2021 NHL Offseason - Let's Get Kraken

[Ridleylash]

Tom Wilson has literally destroyed this organization with one hit and one pose lmfao

[DG_ThenNowForever]

28 minutes ago, the admiral said:

If you dig into the depths of Google Groups, you can find posts on news:rec.sport.hockey from 1996 about the Jets moving to Phoenix and they're all about how this is good because people in Winnipeg will just be hockey fans anyway. There is truly nothing new under the digital sun. 

 

Know what's wild? I was just this week looking up my old posts on rec.sport.pro-wrestling from 1996.

 

I was awful.

[Sport]

11 hours ago, dont care said:

I think he meant the rays

The Rays have the same problem as the Coyotes. He meant the Lightning: “If people in Largo and Clearwater can get to Lightning games, people in Tempe and Mesa can get to Coyotes games.”

[IceCap]

20 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

If you look at the Sun Belt success stories (Tampa, Vegas, Nashville, Dallas) compared to the ones who have struggled (AZ, Carolina, Florida), it is pretty obvious. The biggest successes have been places with a centrally located, easily accessible arena, and stable ownership that has provided a relatively consistent on-ice product.

What about this is relevant to things now? You keep going on about how some places are successes so Phoenix/Arizona could be too! Well...it's been twenty-five G-ddamn years, and not a single one of those has been in the black, financially speaking. How much longer should millions of dollars (including tax payer money) be funnelled into this on the chance that the magical untapped potential is realized?

 

'cause at a certain point you have to admit that there's nothing worth tapping.

 

20 hours ago, QCS said:

I'm not going to claim that Charlotte is a better hockey market than, say, Winnipeg, but I will say that a team in Charlotte could possibly be better for the league than Winnipeg, simply because it's so much larger.

The existence of the Winnipeg Jets and the economic bonus they provide the NHL compared to the economic money pit they were as the Atlanta Thrashers disproves your theory.

The NHL is better off having a team in Winnipeg compared to having a team in Atlanta, and that's not theoretical. So forgive me for not being bullish on Charlotte.

 

20 hours ago, QCS said:

So I'd argue that at this stage in the game, when just about every traditional market is covered, and has been covered for decades, "growing the game" and placing teams in non-traditional hockey markets is not only smart, but the right thing to do.

Quebec City and Hartford say "hi."

 

If we're going to get into what's right, then what's right is to give those fans back their teams before chasing potential fans elsewhere.

 

20 hours ago, QCS said:

People who say that hockey should only be played where snow naturally falls don't strike me as true fans of hockey, only fans of gatekeeping it from people who probably didn't grow up with it.

Nobody said that in this discussion. You're projecting. Which is a very Sunbelt hockey fan thing to do.

[TrueYankee26]

Who else found out yesterday that the now New York Knicks player Quentin Grimes by the is the brother of Tyler Myers?

 

 

They have the same mother.

[Ridleylash]

2 hours ago, IceCap said:

How much longer should millions of dollars (including tax payer money) be funnelled into this on the chance that the magical untapped potential is realized?

 

'cause at a certain point you have to admit that there's nothing worth tapping.

I mean, in 2009 we all would've said the same thing about Nashville and Tampa we do about Phoenix; "it's not working", "there's nothing worth tapping", "move them to a real market". Hell, I'm certain a number of us were campaigning for the Preds to move to Hamilton during Balsillie's bid for them.

 

But the Preds and Bolts have had years of being run as a model franchise now, and it's reflected on them with strong attendance numbers and a strong fanbase. The Coyotes had years of being run like absolute garbage and that was reflected as well, with low attendance and a smaller fanbase.

 

Attendance numbers were climbing pre-pandemic in Arizona. Hell, they had higher attendance than long-time historic markets in the Isles and Ottawa in 2019-20 and were only two spots below Winnipeg (28 v 26). The problem has never been the market, it's been management that's been the core issue with the Coyotes; and it looks like the organization finally has management that'll put it in the right direction to actually grow for once in the franchise's history instead of effectively using it as a ploy for a mall like Ellman did.

 

2 hours ago, IceCap said:

The existence of the Winnipeg Jets and the economic bonus they provide the NHL compared to the economic money pit they were as the Atlanta Thrashers disproves your theory.

The NHL is better off having a team in Winnipeg compared to having a team in Atlanta, and that's not theoretical.

Do the Jets provide an economic bonus to the NHL, though? The only reason Winnipeg as a market is sustainable now is because the NHL has revenue sharing and a hard cap to keep salaries down; and even with those factors, the Jets don't even make money unless they pull deep playoff runs...it's just that they have an owner so utterly obscenely wealthy that he doesn't care if the team loses money regularly.

 

If anything, the Jets themselves are just as much a revenue sharing baby as the Coyotes. The market's just too small, relative to the rest of the league, to be sustainable without either an insanely rich owner or a revenue-sharing model; the Jets have both and still lose money on the regular if they don't make deep runs because of how damn tiny Winnipeg is as a market.

 

We saw how sustainable Winnipeg was without revenue sharing, and it wasn't pretty. The only objective league-wide bonus the NHL even has with the Jets is another team to inflate the Canadian TV deal's value.

 

2 hours ago, IceCap said:

Quebec City and Hartford say "hi."

I'll give you QC, but Hartford was barely sustainable even back then and the market remains mostly Rangers and Bruins fans even now, just as it was when the Whalers were around; except it's now saddled with an utterly wrecked economy thanks to multiple recessions and a declining population.

 

I can't see it being more than an AHL market in the modern age. Hell, even back then I'd argue the NHL should've just bit the bullet and brought in the Aeros instead of the Whalers, simply because Houston as a market would likely have been more sustainable long-term.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I like the levels of emphasis here. Italics for regular, italics plus underline for extra, and italics plus underline plus bold to really kick it up next level. And sometimes a combination in the same sentence!

 

Why the distinction? Who knows. But there it is. And also none of those are underlines are links -- as you may expect in modern internet times -- but that's all part of the fun.

[Crabcake]

11 hours ago, Ridleylash said:

Tom Wilson has literally destroyed this organization with one hit and one pose lmfao

You guys know how I feel about Tom Wilson, but it is kind of hilarious to see entire organizations abandon everything to try and get back at him. It unfortunately only serves to encourage his antics more because it clearly works. 
 

Also Ranger fans can no longer be on their high horse about Wilson, seeing as they acquired someone who is objectively worse than him and brings no actual hockey skill to the table.  

[SFGiants58]

5 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

I like the levels of emphasis here. Italics for regular, italics plus underline for extra, and italics plus underline plus bold to really kick it up next level. And sometimes a combination in the same sentence!

 

Why the distinction? Who knows. But there it is. And also none of those are underlines are links -- as you may expect in modern internet times -- but that's all part of the fun.

I know Ridleydash is a filthy Kachina Stan who would happily buy Shane Doan’s stool samples, but his posting style isn’t that bad. He doesn’t bite, blow, and suck.

[Ridleylash]

11 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

I know Ridleydash is a filthy Kachina Stan who would happily buy Shane Doan’s stool samples, but his posting style isn’t that bad. He doesn’t bite, blow, and suck.

Hey, now, I have standards!

 

It'd be bath water, not stool.

[Sport]

52 minutes ago, TrueYankee26 said:

Who else found out yesterday that the now New York Knicks player Quentin Grimes by the is the brother of Tyler Myers?

 

 

They have the same mother.

 

I learned that last night while scanning the NBA draft. That's pretty cool and crazy. Serious question - Is their mom a giraffe? 

[SFGiants58]

13 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

Hey, now, I have standards!

 

It'd be bath water, not stool.

In that case, how Aum Shinrikyo of you.

 

Chizuo Matsumoto - why you should never trust a man who is on buckets of LSD and is trying to purchase a Soviet attack helicopter.

[IceCap]

3 hours ago, Ridleylash said:

I mean, in 2009 we all would've said the same thing about Nashville and Tampa we do about Phoenix; "it's not working", "there's nothing worth tapping", "move them to a real market". Hell, I'm certain a number of us were campaigning for the Preds to move to Hamilton during Balsillie's bid for them.

I mean at the end of the day you're absolutely fine with tax payer dollars in a market you're not even from being shovelled into the team to keep them around simply because you're a fan of kachina hockey sweaters. 

 

3 hours ago, Ridleylash said:

The Coyotes had years of being run like absolute garbage and that was reflected as well, with low attendance and a smaller fanbase.

Yeah, buddy. Guess what? No one's denying that! But twenty-five years in and they've never drawn a dime! They're hockey's equivalent of Jeff Jarrett!

 

I mean you can argue everything else but here, in 2021, what's objectively, undisputedly true? Not a single season in the black, and millions upon millions upon millions wasted. Including tax payer money. 

 

3 hours ago, Ridleylash said:

Do the Jets provide an economic bonus to the NHL, though? The only reason Winnipeg as a market is sustainable now is because the NHL has revenue sharing and a hard cap to keep salaries down; and even with those factors, the Jets don't even make money unless they pull deep playoff runs...it's just that they have an owner so utterly obscenely wealthy that he doesn't care if the team loses money regularly.

 

If anything, the Jets themselves are just as much a revenue sharing baby as the Coyotes.

Actually no! This is wrong! 

The Atlanta Thrashers needed revenue sharing- league sponsored handouts- to stay afloat. The Winnipeg Jets, meanwhile, pay into it because they make money.

See, the Winnipeg Jets "lose" money the same way the Chicago Blackhawks "lose" money, as a loss leader for a larger entertainment enterprise. They lost money in their previous lives as the Thrashers because Atlanta- like Arizona- was a failure of a market. 

So yes. Winnipeg makes the NHL more money than Atlanta did. 

 

And I wanna rewind this a bit. You're trying to compare the Jets to Coyotes- the Jets have never begged or needed millions in tax payer subsidies to survive. 

The Coyotes have.

 

And hey, don't take my word for it. Forbes has us covered. The Thrashers-turned-Jets shot up $35 million in value just by announcing a move from Atlanta to Winnipeg. Why? Winnipeg is a more valuable hockey market than Atlanta!

 

In fact the Winnipeg Jets' value as a franchise now dwarfs their value as the Atlanta Thrashers. 

 

And don't even go blaming inflation on this either. The year the Thrashers were worth the most was 2008, valued at $158 million. That's ~$190 million in 2020 dollars. Meanwhile the Jets were valued at $405 million in 2020. 

 

So this "the Jets don't make the NHL money, they're just as financially damaged as the Coyotes" line is false. A lie. An untruth, if you will. They're worth more to the league in a "too small" Canadian Prairie city then they ever were in a Sunbelt metropolis. 

Also they've never had to beg for taxpayer money. That's just super. 

 

3 hours ago, Ridleylash said:

I'll give you QC, but Hartford was barely sustainable even back then 

You don't have to give me anything. You're trotting out half-truths and pure bs to justify the existence of a poorly run financial black hole of a franchise because you like kitschy 90s hockey sweaters. 

[Kramerica Industries]

4 hours ago, Ridleylash said:

Hell, they had higher attendance than long-time historic markets in the Isles and Ottawa in 2019-20 and were only two spots below Winnipeg (28 v 26).

 

You can't just quote raw attendance numbers on their own. Different arenas have different capacities. MTS Centre is ~15,300. Nassau in these last year was something like ~13,900. Gila River Arena, OTOH, is around 17,125. 

 

Now, it does turn out (apparently) that the Coyotes did have better average attendance than the Islanders did, which does surprise me to notice, but the Islanders still playing some games at Barclays Center that season. Here are their average attendance figures for both venues:

 

Nassau: 12,863 (11 sellouts) - 92.4%

Barclays: 12,695 (0 sellouts) - 80.3%  (max capacity: 15,795)

 

Now, 92.4% isn't overwhelmingly impressive - 27th in the NHL - but it would've been 2.3% better than Phoenix did.

 

Now, if you want to spin this argument the other way and more-or-less point out "so you're saying the Islanders suffered due to poor arena location...", by all means, I've only been reading this discussion without much interest in jumping in. But this particular matter seemed like something I needed to bring clarity to. (Winnipeg, for that matter, was 5th in the NHL in this statistic. Ottawa was a distant 31st and, yes, I'm sure a long-earned sense of apathy brought from the combination of Melnyk + arena location there has a lot to do with that as well.)

 

PS - I turned off my dark mode before quoting that post and writing this one. I really hope the quote is showing up properly this time.

[spartacat_12]

1 hour ago, IceCap said:

And I wanna rewind this a bit. You're trying to compare the Jets to Coyotes- the Jets have never begged or needed millions in tax payer subsidies to survive. 

The Coyotes have.

...

So this "the Jets don't make the NHL money, they're just as financially damaged as the Coyotes" line is false. A lie. An untruth, if you will. They're worth more to the league in a "too small" Canadian Prairie city then they ever were in a Sunbelt metropolis. 

Also they've never had to beg for taxpayer money. That's just super. 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-manitoba-pro-sports-subsidies-1.5041908

[IceCap]

23 minutes ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-manitoba-pro-sports-subsidies-1.5041908

There's a world of difference between a provincial investment fund investing in a popular local entertainment venture and a team no one goes to going to the local suburban city council to go "$15 million plz or we leave." 

 

But sure, keep trying to pass oranges off as apples  

 

On 7/29/2021 at 11:26 AM, spartacat_12 said:

Most of this talk just boils down to bitter Canadians who are insecure about hockey becoming something more than just "Canada's game". 

Could it be that you're so far down this rabbit hole that you're unable to actually see that, from an objective standpoint, the Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes are a financial and critical failure? 

 

You keep mentioning "success stories" in the Sunbelt like Tampa, Dallas, and Nashville. Ok. Think of it like this. Hockey in the Sunbelt was an experiment. Or more accurately, a series of experiments. 

Is it not fair to say that not every experiment is a success? Is it not fair to point out that not every risky venture paid off? 

 

The Sunbelt experiment(s) produced some successes. It also produced some failures. 
You can ride that contrarian "insecure Canadians" train all day long, but I don't see what's so wrong with going "it worked in some places but didn't in others." 

 

Nor do I see how it makes one insecure to admit to that. 

[Cosmic]

19 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

Know what's wild? I was just this week looking up my old posts on rec.sport.pro-wrestling from 1996.

 

I was awful.

I was writing out imaginary wrestling promos with my friends on Geocities or AOL Hometown around then. That would really be... something to find it again.

[The_Admiral]

  My 1999-2000 e-fed exploits as nefarious French-Canadian "Jean Lutte" are lost to time. 
 

On 7/28/2021 at 11:52 AM, spartacat_12 said:

Last I checked, the province of Quebec still has an NHL team. The league expanding its footprint beyond Canada, the Northeast, and some of the Midwest has not hindered any development in those areas, so your comment makes absolutely no sense.

 

Pretty sure numbers have gone way down in Quebec and the Maritimes; look at the draft numbers and the Q couldn't send a player to the NHL if it stuck him in a box and mailed him

[ninersdd]

Well, Evander Kane’s wife alleges that he is betting on his own games. 

 

[SFGiants58]

24 minutes ago, ninersdd said:

Well, Evander Kane’s wife alleges that he is betting on his own games. 

 

As a former fan, I’m not a fan. This team exudes stupid.