Chicago blackhawks concept

[STL FANATIC]

So basically what they are saying is it's different but the same? LOL

Actually I guess they mean the team sorta folded, but lotsa people still wanted to have a team so they got together and made another.

So is it the same franchise? Your call.

[CJR]

Well, I think that was still when the NHL was trying to exclude Eddie Livingstone, the guy who had owned the NHA's Toronto Blueshirts.  With that in mind, I would guess that for all intents and purposes the Arenas folded but to keep Livingstone from trying to put a team of his own in the league, the NHL kept the Arenas alive on paper until the St. Pats ownership could take them over.

It would have been like how they tried to put the Montreal Maroons in Philadelphia sometime betweet 1938 and 1967 (it's late and I can't remember).  The Maroons were dead, the team was gone and the ownership was gone, but the franchise still existed on paper and they tried get it going in a new city with new players and new owners.  Except with the Arenas/St. Pats, they stayed in the same city.