A new Canadian Hockey team?
 

Hopefully. Or at the very least move them to a city that can appreciate hockey. If there is one US ciy Id really like to see get an NHL team it would be Seattle. God damn how awesome would it be to watch Seattle/Vancouver games! Why the hell is there a hockey team in Miami and Atlanta anyway!

BYE BYE Nashville (hopefully anyway)

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We're still sore over the Nordiques but this is good news...too bad they aren't the Nordiques though.:bawl:

Colorado we wan't our team back and a time machine.

I don't watch much hockey, but I think more Canadian cities need NHL teams.

And the Winnipeg Jets.

The problem begins and ends with Gary Bettman.

You can thank him for hockey in Miami (instead of Quebec/Winnipeg/Hartford should I go on?), I mean th Northstars play in freakin' Texas now!!! The glowing puck (remember that?) The lockouts. Less fighting. Shootouts. People inside creases. The trap. I could keep going.

Honestly the only good thing Ive ever seen is 4v4 OT. Thats pretty awesome. Other than that, he is ruining this once great sport. Id almost rather watch American Rules Football... Almost.

Lol, i remember the glowing pucks, terrible, terrible.

It sure would be nice to see a new Canadian team in the NHL, i mean we pretty much started the sport.

There needs to be a new team in Canada, thats for sure. While I should probably wish for a return of the Nordiques, because I'm a Quebecer, I'm a hardcore Canadiens fan and I'm moving to Quebec city next autumn. I don't want to get beaten up because I wear Canadiens T-shirts =p

In my opinion, the most important reason for having a new team or two in Canada is that even tho we have a population 10x smaller than the USA, there are still more hockey fans in Canada. I guess Bettman and his lackeys hoped to make more money by making hockey teams in richer and populous areas, forgetting that making an hockey team popular in Miami is like trying to sell refrigerators to eskimos, and fur anoraks to africans.

Maybe Balsillie will make them the first European NHL team.

Since I live in Winnipeg and miss the Jets, my first choice would be to bring them here. But Winnipeg can't afford the NHL. The reality of it sucks.

YouTube - Owen Nolan at the 1997 All Star Game

Exactly. While I hate Ottawa with a passion never known by most of us, yet, There is a small part of me that wants that cup back in Canada, at least if it's not in Philly.:cya:

Now that is one HELL of an idea. Way too much travel though, but how cool would it be to put together 2 teams for say 1 season from Europe. Let them play here, maybe 1 in Canada and the other here??? 1 for east the other for west... That would be 1 of "Gary's Gimmicks" I might support.

Unfortunately, there's too much money in the States. A 5% piece of the sporting market in Miami worth more than a 50% piece in Quebec. (Probably. I'm no economist :))

The NHL is slowly 'falling off the sporting radar', if I can borrow a sportscaster cliche, here in Manitoba. The closest team is Calgary, I guess, maybe Minneapolis. Most people (like me) will root for the last Canadian team in the playoffs, but that's it. If the Leafs ever win another Cup, there will be no fan riots in Winnipeg.

Being a long distance fan in the playoffs is a lousy way to root for a sports team. You don't get to go to the games or hang out in the bars with the thousands of other supporters. It's bittersweet being a hockey fan here.

But we're making the most of other opportunities. With a fair bit of pride I think we get to claim to be the best host for international hockey tournaments. And I don't really care if anyone outside of IIHF accountants gives a damn. The IIHF should permanently give us the World Juniors and Womens Championships. And now that they're finally going to be playing the Men's world championship in North America we'll get to set attendance records for that tournament, too.

The IIHF is our hockey league now, and I'm happy with that.

Absolutely wrong. The Montreal Canadiens, for example, are much richer than the Florida Panthers. As with everything, sports work with the rules of offer and demand. The demand for hockey in Quebec is such that every single game in the season is sold off (even tho the Bell Center is the largest arena in North America), which leads to tickets being abominately costly, especially in the playoffs. And what about tv and radio broadcast? Last I heard there is no public sports channel broadcasting hockey games in the US, while in Quebec it is possible to watch the Canadiens both on RDS and sometimes on CBC. Canadiens marchandise obviously sells like hot pies, while I doubt the Florida Panthers sell a lot of T-Shirts or watever.

While the population of Florida is, overall, richer than Quebec's, hockey is so ignored there that the vast majority of people are never going to spent a single cent on hockey, and those who care probably will spend less than an "average" hockey fan in Quebec, which would probably get labelled "hardcore" in Florida.

Same can be said with most other southern hockey cities. Sports are in competitions with each others. In certain areas of the USA, hockey is the 4th or 5th sport, so it is clear that, on average, less money will be spent on it. On the other hand, it is the 1st sport in importance pretty much everywere in Canada.