Dallas -- Brian Bellows attempts comeback, franchise relocates to prevent it. Montreal -- Martin goes 'Offense first', players die from shock. New Jersey -- Lou smiles, confidence in team erodes. NY Rangers -- Sather signs John Ogrodnick to 13 year, $117,000,000 deal, dooming Rangers. Ottawa -- Circuses like to hit the road at times. St. Louis -- Still bitter over Scott Stevens incident, Blues relocate to Ottawa. San Jose -- "Pat Falloon Appreciation Night" bankrupts franchise. Tampa Bay -- "Terry Crispy Chicken Night" proves a bust, dooms team. Toronto -- Teacher's Pension Plan turns ACC into a University.
Hon, I think he's already pointed out what you're trying to point out.
__________________
Remember - when you're a hockey fan, it's not "reckless driving", it's "good forechecking".
"Viqsi, you are our sweet humanist..." --mt-svk on the CBJ boards
Thanks, Howson, for cleaning up MacLean's toxic waste. Welcome, Kekalainen; let's get good things built!
And for an encore... some leading expansion/relocation city candidates!
Hamilton
Should: An underserved market area for hockey in the most underserved hockey country, with an owner who's already willing to foot the big bucks. You almost never see a setup this good and it's being handed over on a silver platter.
Shouldn't: They'd potentially kill Buffalo, they'd leech off Toronto, and you don't gain any new fans at all through this measure. Also, Balsillie is fine with fans, but towards owners he's a pathological liar, a cheat, a troublemaker, a heartless manipulator, a drug-pusher, a scoundrel, and a fraud - and those are his GOOD points.
Quebec City
Should: Largest metro area in Canada without an NHL team. Never really got a chance to support a winner; by the time the Nords were becoming good, they became the Avs. And folks in Quebec want another team.
Shouldn't: They had their chance and blew it. They'd instantly take over as "smallest market in the NHL". The arena in place is woefully tiny. And is the corporate support there sufficient to handle a major professional team? I kind of doubt it.
Winnipeg
Should: Has a ready-made dedicated fanbase, and the support of the BOG. They deserve a second chance, especially after the WHA integration destroyed their once winning team.
Shouldn't: See QC, only moreso. MUCH moreso, because the Bombers are already claiming corporate dollars, AND they're smaller, AND they recently built another arena that still isn't large enough. Please!
Cleveland
Should: Very large market, has supported hockey before, helps grow the game in America without trying to throw a franchise to some ridiculous Deep South location.
Shouldn't: Yes! Let's go ahead and add yet another dying, decrepit industrial city that's losing jobs and people left and right and already has too many pro sports franchises in the area to compete with. G-d knows we certainly don't have enough of those in the NHL already!
Cincinnati
Should: Another very good-sized market that could pull in an area (Kentucky) that is completely uncovered by major league hockey. And if anyone got badly screwed over by the WHA era, it was them.
Shouldn't: The losers in this market couldn't support an AHL team, let alone an NHL one. And arguably Nashville already has Kentucky covered. And besides, exactly how many Kentuckians would show up?
Milwaukee
Should: A state in which hockey is reasonably well supported, with an AHL team that has done pretty well, in a market that doesn't have enough pro sports coverage? Sounds like a winner to me.
Shouldn't: Isn't this Chicago territory already? And are the Bucks going to be willing to share? And the Bradley Center is really badly outdated; that's going to cost a lot of money.
Seattle
Should: They just lost an NBA franchise, and they're in a nice location for ice hockey, have a history of supporting major, minor, and major junior teams, and it'd be an instant productive rivalry with Vancouver, and it's a large market that could handle it. Good combo.
Shouldn't: The people there didn't raise a finger to do anything about the arena issues for a team they already had. What makes folks think they'd do any different for the nebulous promise of the possibility of some other team?
Portland
Should: Aside from the NBA franchise issue, has all of the advantages of Seattle (including the history of hockey support) and none of the arena disadvantages. And people *know* this is a criminally underserved market; it's practically ready-made.
Shouldn't: Better find a way to convince Paul Allen it's worth it, because he practically owns the city's professional sports *everything*. And if you're not willing to work with him, that creates a really significant barrier to entry.
Houston
Should: Absolutely huge market (up there with Toronto), has had owners wanting to bring teams there in the past, would create an instant rivalry with one of the best-developed southern franchises in the NHL (Dallas), and had a very good and supported WHA team in the Aeros.
Shoudn't: They've blown chances for expansion teams before. Dallas might not appreciate the Texas business competition. And, of course, they're Southern.
Toronto (second franchise)
Should: The Leafs sell out constantly and their on-ice product is crap. This is the largest market in Canada and the fourth-largest media market in North America - and #1 and #2 (New York and LA) already have multiple franchises. It's a guaranteed win.
Shouldn't: Oh, yeah, like MLSE will happily give up their license to print money. They'll fight it every step of the way. And in what arena would this second franchise play? ACC - don't make me laugh. Maple Leaf Gardens - yeah, that'll be a real fixer-upper, and MLSE will *surely* let that go without complaining. It'll never work - not without breaking up the NHL.
Hampton Roads (Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News-etc.)
Should: A pretty good-sized and criminally underserved (for pro sports) market area that is going nowhere but up, and is in a prime area to grow the game.
Shouldn't: There's a reason why there's no major pro sports here - where would the team play? There's nothing resembling a reasonably sized arena, and since there's nine major cities that make up the area nobody's ever going to agree on a location. Oh, yeah, and they're in the South.
Birmingham
Should: They did surprisingly well in the WHA, they'd be an instant supporting rivalry with Nashville and Atlanta, they're hungry for a pro sports franchise, and what better way to grow the game?
Shouldn't: Get real! They'd instantly be the smallest market in the NHL, *in the south* no less. If you're going to grow the game, do it in markets that actually have some decent size and potential.
Halifax
Should: There's no major pro hockey in the Maritimes; they'd instantly be embraced, and Nova Scotia is of a size such that folks could easily come in from all over the province to support the team.
Shouldn't: Would immediately eclipse Vancouver in travel madness, and the population of the entire province of Nova Scotia is smaller than the current smallest NHL market despite being the highest in the entire Maritime region. And there's no arena that could take them on. Will never happen.
Saskatoon
Should: It's Canadian, and folks have tried to bring NHL franchises there before - the St. Louis Blues nearly had their home here at one point.
Shouldn't: Please. Setting aside the questions of sufficient corporate support and lack of a suitable arena, there are towns in the US that eclipse it in population every Saturday during the NCAA football season.
Kansas City
Should: There's that beautiful new Sprint Center, all shiny and ready for an exclusive tenant all to its own. They *want* a franchise here.
Shouldn't: Exactly how many pro sports franchises have these losers chased out of town? I think it's been something like ten or so. Nothing good ever lasts here.
Oklahoma City
Should: A nice growing city in a great place to grow the game with a great brand-new arena that's just waiting for newcomers, and another potential instant rival for Dallas without horning in on its territory base.
Shouldn't: "Great" is kind of pushing it for that arena, since they kind of built it at the minimum possible specifications and are already rushing to update it for their new basketball team - and speaking of which, isn't that kind of new competition to worry about?
Las Vegas
Should: One of the largest markets in North America without *any* professional sports franchises, and plenty of cash in the area. And it's a vacation hotspot - you'll have lots of transplant fans.
Shouldn't: Setting aside the whole "MORE hockey in the desert" madness, how exactly would it benefit the NHL's image to be the first league associated with the largest gambling center in the Western Hemisphere?
Last edited by Viqsi: 08-26-2009 at 01:25 PM.
Reason: added KC, OKC; latter added Las Vegas
lol, I don't think he did, the Mason-Dixie line doesn't extend that far West.. Not that it really matters here.
Anyway, I think we're forgetting the snowfall reason on many of these.
Any team located where you cannot play hockey outside does not deserve a team, period.
The traditional colloquial definition of the Mason-Dixie line, when used to refer to cultural boundaries rather than surveys, includes the Ohio River. So there.
And your definition is a little loose. With proper chilling equipment, folks managed to play hockey outside in Las Vegas. You'd have to expand that to "any team located where you cannot play pond hockey outside..."
Obviously, this is all strictly tongue-in-cheek. But I will say this. I grew up a huge football fan and a huge Cleveland Browns fan. Until your team has been torn away from you, you cannot imagine what a miserable experience it is. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, and it infuriates me to see so many circling a carcass on these boards and openly declaring what they want to have happen.
If you knew what it was like....you wouldn't do it. You wouldn't talk about "deserving" and "not deserving". You wouldn't hope for a hell of a lot of people to get their hearts torn out and a city to be stuck with a tangible sign of what used to be. And you can't proclaim misery by proxy either.
Do I hope that the NHL has teams in certain cities that don't currently have them? Absolutely. Do I hope for a team to be relocated to make that a reality? Absolutely not.
Keep that in mind. You wouldn't want swarms of people reveling in your misery, so keep off the others.
As a former Whalers fan who had to watch his team get ripped from him, I agree wholeheartedly with you. I don't wish it on anyone else and I sympathise with Coyotes and Predators fans who have had to deal with this nightmare scenario coming close to reality in recent years.
Nah, I had a better idea. Let's have a 30-team barnstorming league! Today it can be Atlanta and Vancouver playing in Sioux City, and tomorrow there can be Los Angeles against Ottawa in Singapore!
Or have the NHLers play for their team's AHL affiliate on nights off.
No, wait. They do that in NASCAR and it sucks & ruined NASCAR's equivalent of the AHL. Scratch that.
Pssh. Departure reasons only are child's play. Better to come up with reasons why every team should stay and why every team should go.
Florida
Stay: The culture is growing, the players are getting better, and the fanbase has proven that they'll be there for winning hockey, and be creative about it (see: Rat Trick).
Go: Some of the worst attendance figures in the NHL, and Miami is also an Ultimate Bandwagon City. Not a recipe for long-term health.
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FYI-The panthers dont play in Miami which is dade county they play in sunrise which is broward county .
Broward County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of 2000, the population is 1,623,018; this makes it the second most populated county in the state. According to 2007 U.S. Census estimates, its population has increased to 1,759,591 [1]. Its county seat is Fort Lauderdale, Florida[2].
It is also the sixteenth most populous county in the US.
i doubt people in miami even know what hockey is. lol
edit- The bandwagoning is true for all of Florida to many out of state transplants here
