The NHL Off-Season Thread Starts With a Bang

[Asher]

This is a ****ing farce.

Hockey failed in ****ing Arizona. What a shock. Move the team!

Yep. There are many cities BEGGING for an NHL team. Moving the team to Hamilton or K-W region would send many people over the moon, and guarantee brisk sales.

The ONLY reason this isn't happening is the Leafs and Sabres, essentially. This would force them to lower ticket prices due to competition.

[Asher]

Also, Jim Ballsillie is me to Gary Bettman's Dale.

They'll never get along, there's a huge divide there. Jim is too ballsy and Gary is too insecure. Jim is now playing hardball.

It would thrill me to see him take ownership of the Coyotes despite Bettman throwing a tantrum.

[Wezil]

Bettman needs to go away. He refuses to accept that his grand plan of bringing hockey to people that don't want it has failed. Only an idiot like Bettman could think a team in a desert would be a good idea.

[Asher]

A Vancouver-based ownership group now wants to bring the Atlanta Thrashers to Hamilton by the 2010 season.

Bettman needs to cave in here. I have a feeling he might okay the Thrashers move (if they can buy it) if only to spite Balsillie.

[Wezil]

It certainly does seem personal. I can think of no other reason for Bettman to be so irrational.

That said, I still have a hard time believing Hamilton will end up with a team. It has been talked about my entire life (Copps was built to lure a team) yet they always end up the bridesmaid.

It would be cool to see a team in K-W region.

[notyoueither]

Bettman needs to go away. He refuses to accept that his grand plan of bringing hockey to people that don't want it has failed. Only an idiot like Bettman could think a team in a desert would be a good idea.

I believe Bettman is doing what a majority of the Board of Governors want.

The 'footprint' policy of southern expansion predates him becoming commish.

As far as a team in Arizona is concerned, I wouldn't have thought it to be a bad idea. Most snow birds from Western Canada migrate there IIRC.

[Ben Kenobi]

Expanding to Phoenix before Houston was just crazy. I don't have any problems with the southern expansion strategy as a whole, just make sure you pick the right cities. Texas should be the location for teams long before anywhere else, just because of population.

[notyoueither]

Phoenix was a move.

I'm not sure of the exact details, but the league didn't initiate it.

[Wezil]

If moving into the south seemed to be a wise move, how many years of losses does it take before it becomes apparent it was a bad idea?

[Ben Kenobi]

If moving into the south seemed to be a wise move, how many years of losses does it take before it becomes apparent it was a bad idea?

You'll have to ask Bettman.

[notyoueither]

If moving into the south seemed to be a wise move, how many years of losses does it take before it becomes apparent it was a bad idea?

Some of the teams in the South are not doing too badly.

Hockey had a couple of goes in several non-traditional areas before it caught on.

You also have to take into account that Canadian markets were not looking so ideal at the time Southern expansion was adopted. There are no guarantees things will stay as rosey north of the 49th as they have been since the lockout either.

[Wezil]

A friend of mine went on a trip with a group of guys last fall to Nashville, where they soaked in all the spectacle of a sold-out Monday Night Football game between the Tennessee Titans and the Indianapolis Colts.
The day before that big show, with some time to kill, they decided to attend a Nashville Predators game. It was not hard to find a scalper with tickets to unload, and they soon bartered the poor fellow down to $50 for four lower-bowl seats — or about the cost of a single seat near the rafters at any of the NHL’s Canadian arenas.
After they paid the man and he handed over their tickets, one of the guys looked at them and realized something was wrong.
“These seats aren’t even next to each other,” he protested.
The scalper scoffed. “The place is half empty,” he said. “Just go in and sit wherever you want.”
And they did. The arena only posted ushers in every other section — presumably to cut costs— so it was quite easy to wander down to a spot only a few rows up from the ice and find four seats together.
This is the legacy that Gary Bettman seems determined to protect.
There are many legitimate reasons for the NHL commissioner to be opposed to Jim Balsillie’s bid to buy the Phoenix Coyotes and move them to Hamilton or thereabouts. The move would surely go against the wishes of at least a couple of teams, Buffalo and Toronto. Mr. Bettman might risk the anger of the tiny-market Sabres but he’s clearly beholden to the crown-jewel Maple Leafs.
And even if a number of other owners would be happy to have a tech billionaire rescue the money-bleeding Coyotes— which the league has been bailing out for months — and turn the franchise into a money-maker, there’s little doubt that Mr. Balsillie’s gambit to buy the team out of forced bankruptcy violates all the league procedures related to granting someone ownership of a team. If they one guy force his way in, even a guy who has all the right credentials, who’s to say the next rogue buyer isn’t going to be a mobster with some money to burn? Or a sheikh who wants to relocate the Florida Panthers to Dubai? The point is, the league wants to protect the sanctity of its vetting process.
All that said, Mr. Bettman can protest the mechanics of this specific bid all he wants, and he can say it is not about Canada versus the United States, but at some point he has to confront the legacy of the Southern Experiment. The Coyotes are a disaster, after more than a decade trying to become relevant in the Arizona desert. The Tampa Bay Lightning recently won the Stanley Cup, but revenues didn’t last and the team was sold at a discounted price. The Florida Panthers are notorious for offering comical promotions in order to sell tickets — things like giving away a pair if you buy $100 worth of groceries at the Piggly Wiggly.
And in Nashville, where the league obstructed Mr. Balsillie’s last bid to buy a team and bring it north, you can buy some ducats at a cut-rate price and sit wherever you damn well please.
The southern expansion has not worked. Eventually, Mr. Bettman is going to have to admit it.

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/05/09/scott-stinson-gary-bettman-refuses-to-look-at-the-elephant-in-the-room.aspx

[Guynemer]

Yes, some Southern teams do alright, as silly as it is to have teams there. The Stars and Hurricanes, (and Ducks if you include SoCal) in particular, are doing well.

But the Thrashers, Coyotes, Panthers, Lightning, and Predators are just Quixotic. There are multiple other markets that are a more natural fit for hockey that would, no doubt, support their new team. Such possible markets include former NHL cities Winnipeg and Quebec, a second Toronto area team, the Kitchener-Waterloo area, London, Portland, Seattle, Kansas City, Baltimore, Sacramento, a second Bay Area team, Milwaukee... hell, even San Antonio or Houston or Oklahoma City or freaking Tulsa or Omaha. Why not Austin? It's a city with a young population, and also the largest city in the US without a major sports team. ****, if the NHL is set on having a team in the desert, I'm sure Las Vegas would love to have a major sports team.

[notyoueither]

The NHL failed in Denver, Minnesota, and in the Bay area recently. One could have said at least one of these places were ridiculous places to put teams. Two that seem to me to be natural failed. Now, some years later and they are pretty good places for teams.

Then there's Carolina. A team in Hartford wasn't doing well enough to stay there, but it's doing better in Dixie?

These examples lead me to believe it is not the city or region per se, but more how you run the club and other circumstances. It's not as simple as saying that city X should be great for the NHL while city Y blows chunks. If you think that, then you have to explain why the NHL failed in Winnipeg and Quebec City while Dallas is successful and LA supports two teams.

[Guynemer]

Did the North Stars really fail, though? Or did the ownership just think they would do better in Dallas? I don't remember the North Stars going bankrupt, or the Jets or Nordiques, for that matter. (I may be wrong, I just don't remember.)