Quote:
Originally Posted by Vulcan
It's partly politics and partly money. Detroit was promised to be moved to the East years ago and Columbus apparently as well. This has created an unbalanced league with 16 teams in the East and only 14 in the West. It was done with the obvious plan to expand in the West, QC wasn't part of that plan even though they seem a natural. One part of it may be the American TV contract where saying they have a potential 5.5M American viewers in Phoenix trumps having zero viewers in Quebec.
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I'm not sure if the Quebec scenario really played a role. Don't forget, the current alignment wasn't the first choice of the BoG. The original plan was to have the Western Conference with more teams until the NHLPA rejected it.
http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=604852
Once the Wings and Jackets were moved east, the players accepted it. But I have my doubts that the league tailored expansion plans based on something that wasn't their first choice to begin with.