Quote:
Originally Posted by Vulcan
With Bell and Rogers both owning the Leafs, I could see one of them moving over to own the new expansion team and selling their Leafs share. This would solve the territorial rights and no Buffalo has no claim to territorial rights, they are outside the Toronto limits.
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Yep, that's all true. The only time the Sabres org raised the issue about territorial rights in southern Ontario was when there was a lot of noise being made about plopping a franchise in Hamilton, when Copps Coliseum (state of the art arena, for the time) was being constructed. Copps hosted some '91 Canada Cup games, then was just a nice AHL palace and place for Rush to perform when in town.
Quite a few Toronto fans purchase packages to Sabres home games, because it's their only opportunity to see the Leafs in person.
As far as the Leafs with their monopoly, they should take the high road and abstain, like Montreal did with approval for reolocation of the Nordiques. That is, if this situation ever happens with Markham. It's hard to see another NHL franchise harming the value of the Leafs, and the GTA and surrounding region could certainly support another team. This makes more sense than the aggressive expansion to "non-traditional" hockey markets that the league pursued.