The other day I attended a funeral and a hockey game broke out.

Okay, to be fair it was a hockey game all along but the funeral feel came from the knowledge that it was the last home game of the season for the Houston Aeros who by most accounts will be leaving for Des Moines, Iowa upon the completion of the current season.

While sports franchises move for myriad reasons the Aeros are not moving by choice.

After calling Houston home since the mid ninties, their lease is not being renewed at their home arena.

Comparable in town venues were looked at but no suitable site could be located. So, short of a last minute reprieve the pucks and the trucks filled with the rest of the equipment are heading north once the season is over and the era of minor league hockey in Houston will come to an end..

Of course with the Aeros out of the way it leaves certain parties free to pursue a National Hockey League team to replace the minor league Aeros. There are many factors that would need to fall into place for that to occur but step one to kick out the current tenet appears well underway.

This is certainly not the first time that Houston has dealt with a sports franchise leaving. The Houston Oilers relocated to Tennessee following the 1996 season. And after a season as the strangely named Tennessee Oilers they became the Titans.

Nearly a decade later, and despite getting the expansion team Houston Texans, there are still people angered by the loss of the Oilers. This anger is even more easy to spot when the Titans come to town to play the Texans.

I had a similar experience as a youngster in Maryland when on March 28, 1984 the owner of the Baltimore Colts packed up the team and shipped them to Indianapolis in the middle of the night. And much like the case in Houston, Baltimore eventually was awarded another team but the betrayal of the midnight run is still felt nearly 30 years later.

The largest crowd in the history of the Aeros was on hand to send them off.