Quebec City once again accelerates the process that should lead to the construction of the new arena and unlock almost $ 50 million to prepare the ground.
kaffloc Kaffloc Quebec City new arena construction has geared to accelerated mode. #nhl#Nordiques
While Quebec City isn’t the only possible destination for the Coyotes, it’s the one that makes the most sense for the league. The other 29 owners will be able to recoup their losses in Phoenix by charging Pierre-Karl Peladeau a hefty transfer fee.
And the league will replace a franchise that ranks last in attendance with an average of 11,423 fans (many of them taking advantage of discount pricing) with guaranteed sellouts of 15,176 at Le Colisée Pepsi while awaiting the completion of a new arena.
The importance of Canadian franchises for the overall health of the league can be found in a confidential report, details of which appeared last week in the Toronto Star. The document showed the six Canadian NHL clubs accounted for about 33 per cent of the $1.2 billion (U.S.) in league ticket revenue in the 2009-10 season.
One source believes the patience among some owners with the league's involvement in Glendale has run out.
"When you've got 20 teams losing money, another three breaking even and just six that are making money, what do you think they want to do? Keep writing cheques for another team that's losing money? Most of them have got their own problems.
"I can't see a business plan that works in Glendale unless the city is willing to underwrite the club's losses -- and the appetitie for that is diminishing after giving the NHL $50 million over the last two years -- or you find a billionaire who doesn't care about losing $30 million a year. Given the way the economy is here (in the U.S.), there aren't too many of those guys left."
J'ai Ma Place is a consortium of local interests in Quebec City that has contracted with Quebecor -- the media giant which, among other things, owns the new all-sports network TVA Sports in Quebec and publishes the Le Journal de Montreal, Le Journal de Quebec and all the Sun Media newspapers -- to sell luxury suites and seats in the proposed new rink in Quebec City. Quebecor has a deal with the city and province to manage the new rink and put its name on the $400 million building.
J'ai Ma Place has 8,000 of the approximately 20,000 seats to sell -- the buyer owns the seat for all events in the building -- and have sold half of them. They are allowed to sell 74 of the 86 corporate suites in the building and have sold all 74 with a deposit of $25,000 each.
"People are afraid there aren't enough businesses in Quebec," said J'ai Ma Place chairman of the board Mario Bedard, "but (the suites) are the first thing we sold out."
Quebec's excitable mayor, Regis Lebeaume, has said there will be a shovel in the ground this summer and the building is scheduled to open in the fall of 2015.
Pierre Karl Peladeau, the president and CEO of Quebecor, is poised to become the owner of the franchise. Owning an NHL franchise like the Nordiques would create a nice synergy with his new all-sports network and put TVA Sports in a position to challenge the Montreal Canadiens and RDS, an arm of TSN and Bell Media, for the hearts, minds and wallets of Quebeckers.
A spokesman for Quebecor declined comment on the company's potential NHL involvement. "We want to maintain a low profile," he said. "We don't discuss our business plans."
^I was listening to Stephen Brunt and Bob McCown (I know Bob's a blowhard) on Friday night on Fan 960 and they were talking about this story. They likened this to the Winnipeg situation where they NHL quietly gave the word to prepare to get a franchise. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Nords back in the League this fall.
I still find it incredibly novel to watch TSN and see sports highlights of the Winnipeg Jets. I don't know what I'd do if I seen Nordiques highlights, too.
Probably chuckle a little bit, at least.
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"An adherent of homeopathy has no brain. They have skull water with the memory of a brain."
With the Quebec rivalry and the passion the QCers have for the Nords I can't see a different name, it's easy to market to their die hard fans. I do expect a new uniform design though, if the team was to stay in Quebec for 1996 they were to change their uniform anyways.
With the Quebec rivalry and the passion the QCers have for the Nords I can't see a different name, it's easy to market to their die hard fans. I do expect a new uniform design though, if the team was to stay in Quebec for 1996 they were to change their uniform anyways.
Hopefully they keep the same colors. The wolf logo they had and black/purple color scheme they were going to go with was horrific.
If they hadn't moved to Denver, this is what they were going to wear starting in the 1995-96 season...
Haha... I drew that graphic based on some newspaper photographs. Every so often I see it posted somewhere in a discussion of the return of the Nordiques.
