Move some NHL teams back to Canada

[Derek21]

http://msn.foxsports.com/nhl/story/5989100

Move some NHL teams back to Canada

Alan Adams / Special to FOXSports.com

Posted: 2 hours ago

It's time for the National Hockey League to bite the bullet and high tail it back to Canada.

It's not that the NHL is on life-support in the United States. Far from it. It's alive and well, for the most part. There are a lot of solid markets in the U.S. and youth hockey is a growing sport in parts of Texas, California, Florida and Arizona.

The vital signs are good.

But the NHL should play to its strengths and move a couple of franchises north of the border. The NHL has nothing to lose and much to gain by going back to its roots.

Consider the following:

The Calgary Flames had 19,289 fans for their first preseason game last weekend. The Flames packed the Saddledome tighter than a sardine can on same day they depleted their stock of single seats for their 42 home regular-season games.

The very next day in Winnipeg, the 15,000-plus seat MTS Centre was jammed full for an exhibition game between the Phoenix Coyotes (formerly the Winnipeg Jets) and Edmonton Oilers. The Jets moved to Phoenix in 1996, ending 17 years of NHL hockey in Winnipeg. There have been three other exhibition games in the city, but this was the first time the Coyotes have played in Winnipeg.

The Toronto Maple Leafs players were in the midst of having their pre-camp medicals when the airwaves in the unofficial hockey capital of the world were buzzing with speculation whether the blue and white had what it takes to make the Stanley Cup playoffs next April.

It's the same story in Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal.

It's hockey, hockey, hockey, all the time.

Raise your hand if you can guess which sport leads off the highlight package on the sports channels on televisions across the country night after night.

Not baseball. Not football.

Sports fans in Canada just aren't paying as much attention to NCAA football, MLB's playoff races, the NFL, golf, you name it, as they are paying to hockey.

And the NHL won't be on the radar screens in the United States until the Super Bowl is over. League executives will argue otherwise, but...

That's why the NHL has to look north and the sooner the better.

That said, the question becomes: Which teams do you move and where do you move them to?

Let's start with Pittsburgh.

The Penguins are for sale. Why not Hamilton (Ontario)? But you might want to change the nickname.

If the New York market can claim to support three teams

[Devils731]

And forget the notion that the Leafs would have to be bought off to allow a team in Hamilton to invade their so-called territorial rights. The Leafs have made millions and millions of dollars in profit over the years and so what if they take a 20 percent hit? What's better than a little rivalry with a team a short slap shot down the freeway?

And as far as paying indemnification to the Buffalo Sabres, that's another argument that doesn't wash as far as this correspondent is concerned. The Sabres benefit from the NHL's revenue-sharing formula. A team in Hamilton should not be burdened with paying off its closest neighbors.

The author may want those 2 teams to not care about taking a financial hit but I'm sure the 2 teams will. It is very easy for the author to just throw away 20% of the leafs profits in his postulation but in real life people are not going to do that.

Edited September 21, 2006 by Devils731

[jkrdevil]

This is an example of what is wrong about parts of the hockey culture and a lot of hockey writers. In it he states that some of the southern markets are strong and the youth hockey is growing there. Yet then he goes on to say that they should move those teams and essentially stop that growth of hockey.

Is it me or are a great number of hockey writers (and sports writers in general) incredible shortsighted? Again he states the long-term plan is working but yet wants to cut it off because the sport hasn't boomed in less than 10 years.

Why do these people not want to grow the game? Growing the game means a better player pool and a better product on the ice for the fans to watch.

[Vinnie]

Why move Florida? Because they are the furthest south?

[NJD Jester]

Hamilton is an interesting option, only because Toronto could support another team and I'm enamoured with the idea of Malkin/Sid vs. the Leafs in the marketplace. But that's a very superficial reason to move a franchise.

Winnipeg? The NHL is light years stronger if it moves Florida to either Las Vegas, Oklahoma City or Kansas City.

<JESTER>

[NJayDevil]

I was just in Toronto 3 weeks ago and in no way are the Leafs in ANY danger of going bankrupt. They are a staple there forever. I went into the local 711 in Toronto and the first 7, yes 7, magazines on the shelf were all of hockey. I stand by them not neglecting the passion and rivalry putting a team in Hamilton would create

As much as I hate the Leafs, oh and I do, I walked around their city and saw them everywhere. It reminds me of NYC with the Yankees all over the place. I'm proud to see their symbol everywhere, and I was proud to see a hockey team celebrated in that way. I drove through Buffalo and Hamilton on my way to/from Toronto and I gotta say that would be some FUN rivalry. Just right up the Queens Expressway (or whatever it's called).

['7']

The Coyotes are just sitting around collecting dust, might as well move them back to Winnipeg. Arizona's support for its football team has been abysmal and they are losing interest in baseball. Hockey probably can't survive long term there.

Florida should just have 1 team, they didn't care when Tampa won the cup. Only a few thousand at the parade. They can be bandwagoners. The Panthers were hot when they first hit the scene as was tampa. Miami arena was rocking but it had a very small capacity. Florida is just weird, there are tons of games where there isn't more than 7,000 in the building and they announce attendance at 15,000. The only time when they sell out is when the Rangers are in town and transplanted New Yorkers buy up the tickets. Same for Dolphins Jets games. Florida is just not a good sports state.

you watch Carolina, even after a Cup year they'll have 9,000 for regular season dates. maybe even less.

[Triumph]

Toronto only has rivalries with Ottawa, Montreal, Buffalo, and Detroit (when they come to town), and to a lesser extent New Jersey and even Long Island - yeah, they need another one. What garbage.

If Pittsburgh has to move, Hamilton is a decent choice, but the salary cap will soon move out of reach from Calgary and Edmonton and the smaller market teams. Plus, the Candian dollar is far stronger than it was in the early 90s when the teams began to leave - it may not continue to be so.

^7^ all of your predictions are always wrong and by your logic the Devils should be moved to Winnipeg. Winnipeg cannot possibly support an NHL franchise at this point.

Edited September 21, 2006 by Triumph

['7']

Toronto only has rivalries with Ottawa, Montreal, Buffalo, and Detroit (when they come to town), and to a lesser extent New Jersey and even Long Island - yeah, they need another one. What garbage.

If Pittsburgh has to move, Hamilton is a decent choice, but the salary cap will soon move out of reach from Calgary and Edmonton and the smaller market teams. Plus, the Candian dollar is far stronger than it was in the early 90s when the teams began to leave - it may not continue to be so.

^7^ all of your predictions are always wrong and by your logic the Devils should be moved to Winnipeg. Winnipeg cannot possibly support an NHL franchise at this point.

we are lucky the Devils are still here, most don't realize they nearly bolted in 1993 when McMullen had Lamoriello scouting out the Target Center after the North Stars just moved.

[Don]

If Pittsburgh has to move, Hamilton is a decent choice, but the salary cap will soon move out of reach from Calgary and Edmonton and the smaller market teams. Plus, the Candian dollar is far stronger than it was in the early 90s when the teams began to leave - it may not continue to be so.

^7^ all of your predictions are always wrong and by your logic the Devils should be moved to Winnipeg. Winnipeg cannot possibly support an NHL franchise at this point.

The salary cap will never kill markets like Calgary and Edmonton. Let's say that the cap somehow miraculously hits a threshold number of $50M (instead of $36M this year). The +/- 8 would be $58M cap to $42M floor. If Edmonton spent $49M, revenue sharing would cover 1/4 of their payroll = $12M. Therefore Edmonton would have to pay, oh, $37M out of their pocket to ice a $49M team. When the $26M Oilers were facing off against the $75M Avalanche, it wasn't a fair fight at all... no amount of good management was going to be able to counterbalance that much of a payroll gap. But if you cannot compete with $49M against $58M, there is a problem.

Add to that, Calgary and Edmonton will soon be the wealthiest cities in North America, I don't see them even *NEEDING* revenue sharing. Calgary's biggest problem right now is finding enough able bodied men to work the machines. All the restaurants are closing up because they cannot find anyone willing to be a waiter for $20/hour. There was a news show on last week saying that one restauranter paid the $10,000 bail to get his dishwasher out of jail because he would have had to close up his restaurant without him. The dollar may change, but I don't see the world demand for oil going down, no matter how much I wish it were so.....

Neither Winnipeg nor Quebec City would be able to come up with $37M. The potential investors in Winnipeg outright admitted that the only way that they could BREAK EVEN would be to sit at the floor each and every year. In my above scenerio, a $42M Jets team would be out against a $58M Avalanche team and we're not much better off than where we started. Better, but not by much.

Edited September 21, 2006 by Don

[LOTCB]

Hamilton is an interesting option, only because Toronto could support another team and I'm enamoured with the idea of Malkin/Sid vs. the Leafs in the marketplace. But that's a very superficial reason to move a franchise.

Winnipeg? The NHL is light years stronger if it moves Florida to either Las Vegas, Oklahoma City or Kansas City.

<JESTER>

Reminds me of a great joke I heard when I was went to Mississauga ON this year for business...was talking to a Habs fan and he said..

Q. You know why Hamilton is trying hard to get a NHL team?

A. Because Toronto is still trying to get its own NHL team!

[annabelle]

http://msn.foxsports.com/nhl/story/5989100

The very next day in Winnipeg, the 15,000-plus seat MTS Centre was jammed full for an exhibition game between the Phoenix Coyotes (formerly the Winnipeg Jets) and Edmonton Oilers. The Jets moved to Phoenix in 1996, ending 17 years of NHL hockey in Winnipeg. There have been three other exhibition games in the city, but this was the first time the Coyotes have played in Winnipeg.

.

The first year that the Coyotes came here, too bad it wasn't the Canucks. I hate how after every exhibition game played here that everyone is all about bringing an NHL team back here. There is just no way that this city can sustain a team. NO WAY! People who say, give winnipeg a team probably have never been here. So what, some exhibition game sold out here, BIG DEAL! I can guarantee that games would not be sold out here and that fan interest would falter after the novelty of having a team here wore off. Truth is, Winnipeg is a city made up of a LARGE number of very poor people, not full of business people who can buy season tickets....We're not like Vancouver or Toronto whose better seats are bought by corporations. Whatever, people seriously need to get over it.

[Masked Fan]

...

And the NHL won't be on the radar screens in the United States until the Super Bowl is over. League executives will argue otherwise, but...

And even then, that's when the friggin NBA takes over the bulk of spots on sports shows followed closely by NCAA hoops. Then, after March madness it's all NBA til Spring training rolls up.

NHL = Red Headed stepchild.

[SC Devs Fan]

I love, in theory, tems returning to Canada. That way in 5-6 years, when they fail, they can relocate to hotbeds of hockey like Kansas City, San Diego or Panama City Beach.

[mddevsfan]

I love, in theory, tems returning to Canada. That way in 5-6 years, when they fail, they can relocate to hotbeds of hockey like Kansas City, San Diego or Panama City Beach.

The Rangers are paving the way for a move to Puerto Rico this Saturday...

[devlman]

Consider the following:

The Calgary Flames had 19,289 fans for their first preseason game last weekend. The Flames packed the Saddledome tighter than a sardine can on same day they depleted their stock of single seats for their 42 home regular-season games.

The very next day in Winnipeg, the 15,000-plus seat MTS Centre was jammed full for an exhibition game between the Phoenix Coyotes (formerly the Winnipeg Jets) and Edmonton Oilers. The Jets moved to Phoenix in 1996, ending 17 years of NHL hockey in Winnipeg. There have been three other exhibition games in the city, but this was the first time the Coyotes have played in Winnipeg.

The Toronto Maple Leafs players were in the midst of having their pre-camp medicals when the airwaves in the unofficial hockey capital of the world were buzzing with speculation whether the blue and white had what it takes to make the Stanley Cup playoffs next April.

It's the same story in Vancouver, Ottawa and Montreal.

It's hockey, hockey, hockey, all the time.

Raise your hand if you can guess which sport leads off the highlight package on the sports channels on televisions across the country night after night.

Wow, this writer just totally convinced me that hockey is the number one sport in Canada! who woulda thunk it.

you watch Carolina, even after a Cup year they'll have 9,000 for regular season dates. maybe even less.

their season ticket numbers are actually 13k strong i think. their attendance will be much better than ours was after any of our cups, ill tell you that right now.

[annabelle]

Gary Bettman will never move a team to Winnipeg or Hamilton, he's all about his luncheons in New york with Stern and associates. I think the last thing he wants to say to them is, "We're expanding to......Winnipeg..Hamilton..". I just get the vibe that he is always trying to impress those guys...just my take though.

[oilers88cup]

Derek,maybe they should move a team to Flin Flon ,manitoba? Maybe Walla Walla ,Washington?How about Missisagua,Manny's birthplace.No,no I know.NWT....Northwest Territores!

[annabelle]

Mwuahh..FLIN FLON!