mattwswfc

I think the NHL is loving this for their realignment plan. They have the option to 'slip' in 2 expansion teams in the West, which may bode well for Seattle, and then shove a team somewhere silly like Kansas City, Albuquerque or Cheyenne! Also it looks like Quebec City may be off the list as there is no 'room', unless of course the Panthers relocate which could seemingly be a possibility, and wouldn't screw up the alignment. Anyway I shall keep posted as I'm pretty convinced this Coyotes-Glendale saga is far from over yet.

Some of the points made on here are quite interesting and make a lot of sense for the NHL, because if they up and move the Coyotes to QC then there is no guarantee that Seattle will want to pay $300 million for an expansion team, especially if they have no new arena on the way. Everyone knows including Quebecor that QC is top of the list for a team, but it may not be the right time, for the NHL that is, to move the team up to Quebec, when they know Quebec will snatch an expansion team right out of their hands! We can all just sit back and watch it unfold, clever move by the NHL.

I guess you are right, but without these comparisons and debates, this thread may as well be a giant news feed....

Also I may not have posted here in a while, but have been following this story closely all the way. Will anyone miss the Coyotes, or in particular thread that has seen the franchise moving to Hamilton, Winnipeg, Quebec City and now Seattle. What happens after, do we start on another team and speculate about their landing spots. Either way this forum will be a lonely place without talk of the Coyotes moving. Looking back you see how ridiculous and unprofessional the NHL has been regarding this matter, they should have gave an legitimate ultimatum long ago. No matter what Gary Bettman has done for the NHL over the years, this will always be a stain on his legacy.

(Quebec City) would be the smallest market in North American pro sports Ahem... Quebec (Lévis) : 765,706 Green Bay Metro Area: 311,098 Source: www.citypopulation.de *I realize that the Packers have all of Wisconsin (6 million) behind them, but the Quebec City NHL team would have half of Quebec Province (and probably a sizeable portion of the Maritimes) on its side. That's at least 4 million potential viewers, which is enough of a market for an NHL team. Yes, there is the issue of exchange rates and corporate sponsorship, blah, blah - but most of the profitable teams in the NHL are north of the Canada-US border. Hear, Hear! Surely there are parts in Wisconsin that root for the Bears and Vikings, and I guess the whole of Milwaukee can't be Cheeseheads! I am almost certain that since the Nordiques left QC, not everyone would have gone 'Hey what happens now, shall we root for the Habs?' I would hazard a guess that most hockey fans in that Northern part of Quebec don't have an allegiance to anyone, except the memory of the Quebec Nordiques, and watch hockey because of nothing more or less than the sheer fact that they love it. Thus making the region arguably the largest market of passionate hockey fans without a professional team. Also correct me if I'm wrong but don't the CFL's Saskatchewan Roughriders play in the continents smallest 'major' league market, I think Regina is just shy of 200,000, or maybe that doesn't count...

I personally think Milwaukee could be a good home for an NHL team, miles better than some of the ridiculous locations thrown around for the past 3 years :coughcough: Kansas City and Las Vegas. I also think Seattle would jump at the chance of having the Bucks over a new expansion/relocated NHL team. The Bucks most probably have to be out of Milwaukee, way before anyone can realistically think of Milwaukee as a potential NHL home. But for speculation purposes I would say Milwaukee is definitely a good home for a team.

Thing is though, people really knew it was either Phoenix or Atlanta moving to Winnipeg, they didn't care as long as they got there team. Also you've got to think if the tables were turned and Phoenix did move to Winnipeg, would we be speculating weather Atlanta would move to QC? Probably not... QC are taking advantage of the current situation and using it to try a lure the Coyotes North of the border...

Anyone got a link for this press conference?

Will there be a link?

The Isles still need to get a new arena and there appears to be none on the horizon... It would be interesting to see if playing at the Barclays Centre would be viable long-term.... Well from what I have read/seen the Barclay's Center is being built primarily as a basketball venue only, and will only seat 14,500 fans for hockey. Even though it would be great to see the Islanders play in Brooklyn, it is probably not a viable option. Although a pre-season game is scheduled between the Islanders and New Jersey Devils, so you never know...

Saskatoon, and Kansas City deserve facepalms... Yeah I agree, KC is only on the list because they have a state-of-the-art arena with no major professional tenant, and Saskatoon for the sheer fact it's a relatively large city in Canada and doesn't have a professional hockey team within 250 miles... As for Hamilton, QC and Seattle, well they all are good options (maybe not Hamilton in the current situation), but QC and Seattle are probably the front runners to get an NHL team in the next 5-10 years (hopefully a lot sooner for QC :fingerscrossed:).

http://www.leaderpost.com/sports/Five+other+cities+vying+franchises/6352708/story.html Interesting report from a website speculating which teams are in the hat for a new team, or the existing Coyotes. 5 cities according to these!

It would be Gary Bettman's darkest hour if he moves the Blues out of St. Louis, they are obviously in a viable market with a suitable arena, that also happen draw well like you said.

The beginning of the end......

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=610343 It's going to be the same division and play-off format next year in the NHL, poor old Winnipeg stuck in the South East.

The question is does Houston really want, or need for that matter, an NHL team...? the answer is most probably no, they may be a select number of Houstonians that enjoy hockey, but not enough to support one. I think Houston is doing fine with its respective teams and there is no point forcing something if there is no demand for it. No matter how big Texas is, I think 1 hockey team is quite enough... you don't want the disaster like Florida where the state has 2 teams when 1 would be quite sufficient. Anyway we could argue this until the cows come home, but the fact of the matter is that Quebec City is miles ahead of any other location in North America, in terms of being ready for a team soon, and unless something pops up in another location, it will remain that way for the foreseeable future. FYI I don't mean Florida is a disaster in general, just from a sports point of view... don't want to go upsetting any Southerners like I did in the MLS thread

I don't understand how you have ordered this, what criteria makes say Houston a better location than Hartford, enlighten me? Also like sodboy said, Quebec City is miles ahead of any of the other locations...

To be precise, Connecticut has a single person "sniffing around" regarding the prospects of an NHL return to Hartford: Howard Baldwin. That's problematic, as Baldwin doesn't possess the financial wherewithal to purchase and own an NHL franchise, let alone build a "new arena". Baldwin was, is, and always will be capable of nothing more than securing a minority share in a major-pro sports franchise ownership group. He was partnered with W. Godfrey Wood, William Barnes and John Coburn in launching the original WHA New England Whalers, with Baldwin serving more as the glad-handing, backslapping frontman for the ownership group, rather than a deep-pocketed equal partner. Baldwin continued to fill such a role once the team relocated from Boston to Hartford, eventually cobbling together an ownership group that included himself (1%), Aetna (40.45%), Hartford Insurance Group (13.7%), CIGNA (11.4%), The Travellers (8.6%), United Technologies (6.1%), Connecticut Mutual (4.9%), Bank of Boston - Connecticut (3.3%), Connecticut Bank & Trust Company (3.3%), Hartford National (3.3%), Heublein, Inc. (1.6%), Hartford Attractions (1%), The Hartford Courant (0.6%), Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company (0.6%), Connecticut Light & Power (0.1%), and the Greater Hartford Chamber of Commerce (0.05%). Coordinating the interests of the many and varied partners eventually proved difficult, particularly with so many of them being corporate entities with shareholders wondering why the companies were pumping money into a small-market hockey team. Ultimately, the one thing the numerous partners could agree on was a willingness to sell majority interest in the team, and businessmen Donald G. Conrad and Richard Gordon purchased 74.5 % of the team. Aetna (13%), CIGNA (2%), The Travelers (2%), Baldwin (.82%) and eleven other partners (each holding less than 2%) held the remaining 25.5%. Conrad eventually sold the bulk of his share to Colonial Realty Company. Ultimately, Colonial Realty would default on paying Conrad for his share, which would lead to Colonial declaring bankruptcy. Nearly three-and-a-half years of court battles would eventually see Richard Gordon gain control of the Whalers and, ultimately, sell them to Peter Karmanos. The rest is history. Then there was Baldwin's ownership of the Pittsburgh Penguins (where co-owner Morris Belzberg fronted Baldwin the latter's share of the purchase price): he inherited a Stanley Cup-winning organization and managed to steer it into a bankruptcy filing. As for Baldwin "planning for new arenas" in Hartford, he's currently promoting nothing of the sort. Rather, he's pushing for a $105 million renovation of the 36-year-old XL Center. I also question Hartford's place as "a proven hockey market". Average attendance for the Hartford Whalers over 17 NHL seasons from 1980-81 to 1996-97 (I threw out the 9,854 average in 1979-80, as the team played the first half of the season at the Springfield Center while the Hartford Civic Center was being repaired) was 12,235. If, using that figure, we ranked the Whalers for average attendance as a hypothetical 31st NHL franchise amongst the league's teams over the past 12 seasons, the team would never rank higher than 28th out of 31 teams. Using the Whalers' all-time average attendance single-season high - 14,574 during the 1987-88 NHL campaign - as a benchmark, the team's best average attendance finish as a hypothetical 31st team over the past 12 seasons would be 25th out of 31 teams in 2005-06. The Whalers' all-time average attendance single-season low - 10,144 during the 1992-93 NHL campaign - would rank dead last in each of the past 12 seasons. On top of all of this, factor-in that the Greater Hartford market is located adjacent to - and, squeezed in-between - the larger Boston and New York City markets. Further, the Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford Metro Area (1,212,381) is the 45th-largest in the United States, making it smaller than all but the Buffalo-Niagara Falls, NY and Raleigh-Cary, NC MSAs amongst those metro areas playing host to US NHL franchises. According to the latest (2010) Canadian metro area population figures, only the Edmonton and Winnipeg metro areas are less populous than Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford. As for television, the Hartford & New Haven Nielsen Designated Market Area (1,006,280 television homes) is the 30th-largest in the United States, making it smaller than all but Columbus and Buffalo amongst those TV markets playing host to US NHL franchises. Finally, the greatest concentration of personal wealth and corporate presence in the State of Connecticut is located in Fairfield County. Said region is much more culturally aligned - including in the area of sports fandom - with New York City. As a result, the Hartford Whalers were never able to draw significant corporate sponsorship dollars, or attract significant numbers of ticket-purchasers, from Fairfield County. There's no reason to believe that anything has changed with regard to this over the past 15 years. Bottom line? The Whalers sported a great logo that manages to move souvenir products to this very day, but that isn't enough to make Hartford a legitimate candidate to play host to an NHL franchise... and I say that as someone with family members who owned season-tickets to the Whalers in both Boston and Hartford. Surely you know an NHL teams success is not based on raw population alone, there are contributing other contributing factors to making a hockey team work. Now I'm not saying let's put a team in Hartford and see how it goes, but test the market first, like they did with Kansas City and it failed. Obviously all of this would be useless if there is no 'appropriate' arena and/or owner. On the point of Connecticut being a proven hockey market, 3.5 million people for me could support a hockey team easily, and it has been proven that a market with a 1/3 of that can, but then again nearly 5 million in the Phoenix metropolitan area cannot support one. Also there is, like you said, the contributing factors of the teams around Connecticut i.e Bruins, Islanders, Rangers, I am sure that when the Whalers left in the mid 90's most of the Connecticuter's switched allegiances to the nearest teams or maybe to a totally new team, if they weren't already fans of their respective clubs. On to attendance now, I think people have a facination of 19,000 fans will make a hockey team work, it is absolute nonsense, with teams now a days playing in shared arenas with NBA teams, and the reason the teams play in large arenas is because they also have to support the demand of the basketball fans, now I am not knocking this and I welcome it, especially when the Blackhawks draw nearly 22,000. I say if you can fill these arenas with hockey fans then that's great, but their is nothing wrong with having 15,000 every game, like Winnipeg have proved. It would be much better for any team to be playing in a 15,000 seat arena and having it close to full every night rather than having a 19,000 seat arena and having lots of empty seats every night. A team should live within its means and a few teams in the NHL are not living within their means and therefore are suffering for it financially. If a new team in Hartford could get 15,000 in a smaller arena that would be great, they don't have to aim for 19,000 like the markets that can support that many, live within their means! It has been proven in many markets, with having massive arenas and not being able to fill them makes them look bad, when unfortunately the demand isn't there.

Exactly looking at the 4 he said, Houston has an arena but no owner or fan base, same with Kansas City, Hamilton has an owner who has attempted 4 times and has kind of blew his chances, they also have a nice hockey fan base (Bulldogs) and an okay arena, on the other hand Quebec City who have the fans, a potential owner and a state of the art arena being built, and even could have a temporary home in the Colisee, Quebec City have all the ingredients and it's just a matter of time before it happens.

There is more than one other struggling franchise than the Coyotes i.e. Columbus, Florida, NY Islanders to name a few. You really think of all the 'right' places to put a team and you say Houston and Kansas City, really? Quebec City is top of the list by a country mile, but Hamilton won't even get a look in with the Maple Leafs throwing there weight around and whilst Gary Bettman and his his clan of anti-canadians are in charge! Hamilton is dead in the water and it probably will never get a team, I think a more realistic place would be Connecticut, which is a proven hockey market and has potential owners sniffing around and planing for new arenas.

The team in Yellowknife could play outside and still average more than the Coyotes....

Maybe they could be planning contraction then, 28 teams would be better for talent and the 7 teams per conference could work.

If the Coyotes do relocate to Quebec City in the next few years they could easily fit into what is currently being called 'Conference C' along with Toronto, Ottawa, Boston, Montreal, Buffalo, Tampa Bay and Florida. With the new format it gives the NHL less of a headache if they decide on expansion in the coming years, even if the Coyotes do stay in Glendale and say Quebec City get an expansion team in a few years, they can also fit right in 'C'. I think by implementing this new realignment, the NHL could be welcoming back Quebec City very soon... You never know but this could be the start of a 32 team NHL.

Being a football fan England makes me a different breed of fan, the only fan that comes close to a English football fan is a hockey fan, but still a good country mile off.

I'll take that as a compliment admiral almost forgot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!