Move FLA to Quebec, TB to Ontario somewhere, PHX to Seattle. Expand to Kansas City and Houston.
What exactly is your rationale for moving Tampa? Even as a draft lottery team, they had the 8th highest attendance in the league this year. Meanwhile Colorado was at the bottom of the league, maybe think about relocating the Avalanche?
I was basing my suggestion to move tampa due to the weird alignment of Toronto's division. Having the two south teams in the north division is odd as you could make the Rangers/Isles join the north division and have TB/FLA in the south division and it would make sense. Just seems like the writing might be on the wall with those two teams
Phoenix to Seattle I like, Kansas City will probably turn into another Atlanta disaster, Houston might be good as a rival for Dallas. I would move Florida to the GTA and leave Tampa alone.
It would be an Atlanta disaster is the team is a disaster on ice. No wonder teams leave.
One thing I remember that was a problem for the Nordiques the last time around was the lack of English in the Quebec City area kept them from drawing free agents, and allegedly many players had no-trade-to-QC clauses that had more to do with the local culture that with how bad the team was. Would this be an issue again?
Another problem facing the Nordiques was the cultural difference between Quebec City and the rest of the league. Quebec City is a mostly francophone city and its public address announcements were only given in French, unlike in Montreal were both French and English were spoken. There was a lack of English language media in the city causing marketability problems with the Nordiques and many non-French Canadians did not want to play in Quebec City, such as Eric Lindros.
While there still is a lack of English language media in Quebec City, I believe that, this time around, the Nordiques would be able to overcome this problem. Something as simple as having public address announcements in both French and English could help market the team better and help get some free agents to sign with Quebec. Seems crazy that a small move like that would do so much, but it really would.
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Probably. But that was ages ago. The Internet and other things make it easier to deal with language issues. Players go to Europe during the lockout... You may have some guys who don't want to go there but it wouldn't be that many more than players who don't want to go to Edmonton.
I dunno, a big part of these guys' decisions are made for their family/wives. I can see a large % of players not wanting to go solely because their families will hate it.
I was basing my suggestion to move tampa due to the weird alignment of Toronto's division. Having the two south teams in the north division is odd as you could make the Rangers/Isles join the north division and have TB/FLA in the south division and it would make sense. Just seems like the writing might be on the wall with those two teams
So you would take one of the most successful expansion franchises in the league and move them because of weird division alignment?
That's
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Move FLA to Quebec, TB to Ontario somewhere, PHX to Seattle. Expand to Kansas City and Houston.
Then add teams in Kelowna/Penticton, Saskatoon, Regina, Flin Flon, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, Waterloo/Kitchener, Mississauga, Hamilton, London, Trois Rivieres, Sherbrooke, Moncton, Halifax, St. John's, Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Tuscon, Albuquerque, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Louisville, Lexington, Knoxville, Atlanta, Augusta, Jacksonville, Norfolk, Richmond, Scranton, Rochester, Utica, Albany, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Harlem, New Haven, Providence, Hartford, and Manchester. BAM! Done.
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So you would take one of the most successful expansion franchises in the league and move them because of weird division alignment?
That's
Did not know that Tampa had such good success recently. I thought they were still hemorrhaging money. I thought they and the Panthers were in the same boat financially.
After the 2012 season, the only teams that lost more money were the Coyotes, Islanders and Blue Jackets (They lost 13.1 million according to Forbes).
They might have high attendance but if they aren't selling the tickets for enough money or getting revenue in other ways, then they are still not being productive.
Colors are sick, but the logo looks like complete ass. I'd like to see some of the original orange color have a presence on those jerseys, perhaps as an accent somewhere.
After the 2012 season, the only teams that lost more money were the Coyotes, Islanders and Blue Jackets (They lost 13.1 million according to Forbes).
They might have high attendance but if they aren't selling the tickets for enough money or getting revenue in other ways, then they are still not being productive.
Much like with the Panthers, the Lightning have a very favorable and profitable long term lease for their arena that's predicated on there being a hockey team as the anchor tenant.
The team itself may be structured to look like it's losing money, but the overall enterprise is profitable because of what they earn from getting essentially free reign over a publicly owned arena that is one of the top 5 busiest in the country. In fact, Lightning ownership just spent $40M of their own money to upgrade the facilities in 2011 to make the arena even more profitable.
When the Atlanta Thrashers were awarded to Winnipeg, it went like this:
May 16 - reports surfaced that Truth North Sports and Entertainment were negotiating a sale with Thrashers owners. May 31 - NHL and True North hold a press conference in Winnipeg to announce that a deal to purchase the Thrashers had been reached. June 21 - NHL board of governors formally approved the sale and move of the team to Winnipeg.
