NHL Expansion, if any
Steve Hayman
Windsor, Ontario, has just hired a new coach whose name escapes me.
This owner says that this new coach is just the guy to help
in the owner's bid to land an NHL team for Windsor.
Windsor? Gimme a break. It's right across the river from Detroit,
after all. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to put
a team into East Rutherford, NJ...
What do the net readers think are some viable locations for NHL teams,
either expansion or transfer? Some noise is being made by
William Ballard (son of guess who...) about buying the Penguins and
moving them to Hamilton. Now that might make sense, Hamilton is
a reasonably big city and I happen to think that if New York can
support 3 NHL teams, Ontario can support 4 (let's say Toronto,
Hamilton, Ottawa and Generic-Southern-Ontario [i.e. Kitchener/London/something])
Maybe even 2 in Toronto, who knows. Obviously this is unlikely to happen in
the immediate future, though. There's no justice.
Efforts have been made over the past couple of years, some more sincere
than others, to bring NHL teams to Saskatoon, Kitchener and Trois
Rivieres. Seattle sounds like a logical place for a team and I
understand the NHL would just love to get into Dallas.
Anybody out there got some more interesting ideas?
Steve "We need a Canadian Division" Hayman
watmath!watcgl!sahayman
ri...@ucla-cs.uucp
> ...
>What do the net readers think are some viable locations for NHL teams,
>either expansion or transfer?
>Maybe even 2 in Toronto, who knows. Obviously this is unlikely to happen in
>the immediate future, though. There's no justice.
How do you count 2 in Toronto? Surely, you aren't including the Leafs in
your reckoning! :-)
Anyway, it would be incredibly *stupid* of the NHL to expand at this
point. They are just barely recovering from past fiascos, and don't need
the burden of 2 (or more) new bozo teams that will not win for several
years. The hockey talent is still pretty diluted in the league, but is
much better than a couple of years ago. Maybe in about 5 years the
league can consider expansion - but it would require lots of good planning.
The only point I can see to expansion is to get a sensible number of
teams in the league - add 3 to make 24 (whoever heard of a 21 team
professional league?).
---
Rick Gillespie
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--
Rick Gillespie
ARPANET: ri...@ucla-locus.ARPA or (soon) ri...@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
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Ken Hruday
> ...
>... it would be incredibly *stupid* of the NHL to expand at this
>point. They are just barely recovering from past fiascos, and don't need
>the burden of 2 (or more) new bozo teams that will not win for several
>years. The hockey talent is still pretty diluted in the league, but is
>much better than a couple of years ago.
Be careful Rick - to claim that hockey talent in the league was very
diluted a few years ago (early 80's) tends to denigrate the 4 consecutive
Stanley Cup victories scored by the Islanders. Your claim essentially
infers that the feat was not all that great since the Islanders had
inferior opponents.
Give the Islanders more credit! Winning four consecutive cups is no
mean feat! I agree that immediately after expansion there was some
dilution but as far as the present is concerned, the talent situation
couldn't be better. Expansion allowed (forced?) talent scouts to go
outside of North America to obtain the cream of European talent.
This has resulted in a game that relies more on finesse and skill, and
less on body mass and bruising potential. It isn't for lack of talent
that the NHL should resist expansion - it's the prospect of extending
the hockey season to 365 days a year :->.
Ken Hruday
University of Alberta
An Oilers Fan,
A Flyers, and Hawks admirer,
A Billy Smith hater,
A disliker of Rabid anti-Oilers!
______________________________________________________________________
Robert Lake
have to pick the right cities to expand with. It seems to me that there
are some cities which are ripe for expansion - most of these either have
a good core of hockey fans, or are the home town of many of today's NHL
stars. To me, the number one city ready for expansion is Saskatoon or
Regina - the province is full of rabid hockey fans and they have been
trying for years to get into the league. Aside from the "merger" of the
NHL with the WHA, NHL owners have always resisted from expanding in
Canada in favor of the more lucrative U.S. market (and a U.S. television
contract). I think most of the past fiascos have been directly attributed
to poor choices of expansion sites. The league could have been more solid
than it is today if they had directed most of their expansion efforts to
the cities which form the grassroots of hockey in North America - Canada
and the North (Eastern) U.S. I also think there is enough good hockey
talent out there to easily support a 24 team league.
Robert Lake (alberta!lake)
University of Alberta
P.S. It is sure nice to see all the Flyer fans crawl out of the woodwork to
feast on the crumbs of the Flyer's first (and last) victory in the Finals!
Oh well, the Oiler fumigation team will be mopping up next Thursday and
the remains of the Flyers will be shipped home C.O.D. for burial. (:-) :-))
P.P.S. All flames will be gladly received and extinguished!
electrohome
Expansion, NYET! Re-organization, DA! Let's get some of the sad-sack teams
out of marginal cities and into places that would really support them. An
example is the prospective move of the Penguins from Pittsburgh to Hamilton.
I think that Pittsburgh may be able to support a winner but can they afford to
wait until then? Hamilton and other similar cities would support a losing
team so that they can get the finances to build a winner. There are not
many cities like this, however. It would be interesting to see if Saskatoon
could, as was promised last year. In Kitchener, the Junior A Rangers draw
almost as many people as the Penguins do. It's obvious that the NHL is
not going to get a major network TV contract so there's no need to support
sinking ships any longer.
-Carlo Sgro
...!watmath!watcgl!electro!carlo
Wayne Citrin
not realistic. The base of hockey fans out here, although devoted, is not
large enough to sustain a team, and there's no arena large enough to support
a team (neither the Cow Palace nor the Oakland Coliseum is large enough).
I think the Bay Area would be ripe for a minor league team (as part of a
Pacific Coast Hockey League) or a WHL major junior team.
As for the most likely U.S. markets for a new team, Seattle-Tacoma is the
one mentioned most often. They have a large arena and someone with the
money to finance the club. However, I believe that Seattle is located in
Vancouver's territory, and even if Vancouver allowed it, they would probably
require a large indemnity for invading the Canucks' territory.
Denver is sometimes mentioned, but I don't think they will be given a second
chance. My nominee for a new franchise is Portland. They've shown that
they can support a major league team (the NBA Trail Blazers' games have
sold out for many years), and I believe that they get excellent attendance
for the WHL Winter Hawks' games. Perhaps a reader in Portland could correct
me on this.
I really don't know much about the Canadian markets. Could Hamilton really
support an NHL team? How about Halifax, or St. John, NB?
Wayne Citrin
(ucbvax!citrin)
Ruthless
to try to expand. Hamilton too. Hamilton is about the same size as
Calgary or Edmonton, and has a successful CFL franchise. It has always
been a mystery to me why Alberta got into the NHL before Hamilton.
About expanding in Seattle: Is it really in
Vancouver's territory? Wouldn't the political boundary hinder
Washington state people from supporting a Canadian based team, both
psychologically and physically (Customs and immigration officials can
be a real pain)? I was once in Chicago for Blackhawks-Flames matchup.
The fans felt that the game was more of a struggle to "Beat Canada",
rather than an inter-divisional contest. Not that I'm saying that
Chicago fans are the norm of the U.S. NHL franchises. But I do think
that fans are more inclined to support teams based in their own
country, rather than a team just across the border.
The same should be even more true in the case of expansion into the
Windsor area. Yes Detroit is next door, but there is a border. I also
find it hard to believe that Canadian auto workers are great supporters
of the Red Wings with all the bad blood raised over the Canadian branch
of the UAW splitting from the international union. Finally, if
Saskatoon or Quebec has the population to support an NHL team,
than so should Windsor.
I recall that a WHA team in Ottawa quickly folded. I was
in Ottawa for a couple days last year, and found that Ottawa was a fair
sized metropolis in its own right, certainly comparable to Calgary.
So I cannot understand why major league hockey wouldn't succeed in
Ottawa-Hull. Remember that Calgary once folded a WHA team, yet when
the Flames moved in, the team was able to survive -- despite several
seasons in a small rink. Perhaps the NHL label was necessary (and
maybe envy over Edmonton :-) ).
On paper, Ohio should be able to handle one or two franchises, yet
WHA and NHL teams there have always died. Does anyone have any
theories why?
--
Mike Eisler
uucp: {ihnp4!decvax,peora}!ucf-cs!mike Dept. of Computer Science
arpa: mike.ucf-cs@csnet-relay University of Central Florida
csnet:mike@ucf Orlando, FL 32816
Jeff Richardson
> support an NHL team? How about Halifax, or St. John, NB?
I'm sure Hamilton could support an NHL team. Hamilton is very close to
Toronto and several other fair-sized cities (Kitchener-Waterloo, Burlington,
St. Catharines, etc.), so there are probably 4 or 5 million people in the
area. Many of us are nuts about hockey, and the area turns out several NHL
stars (Wayne Gretzky is from Brantford, which is close enough to Hamilton
to drive to a few games a year). However, we don't have a major league hockey
team. (You can't call the Leafs a major league hockey team.) Seriously
though, the Canadian Football League Toronto-Hamilton rivalry is one of the
fiercest I've seen in professional sports in North America (if you're
interested, I'll mail you the words to the Toronto vs. Hamilton fight song;
they're too obscene to post). With hockey being our number one sport, a
hockey rivalry could be even better. If both teams get good (having a team
in Hamilton might smarten up Leafs' owner Harold Ballard), the rivalry
could be even better than Montreal-Quebec because Hamilton and Toronto are
much closer to each other. The New York area supports three teams. I know
they have about 4 times as many people, but because hockey's so big here,
I'm sure we could support two.
St. John is probably too small to support a NHL team, and Fredricton and
Moncton are too far away to supply fans to St. John games. Halifax is a
better possibility, because there are more people to draw from.
I don't know much about Saskatchewan, but I'm sure that they could support
a team. It's too bad Saskatoon and Regina aren't closer to each other, or
they could do it for sure. However, it may be difficult for any of these
areas to support an expansion team, because the new team would be bad for
several years, and an expansion team would be much harder for the fans to
relate to when they already have their favourite established teams. They
may not be able to survive those critical early years when they would lose
millions of dollars. This is especially true in my home town Ottawa, which
could be a great market, but only if they could get all the dedicated Canadiens
fans there to switch their allegiance to the local team. Even in Hamilton,
if the team is no better than the Leafs, they're not likely to attract many
fans in the first couple of years. Teams could eventually establish themselves
in those cities and become very successful, but I think the transfer of an
existing franchise is the only way to ensure that the team would last long
enough to do that.
This brings up another point: If we have a couple of American teams
transferring to Canada, we could have a Canadian Conference and an American
Conference, possibly with the winners of each meeting in the finals.
The NHL executives would like that because it would guarantee a US-based
team in the finals, and they could try to promote it to TV audiences as
"USA vs. the rest of the world", a marketing strategy that seems to work
well in other sports. This would work even better if the American teams
were more American and the Canadian teams were more Canadian. See my next
article for more details on that idea.
--
Jeff Richardson, DCIEM, Toronto (416) 635-2073
{linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd}!utcsri!dciem!jeff
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!dciem!jeff
electrohome
>I agree that Portland and Saskatoon would be two of the better places
>to try to expand. Hamilton too. Hamilton is about the same size as
>Calgary or Edmonton, and has a successful CFL franchise.
Not really. The Ti-Cats have had attendance problems for the last
few years. The downturn in the steel situation has really hurt them.
I feel that pro hockey would be different, however.
>It has always
>been a mystery to me why Alberta got into the NHL before Hamilton.
Two words: Harold Ballard. His current complaint is that he wants a new
stadium for his Ti-Cats and that he won't waive his territorial rights
until he gets it. In the meantime, there is a brand new 18,000 seat arena
in Hamilton just waiting for a professional hockey team.
>
>About expanding in Seattle: Is it really in
>Vancouver's territory? Wouldn't the political boundary hinder
>Washington state people from supporting a Canadian based team, both
>psychologically and physically (Customs and immigration officials can
>be a real pain)?
Whether or not this is true, the NHL has legally-restricted areas around
existing territories occupied by teams. Would attendance be great enough
to warrant the exhorbitant price going to be asked for by the Canucks?
In any case, the border is not a factor when it comes to residents of
Niagara Falls and St. Catharines going over to Buffalo for Sabres' games.
Whether or not this would be true if the Sabres were lousy, who knows??
>On paper, Ohio should be able to handle one or two franchises, yet
>WHA and NHL teams there have always died. Does anyone have any
>theories why?
The media in Ohio have hypothesized that it is because of the distance from
Cleveland to the arena in which they played, the poor quality of play
(both in the case of the Barons), and bad (negative and inadequate) media
coverage.
-Carlo Sgro
Electrohome Canada
...!watmath!watcgl!electro!carlo
The opinions expressed in this posting may or may not represent the opinion
of Electrohome Canada (since we don't talk hockey here anyway).
Shane McDonald
> Regina - the province is full of rabid hockey fans and they have been
> trying for years to get into the league.
Yo-ha! Sounds good to me!
For anyone who hasn't been getting their "Saskatoon Star-Phoenix",
Saskatoon figures (and Wild Bill Hunter was told) that the main
reason we were turned down when we wanted to move the Blues was
because we didn't have a big enough arena yet. Well, John-o,
Saskatoon is about to begin building an 18,000 seat arena, as soon
as City Council figures out where they're gonna put it.
We may get in the NHL yet.
HOWEVER, if Saskatchewan is going to have an NHL team, put it
in Prince Albert - in three years, they'll win the Stanley Cup.
(For anyone who doesn't know, P.A. Raiders won the Centennial Cup,
emblematic of Tier 2 Junior Hockey supremacy in Canada, for years
in a row, so they moved to Tier 1 (Junior A) 3 years ago.
This year, they won the Memorial Cup, emblematic . . . .)
Shane McDonald
(ihnp4!sask!mcdonald)
Jeff Richardson
> been a mystery to me why Alberta got into the NHL before Hamilton.
Alberta got into the NHL first because the Oilers survived the WHA. It
makes more sense to put a team in Alberta first anyway because Hamilton is
pretty close to Toronto, but Calgary and especially Edmonton are a long way
from Vancouver. However, as I said yesterday, Hamilton could support a team
now.
> About expanding in Seattle: Is it really in
> Vancouver's territory? Wouldn't the political boundary hinder
> Washington state people from supporting a Canadian based team, both
> psychologically and physically?
That may be true, but when someone says that Seattle is in Vancouver's
territory, they are referring to an NHL by-law that says that each team's
territory extends for so many miles from that city, and that if any other
team wants to base themselves in that territory, they have to financially
compensate the team that's already there. This can add a substantial amount
to the already high cost of setting up a team in a new city. If I remember
correctly, the Islanders still hadn't paid off their debt to the Rangers
by the time they won their first Stanley Cup. I'm sure the territories
can cross the national border because when the Maple Leafs wanted to move
their farm team to St. Catharines (which is in Ontario between Hamilton
and Niagara Falls), the Sabres complained because St. Catharines was in
their territory.
> I recall that a WHA team in Ottawa quickly folded. I was
> in Ottawa for a couple days last year, and found that Ottawa was a fair
> sized metropolis in its own right, certainly comparable to Calgary.
> So I cannot understand why major league hockey wouldn't succeed in
> Ottawa-Hull. Remember that Calgary once folded a WHA team, yet when
> the Flames moved in, the team was able to survive -- despite several
> seasons in a small rink. Perhaps the NHL label was necessary (and
> maybe envy over Edmonton :-) ).
The Ottawa-Hull area is certainly large enough to support a NHL team,
and since most of the people there work in government or high-tech (i.e.
secure jobs and/or high salaries) they should be more capable than the
average Canadian city with the same population. However, the people
there tend to be die-hard Montreal Canadiens fans. Even though the
Canadiens are almost a two-hour drive away, the WHA team couldn't compete
with them, and an NHL expansion team would likely have the same problem.
An established team would probably have a good chance though. By the
way, believe it or not, Ottawa is the city with the 4th most Stanley
Cups. Only Montreal, Toronto and New York have won more.
> On paper, Ohio should be able to handle one or two franchises, yet
> WHA and NHL teams there have always died. Does anyone have any
> theories why?
I don't know about two franchises, but Cleveland should certainly be able
to handle one. The Barons may have died because they just weren't any
good. It seems to me that the Cleveland Crusaders and the Cincinnati
Stingers were among the more successful WHA franchises, outside of the
four survivors. (Weren't the Stingers still around when the league folded?)
Cleveland already has a nice arena, but the NHL will likely be reluctant
to give another chance to a city that has already rejected them once.
ri...@ucla-cs.uucp
>
>Expansion, NYET! Re-organization, DA! Let's get some of the sad-sack teams
>out of marginal cities and into places that would really support them. An
>example is the prospective move of the Penguins from Pittsburgh to Hamilton.
>I think that Pittsburgh may be able to support a winner but can they afford to
>wait until then? Hamilton and other similar cities would support a losing
>team so that they can get the finances to build a winner.
Well, Carlo, what happens when a city like Hamilton gets tired of a losing
team as well? Will you then move them to another city that will accept
them with open arms? Let's not turn the NHL into the NFL where franchises
change cities like they change socks (or head coaches :-)). No, I think
the solution is to improve the teams where they are. Pittsburgh is a fine
hockey city (so I've been told - I haven't ever been there). If they have
a reasonable team to cheer for they will be there. DeBartolo's holding the
city up for ransom with a terrible team is disgusting.