mattwswfc

Oh and besides New Jersey and the Islanders are in a market with 3 NHL teams! The Coyotes on the other hand occupy a whole state or 2(if you count New Mexico)! And to further my point the Islanders suck and the Devils are doing mediocre compared with their previous seasons, while Phoenix has a pretty decent team who can compete for the play-offs! I'm sorry but to compare the situation in Glendale to New Jersey/Long Island is ludicrous Eye...(see what I did their!)

Really if this was a picture to advertise the NHL around the world, we have no hope.... Besides people are clutching onto straws, convinced that a little over 9,000 is acceptable, if any arena in the North of the US or Canada got 9,000, their would be uproar, come on sort it out Bettman! New Jersey and Long Island are not considered to be in the northern US? Yes I would like to think so........ but they both average roughly 13,000-14,000 respectively, still 4,000-5,000 more than that dismal Arizona hockey club!! And even if they were discussing putting another team in Ontario, I'm sure Hamilton would come heads above Markham.... besides the Maple Leafs wouldn't allow a team so close to Toronto, if Hamilton is struggling then Markham will really struggle!

Really if this was a picture to advertise the NHL around the world, we have no hope.... Besides people are clutching onto straws, convinced that a little over 9,000 is acceptable, if any arena in the North of the US or Canada got 9,000, their would be uproar, come on sort it out Bettman!

Things are looking good then in QC, all they need to do now is secure a team!!

"Ownership" of the Hartford Whalers' brand identity has never been as cut-and-dried as several parties have wished to make it out to be. When Peter Karmanos relocated the former Hartford Whalers to North Carolina in 2007, he paid $20-million to break his Hartford Civic Center lease and ceded rights to the Whalers' name, logo and trademarks to the Connecticut Redevelopment Authority as part of a written agreement entered into with the NHL. In the wake of the NHL beginning to sell vintage Whalers goods in 2009, the CDA's president, Marie O'Brien, told the Hartford Courant that the State of Connecticut retained rights to the Hartford Whalers' name and logo in order to prevent other franchises and/or markets from using the brand and to keep the name available in the event that an NHL team should ever return to Connecticut. She told the Waterbury Republican-American that those rights were "exclusive" and "irrevocable". However, she went on to say that merchandising of the Whalers' name and logo represented another matter entirely, with the NHL maintaining control of merchandising for all league clubs, including defunct franchises. According to records in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's on-line registry, the trademark for the Hartford Whalers name is currently listed as "DEAD". Meanwhile, on November 25, 2009, an amendment was registered with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office asking that the name of the owner of the Canadian trademark for the Hartford Whalers name be changed to: HARTFORD WHALERS HOCKEY CLUB, A LIMITED PARTNERSHIP THE GENERAL PARTNERS OF WHICH ARE HOWARD L. BALDWIN AND HARTFORD ATTRACTIONS, INC. Further, this Canadian trademark was renewed with the CIPO on May 12, 2010 and the address that was listed for the aforementioned registrant was listed as: One Civic Center Plaza Hartford, Connecticut 06103 United States of America Subsequently, after renaming the Hartford-based AHL franchise that he handles marketing and ticketing operations for the Connecticut Whale, Howard Baldwin told the Hartford Courant, "Somebody telling us we can't use Whalers? That's not true." He went on to say, "Nobody has busted me. The NHL has been great to work with. They made it clear they prefer not using the (old Hartford Whalers) logo, but I went to the Whale because I thought it was the right thing to do. Save the Whaler for whatever happens in the future. Everything with the NHL is cool." Finally, the most recent amendment to the CIPO trademark listing deleted individual partner names (i.e. HOWARD L. BALDWIN AND HARTFORD ATTRACTIONS) under the ownership heading, leaving just HARTFORD WHALERS HOCKEY CLUB, A LIMITED PARTNERSHIP listed as the owner. Make of all this what you will. FYI the Hartford Whalers logo appeared in Grown Ups in 2010, it was worn by Adam Sandler at the water park... maybe the director and producers of the film were promoting the Whalers as a brand and trying to wage the return of NHL hockey to Hartford or maybe it was a mere coincidence... IMO the Whalers logo is one of the best logos in sports and I would certainly love to get my hands on some Whalers merchandise, can't seem to find any decent though.

I think Hartford would be in the same boat as Hamilton, could blocked by existing teams i.e. Toronto/Buffalo and Boston/Rangers/Islanders. I'm pretty sure the Rangers and Bruins would have as much say in who goes where as the Maple Leafs. Furthermore Hartford have got one thing going for them that Hamilton hasn't, they had a team and a pretty good fan base, but it's probably going to take a big pay-off for the likes of Boston and either/both New York's for this to happen. Their was a big thing with the WHA merger in 1979, when Boston rejected the Whalers name of 'New England' and effectively made them change it to Hartford (probably saw it as invading their 'territory'). Don't think any of the teams mentioned would like a team so close, they would see it as stealing their fans or their TV regions, on the other hand not a single NHL team can possibly want a money losing sink hole of a team like the Coyotes existing!

This could hinder the ground breaking and even opening of the QC arena, hopefully it doesn't: http://adf.ly/3UBX5

Maybe its me getting ahead of myself... dallas unlike Atlanta and Phoenix draws when they are good. Dallas isn't drawing right now because A)Mavs just won the NBA championship, B)Rangers are in the World Series, C)they have no star power with Modano gone and D)They are in a rebuilding phase. Once the stars start becoming good again they will draw. This isn't Phoenix where BgMac is the only one that shows up for a playoff game, This isn't tampa where 5 fans show up for a Tampa Rays baseball game. Having Atlanta, eventually Phoenix, Florida and Dallas moving will be an admission of failure that hockey is a failure in the south and will make Bettman look like the worst commish ever. Stop defending the Sun belt teams, Toronto have been in a rebuilding phase since 1967! But hey they still draw a sell out crowd.

Depends what he wants to use the arena for if the Stars leave. No doubt the Stars will stay in Dallas, and anyway I was just speculating the possibility. In the most extreme case in the event of the Stars leaving, I don't think the Blues would go. Lets say it came to this: Coyotes move to QC and the Stars move to Hamilton, this then leaves no out right place for a team, be it in the US or Canada. One thing that benefits the St. Louis Blues is the fan base, which I hope can help trigger a sale and keep the Blues in Missouri. After Quebec City and Hamilton, is their really a market in North America screaming for an NHL team with a suitable arena and a viable owner?

Alright buddy don't get your knickers in a twist! Like I said I was just being speculative, doesn't mean it's a dead cert!

Anyway we could speculate about this forever. So I move onto the NHL. Just found this: http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=378843 I'm just being speculative but I found this in a comment Maybe its me getting ahead of myself...

Le Hornets de Montréal! Good idea keeping the French theme going.

Yes and still the Canadiens remain the only top 4 major sports league team in the province of Quebec. Even Alberta has more and that is half the size of Quebec (in terms of population). Montreal has to be on the watch list for the NBA, especially with the Kings looking for a new home and the Hornets in a similar situation to the Phoenix Coyotes.

Maybe try for the Expos back in Montreal while we're at it? Kill two birds with one stone! Get the Grizzlies back in Vancouver, grand slam! Love to see more NBA in Canada, hopefully it will happen soon.

Maybe try for the Expos back in Montreal while we're at it? Kill two birds with one stone!

Personally I hated the fact the Expos left Montreal, but bad attendance and ownership I guess were a problem for MLB. Seems to be a trend with a few major leagues in North America, and that trend is try and keep a failing team in the US, but it's all too easy to let a Canadian team move south for examples Expos, Grizzlies, Nordiques and the original Jets. Gary Bettman appeared in the mid-90's to help the Jets and Nordiques stay in their respective markets, but he just let things sort themselves out, and now with a team in exactly the same boat as their predecessors (except the arena problem), he is trying his damn well hardest to keep the Coyotes in Glendale, even if this requires losing millions of dollars. After the Jets and Nordiques left he had to cover his tracks and make sure he didn't come off as 'anti-Canadian', teats when he set up a fund that would help the smaller Canadian of markets i.e. Ottawa, Edmonton & Calgary, because lest we forget that both the Flames and Oilers nearly left, but thankfully Bettman and the NHL came to their senses and sorted the problem out. But now in 2011, we don't have that problem any more, the Canadian dollar is stronger than its US counterpart, the Canadian economy is on the rise and continuously the Canadian teams fill their arenas regular. Now this is the perfect time for the NHL to consider putting at least one other team in the Great White North!

Last season, the Coyotes had a Thursday home game against the Kings in October and drew something like 6,400. Movin' on up! One of the biggest sport leagues in the world and one of it's teams is drawing less than 8,000.... Even some CJHL teams get more than 6,400.

Last night when the Phoenix Coyotes hosted the Los Angeles Kings, the attendance was 7,128. That's probably been inflated by the league though. I thought the Coyotes said they had record number of ST holders this year?

No Olympic size rink eh? Well QC have just kinda made it clear that this isn't being built for a future Winter Olympic bid, but could be changed if that did happen. They're kinda saying well here's the arena plan Mr. Bettman, can we now have our hockey team back? The big question is though, will a team come to QC before 2015 and play at Colisee Pepsi, or will they have to wait until the new arena is built? They brought back the Jets.... Now lets hope they bring back the Nordiques!

So what you're saying is your a good hockey market, with a bad team, unlike Phoenix, who have a decent hockey team, that spoils their non-existent fans.

See I take offenSe to that because you're wrong. Pre-lockout the fans were there for some really bad teams and after the lockout we still had decent crowds for some really bad teams. We've sold out entire seasons before, we've been in the top 10 before. We also sold out major hockey events like the frozen four and the 2007 draft. We haven't been "really bad for the whole of the existence". We've been understandably unsupportive of a really bad team, which is not fair to put on the fans who literally don't know what a playoff win is like. If, like Phoenix, the team gets good and people still don't show up, then you're right, but that won't happen. To answer your second question, it was a large untapped market underserved by NHL hockey or major professional sports within a short drive from two large markets also underserved by NHL hockey. And again, for the first 5, 6, 7 years it did really work here before people became tired of just being in the NHL and began to demand a winning team. Have Cincinnati and Cleveland delivered? Not really, but Columbus wasn't serving Cleveland in the 90's when the Cavs sucked. When the Cavs became good, people from Columbus started making the trip north to see Cavs games. Was Columbus serving Cincinnati when the Bengals sucked? No, but in 2005 when the Bengals became good people from Columbus started making the trip south to go to Bengals games. It's the same thing, but in reverse order. If the Blue Jackets become relevant people in those markets will start to support them. We haven't failed as fans, the team's many missteps in hockey operations have failed the fans. As I've said countless times before, give the CBJ track record to any city and there's probably 3 markets in the NHL who wouldn't experience some kind of attendance problems. It's not fair yet to call us a bad market based on what we've been given to support. If San Jose had been forced to deal with this same history, they might not have Sharks right now. thank you. Yeah I didn't mean the fans are bad, I am sympathising with you, in the sense that why would you want to see a losing team. Not being from Ohio I don't understand, so I apologise. Is hockey really that popular in Ohio, that if you had a consecutively good team like the Sharks, you would be filling out your arena? Another question is how many of the 9,000 or so you get a night are corporate tickets?

Cannot criticize the fans in Columbus at all, they've been really bad for the whole of the existence (no offence), and there stuck in a College sport hotbed. What really could have appealed to the NHL about Columbus back in 2000, that made them say 'hey it really could work here'.

Yeah I think it's a trend in sport for some teams, 'we'll start to show up when the team is doing well'. There is a real contrast between these type of fans and the very loyal Maple Leaf fans, who's last cup came before most of the Toronto fans were even born. It's not going to change any time soon, hockey is at best America's 4th most popular sport, and in the Southern States they live and breath College football and the NFL.

Yeah I think 11,000 is what they expect to get and just make a estimation, instead of really counting numbers. Another attendance worry is in Dallas, where they are averaging just 9,000 a game. Same in Columbus too Tends to happen when you miss the playoffs for the last three years and the excitement has shifted to a NBA champions Mavericks, and a Rangers team that's made two strait World Series appearances. Yeah I suppose you are right especially when it's NFL season too, but 9,000 fans for a team that represents a region of over 6 million. Maybe they'll come back to watch the Stars when the World Series is over.

Yeah I think 11,000 is what they expect to get and just make a estimation, instead of really counting numbers. Another attendance worry is in Dallas, where they are averaging just 9,000 a game. Same in Columbus too