Quote:
Originally Posted by Monahammer
Whoooooosh.
It's not an opinion - roads, libraries, and bike lanes are all publicly owned, operated, and maintained infrastructure that everyone in the city can use for free. The arena deal creates a publicly owned and maintained facility that is operated by a multi million dollar corporation and only the select high paying customers will get to use it.
None of what I just said was an opinion. That is what is happening here. If you still don't see the difference then the conversation is pointless.
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On top of simply access, most citizens derive indirect benefits even if they don't use them. One can argue the same for the arena, but I'd say it's a few more degrees of separation for indirect benefits in most cases.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction
It's hard to know what is going on behind the scenes. It's not in anyone's best interests to make relocation discussions public (see Jim Balsillie). Not too many people saw Winnipeg as a realistic destination before it happened. Things can happen very fast if the people involved see an opportunity present itself. It's easy when there isn't an apparent opportunity to point out all the reasons why something won't happen, but when there is an opportunity, the mind set usually changes from "we can't", to "how can we".
Bettman said Houston is very much on the radar despite those issues and I am sure he would move heaven and hell to get a team there.
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One example in 24 years. And it was a city that had already failed once before.
Meanwhile, ARI, FLA, CAR, NYI, OTT have all had prolonged periods of turmoil...while the usual suspects for relocation QUE, HOU, KC, POR, AUS, TOR2 have all been available to some degree.
21 teams play in buildings built from 1993-2001. Most of the oldest have had significant fairly recent renos (ANA, STL, CHI, VAN, BOS, TBL, NAS, PHI, WAS, TOR).
OTT and SJ are the only teams likely to be playing the new arena game anytime soon (they've both had their first steps).
It might seem like everyone has new arenas, but only DET, VGK, EDM and soon NYI + SEA are particularly recent.
ARI 2003, WPG 2004, NJD 2007, PIT 2010, NYR 2013 reno are the five others.