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Originally Posted by PeteMoss
All those teams have something in common as well. They were struggling attendence wise or their owners were bankrupt.
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Yep. So why is that the Coyotes stayed in Glendale for as long as they did? The NHL could not have done more to keep the bankrupt and failing franchise in Glendale despite offers to buy it and move it. Of course they hosed the city of Glendale over the eventual deal that was recently cancelled by the city. But the point remains.
This is 101 stuff. Don't bite the hand that feeds. Why would any municipality, state or province invest millions and millions into a product that would get up and go whenever convenient? Why would the NHL allow one team to compromise potentially every other current and potential future team out of these sweetheart deals? The NHL has to go out of its way to try and keep NHL teams that have publicly funded arenas in those arenas, when they don't get it, they don't really care what happens.
But, as we've seen, they have no problem moving or threatening to move a team when teams don't get their way when it comes to arenas.
Not unlike the Coyotes leaving to Glendale, don't forget that the Islanders moved to Brooklyn after they were refused funding for a new (or improvement of an) arena as well. It might not mean much to us, but to the counties there it was election issues all the same. Sure, it wasn't quite Quebec City, but it wasn't completely insignificant. Once again, the NHL showed that if an arena deal can't be reached, it has no problems with the team moving - fortunately Wang wanted to stay in New York. And obviously we know how it will eventually turn out now.