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Originally Posted by transplant99
Right now it is, but it wont be in a year or two without construction under way.
There are cities offering sweetheart deals RIGHT NOW who have arenas in place.
And no...this market is not "healthier" than other markets investigating adding an NHL team, but keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep at night.
The Flames could relocate right now and ownership would be in a better financial position. Houston and Portland are very much in play as we speak.
Im not advocating for anything here. There are just realities that some seem to want to ignore though.
One of those without any doubt is...IF the team leaves, there will not be one coming back for a long long long time. Some people are OK with that, some are not. Both sides have reasons for their stance.
My personal view comes down to this.
If this city wants to consider itself somewhat modern, a destination for tourism, and among the best in Canada/NA, then it has to have things like modern arenas AND stadiums where large scale events like sports, concerts, and a plethora of other forms of entertainment can occur.
It would be embarrassing as a city to not have these things IMO, but realize others see it differently.
As I said earlier Calgary the last decade or so has become the poster child for "can't do" instead of what it once was and viewed as a city that could do anything. That's the city I remember fondly and grew up in.
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Not having state of the art taxpayer funded billionaire play things isnt embarrassing. The embarrassing thing is small/medium sized cities and their backwater rube citizens who stake their fragile egos on their local sports team. Edmonton did it with the Oilers, Regina did it with the Roughriders. These cities are constantly dealing with the fact that they offer nothing outside of hockey (not even a top 4 sport anymore) and CFL football (not even a top 4 football league).
Jen Gerson put it best years ago:
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"Edmonton is the clear example of this. I mean, clearly, so much of Edmonton's flagging, sad, little ego is tied up in their hockey success that they needed to sign a scam of a deal to give a sweetheart arena over to (Oilers owner) Daryl Katz. And now all of a sudden the expectation is that Calgary is going to fall in line?"
"I'm afraid we're not that pathetic," she said. "We're just not that pathetic, as a city."
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Unfortunately, I think time has proven she is wrong. We are just as pathetic.