL rosters are mostly written in mud, not stone.
“We’re having no problem getting guys back,” Tuzzolino said, “but it’ll be where everything fits. With the new affiliation, trickling down will be different. It won’t necessarily be guys that are upset that they’re here. There will be guys who understand why they are here and that’s gonna be a lot diferent mentality than we’ve had in past years.”
The city’s pro hockey history has a way of going in circles.
The Railers will be part of the St. Louis organization, which was in town for 10 seasons. Worcester’s immediate partner is Springfield, which provided the opposition for the IceCats first game ever, and first game in the then-Centrum.
The Islanders sent also players to the IceCats in the early years and the first IceCat to graduate to the NHL was Jason Widmer, who was loaned here by New York.
Widmer later came back and played here again under a Blues contract, so the circle has expanded and contracted through the years and is back in its original shape.
Springfield has occasionally sent players to the Railers and was a co-partner with the Islanders in 2021-22. One of the most significant loans from the Blues via Springfield was goaltender Colten Ellis.
There was no one from the Blues or Falcons on hand but Springfield did sent along a “welcome aboard” video from the Falcons. It featured their two co-general managers, Ryan Miller and Tim Taylor. Miller is not the former NHL goaltender Taylor. Taylor played in the AHL and NHL for 17 seasons and won the Stanley Cup with Detroit in 1996-97 and scored 20 goals for the 1997-98 Bruins.
So on the eve of Summer, 2026, the Railers experienced the first day of their new hockey life.
