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Originally Posted by TheAlpineOracle
Second team in Toronto, Hamilton, Other golden horse shoe locations. These never get off the ground.
What are you talking about in Quebec City? They have a brand new 18,500 seat stadium that has been waiting for a tenant since they put the shovels in the ground. They would easily have corporate support, and on top of that, the Quebec City franchise would get a level of Provincial Government support that doesn't exist in Alberta and most teams would be envious of.
The NHL thinks so little of more NHL teams in Canada that they didn't even consider Quebec City for expansion when Quebec would have handed them a blank cheque. Not sure how people here think that they'd be willing to move a franchise to Calgary when they don't have a rink, the dollar hovering around 70 cents with no signs of receovery, and the local economy is the toilet and is based even in good times on a form of energy that world is trying to shift away from.
This team isn't going to relocate, but we'd be screwed if they ever did.
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The NHL considered a bid. It was deferred not rejected and there are rumours that Quebecor was going to have difficulty in accessing the capital required to pay the expansion fees anyways. This #### doesn't happen in a vacuum. There is an entire business and 30 existing franchises to consider. Is the NHL going to add another Eastern team and force Detroit and/or Columbus back into the west? Those owners would love that.
QC is the perfect relocation destination for one of the struggling east teams and if the expansion fees were an issue, the lower re-location fee would be a lot more palatable for Quebecor and the NHL would not have to set the precedent of tiered expansion fees.