NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[IceCap]

36 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

The Kings I'd say have been a runaway success.

Are the Kings really a runway success? I mean it became a running joke at how the local media kept usinsg the Sacremento Kings logo during the LA Kings' five year run atop the west. 

I'm not saying the Kings are struggling. Far from it. They're in a perfectly fine position. Just that two teams in LA probably taps what the NHL can get out of Southern California. 

 

36 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

How is Quebec City's team doing in whatever league they have currently. Not saying it's indicative of what an NHL team will do, but I am curious. 

They were sitting pretty atop the QMJHL's attendance standings for the 2016-2017 season. They averaged 9,421 a game. 

The SD Gulls were at third in attendance in the AHL, with an average of 8,876 game. They're behind Cleveland (9,055) and Hershey (9,309). 

Not quite the surprise knockout you were expecting at the QC Ramparts' expense in "whatever league" they played in, eh?

 

 

36 minutes ago, bosrs1 said:

I mean it would stand to reason Quebec would do better than San Diego. But frankly San Diego's attachment to Hockey at the AHL level has taken both the team and league by surprise.

Yes, they have. And it's admirable, certainly. 

I'm just thinking of what happened in Atlanta and Winnipeg. Where a team in an American Sunbelt metropolis was constantly in need of revenue sharing to eek along. And then how that same team went from receiving revenue sharing to contributing to it because it turned out a small Canadian city with a rabid fanbase proved more stable for the league than the beforementioned Sunbelt metropolis. 

 

Again, San Diego may work. And hey. Maybe they can finally breath life into the Coyotes. Or when the Golden Knights eventually implode. 

 

In terms of which city the NHL should be in first though? Sorry. The passion, and willingness to spend money on that passion, in QC makes it a slam dunk to everyone but the idiots running the NHL. Who are still scared for small Canadian cities for whatever reason. 

 

To be frank? The NHL needs to stop jerking its loyal fans around. And going to SD over QC, after going to LV over QC, would just be more jerking. 

[bosrs1]

8 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

Are the Kings really a runway success? I mean it became a running joke at how the local media kept usinsg the Sacremento Kings logo during the LA Kings' five year run atop the west. 

I'm not saying the Kings are struggling. Far from it. They're in a perfectly fine position. Just that two teams in LA probably taps what the NHL can get out of Southern California. 

 

They were sitting pretty atop the QMJHL's attendance standings for the 2016-2017 season. They averaged 9,421 a game. 

The SD Gulls were at third in attendance in the AHL, with an average of 8,876 game. They're behind Cleveland (9,055) and Hershey (9,309). 

Not quite the surprise knockout you were expecting at the QC Ramparts' expense in "whatever league" they played in, eh?

 

 

Yes, they have. And it's admirable, certainly. 

I'm just thinking of what happened in Atlanta and Winnipeg. Where a team in an American Sunbelt metropolis was constantly in need of revenue sharing to eek along. And then how that same team went from receiving revenue sharing to contributing to it because it turned out a small Canadian city with a rabid fanbase proved more stable for the league than the beforementioned Sunbelt metropolis. 

 

Two teams in LA taps what you can get out of LA. Don't equate LA with the rest of SoCal. San Diego in particular is not LA. Believe me, the Chargers have found that out in spades.

[goalieboy82]

if the NHL puts a team in San Diego, should go with Gulls or Mariners (the old WHA team)

 

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2015/feb/19/san-diego-hockey-history-look-gulls/

 

 

[IceCap]

3 hours ago, bosrs1 said:

Two teams in LA taps what you can get out of LA. Don't equate LA with the rest of SoCal. San Diego in particular is not LA. Believe me, the Chargers have found that out in spades.

I'm saying the NHL should get the most out of Quebec before it gets the most out of Southern California. In terms of hockey fandom and support? The former trumps the latter.

[DustDevil61]

5 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

I'm saying the NHL should get the most out of Quebec before it gets the most out of Southern California. In terms of hockey fandom and support? The former trumps the latter.

 

Totally agreed. My initial point is that, as far as southern markets go, San Diego is near the top of the list. Houston, too IMO. Both cities have a rather extensive history of minor-league hockey despite their location and would be miles ahead of Phoenix and Las Vegas. But compared to Quebec? That's a no-brainer.

[The_Admiral]

I'm glad San Diego is thriving as an AHL market because it doesn't seem like Stockton and Bakersfield are, and we know San Jose2 isn't. The AHL compromised a lot of competitive integrity to make this California deal work, the least they can get out of it is a major-league city not pissing all over itself.

[bosrs1]

10 hours ago, the admiral said:

I'm glad San Diego is thriving as an AHL market because it doesn't seem like Stockton and Bakersfield are, and we know San Jose2 isn't. The AHL compromised a lot of competitive integrity to make this California deal work, the least they can get out of it is a major-league city not pissing all over itself.

 

Stockton and Bakersfield aren't setting the world on fire like San Diego and Ontario, CA, but they're still big improvements over Adirondack and OKC in terms of interest and attendance. Definitely not having issues where it would seem calling the CA move a mistake would be appropriate. And the new addition Tucson has been a wash vs Springfield, MA. San Jose is really the only mistake they made in California, as it was a clear downgrade over Worcester playing in front of crowds that wouldn't fill one section at the Shark Tank.

[BeerGuyJordan]

17 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

Hockey is regional, and one of those regions has a better track record supporting NHL hockey than another.

I like how people neglect the fact that 2/3 of the greater NYC metro teams were in the bottom four of the league, in the most gate-driven of the big 4 leagues.

 

If people want to have a discussion about potentially overstaurating SoCal, but ignore the Islanders and Devils, they're just banging that old anti-sunbelt gong, as far as I'm concerned.

 

16 hours ago, Ice_Cap said:

I'm saying the NHL should get the most out of Quebec before it gets the most out of Southern California. In terms of hockey fandom and support? The former trumps the latter.

I completely agree. Quebec should have a team. Unfortunaltely, the reality is that the league is going to continue to use conference balance as a justification to keep them out. I think Carolina is still their best hope.

 

[Wings]

An OITGDNHL moment:  relocate the Carolina Hurricanes to Houston and have them keep the nickname not realizing how insensitive that would be. 

[Marcos Flamengo]

3 hours ago, Wings said:

An OITGDNHL moment:  relocate the Carolina Hurricanes to Houston and have them keep the nickname not realizing how insensitive that would be. 

In my opinion, if Carolina relocates to Houston, they should be nicknamed Aeros, to honor the former WHA team, and to avoid the insensitive that would be keeping the Hurricanes nickname.

[Sport]

The Rockets owner is selling the team and he was one of the main barriers keeping an NHL team out of Houston. The new guy may feel the same way, however. Houston is firmly in the top 5 in the US for metro size so on math alone it would be an upgrade over several current NHL cities. And they would have to change the name were it the Hurricanes, but I don't think anybody would miss it too much. It's no "Whalers". 

[mcj882000]

On 06/09/2017 at 5:47 AM, McCarthy said:

The Rockets owner is selling the team and he was one of the main barriers keeping an NHL team out of Houston. The new guy may feel the same way, however. Houston is firmly in the top 5 in the US for metro size so on math alone it would be an upgrade over several current NHL cities. And they would have to change the name were it the Hurricanes, but I don't think anybody would miss it too much. It's no "Whalers". 

Y'know, reading your comment got me thinking... if the Hurricanes did move to Houston, would anyone object to them retaking the Whalers identity? Like you said, it seems to be better regarded than the Hurricanes' is, and the old hidden-H logo would still work for Houston. As someone who wants to see the Whalers come back even I'll admit Hartford isn't likely to ever get an NHL team again, so I'd think "Houston Whalers" would be the next-best thing.

[Kevin W.]

The name wouldn't make sense, though. There's no historical whaling industry in Houston that I know of.

 

Then again, the Lakers kept their name when they moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles and the Jazz kept their name when they moved from New Orleans to Utah, and as Baseketball reminded us, there are no lakes in LA and they don't allow music in Utah.

[Sport]

Quick Wikipedia research says most US whaling happened off the coast of New England with some in the South Pacific. Not much mention of a whaling industry in the gulf or a connection with the city of Houston. It seems like it'd be a Utah Jazz kind of situation where nobody is saying there's no Jazz in Utah. I'm sure someone there enjoys Jazz. It's just that's not what the region is known for. 

 

Just do the simple thing and go with Aeros in this hypothetical and be the Blue and light blue team. 

[mcj882000]

46 minutes ago, CRichardson said:

The name wouldn't make sense, though. There's no historical whaling industry in Houston that I know of.

That's a very fair point; Connecticut's state mammal is even the sperm whale. Still, I can't help but feel that the name would be a bit of an artifact no matter where they played, given that there's really no major whaling industry anywhere in the continental US anymore. (For what it's worth I did do a bit of research Googling beforehand, and while there never was a whaling presence in Texas, it turns out there are several species of whale in the Gulf of Mexico. Today I learned...)

 

46 minutes ago, CRichardson said:

Then again, the Lakers kept their name when they moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles and the Jazz kept their name when they moved from New Orleans to Utah, and as Baseketball reminded us, there are no lakes in LA and they don't allow music in Utah.

This was my other thought as well - I figure as long as the name has a ring to it and the team's good, nobody will really care too much.

[Sodboy13]

A guy who made his living punching other players is the new head of Player Safety. But hey, Ivy League, or whatever.

 

Also, the Senators announced today that they've ripped out 1,500 seats to "right-size" their arena, so now it'll only be 1/4 empty for playoff games instead of 1/3. That means four teams so far this decade (Winnipeg, Islanders, Detroit, Ottawa) play in smaller venues than they did previously, which seems like a solid trend for a league so dependent on gate revenue. Can't wait until the upper deck curtains come out in Raleigh.

[C's]

1 hour ago, CRichardson said:

The name wouldn't make sense, though. There's no historical whaling industry in Houston that I know of.

 

Something something Houstonians are fat

[The_Admiral]

1 hour ago, Sodboy13 said:

A guy who made his living punching other players is the new head of Player Safety.

I was hoping you meant Georges Laraque because he turned out to be kind of a hippie in retirement but no it's just Parros. At least it isn't John Scott, because I would get whiplash watching him go from Actually Good to Actually Bad on a daily basis.

 

In fairness to the Jets and their 15,000, I'm sure their gates are better in Winnipeg than they were in Atlanta (and higher in the pack than Winnipeg 1.0 ever was). And venue sizes are decreasing across all three sports facility formats. It's possible that arenas and stadiums did get too big for a while there -- glaring directly at the Palace of Auburn Hills and its twin brother in Ottawa -- and needed to cut back. It still feels like a moral defeat to see NHL teams reducing inventory, because like you said, hockey is a live-and-in-person spectacle above all, and you would still like to think Detroit could bring in 20,000 a night.

[chrysleraspen08]

6 hours ago, Sodboy13 said:

Can't wait until the upper deck curtains come out in Raleigh.

 

I'm sure they got Party City already lined up to sponsor them.

[LMU]

On 9/6/2017 at 1:00 AM, Wings said:

An OITGDNHL moment:  relocate the Carolina Hurricanes to Houston and have them keep the nickname not realizing how insensitive that would be. 

No more insensitive than being named the Hurricanes in the region that Hugo and Floyd hit... or a university nicknamed the Hurricanes right in the crosshairs of Irma and in the area slapped around by Andrew.