News came last week that the NHL Executive Committee made their expansion recommendation to the NHL Board of Governors. It is reported that the Executive Committee decided to give a green light to expansion by only one team, that being in Las Vegas and that it will be announced at the NHL Awards next Wednesday.
The Recommendation could have been for expansion by two teams, by one team, no expansion at all, or expansion at a later time. Of course the move to expand by one team raised questions about why Quebec City was not granted a franchise, why the league opted to move towards 31 franchises, and what this meant for teams that were rumoured to be unstable.
Apparently, at this time there are questions about the Canadian Dollar and how a team in Quebec City may fare in the current economy. However, this does not seem like a legitimate reason for the league not going back to Quebec City. If a city the size of Winnipeg can successfully operate a hockey team, then there is no question that Quebec City should be able to as well.
The league has also been trying to chase teams in the West to balance out the two conferences. Gary Bettman has stated multiple times that moving Eastern Time zone teams such as Detroit or Columbus is not an option that is even on the table. This would make it tough for Quebec City to be added as a 17th team in the Eastern Time zone.
One final reason that a team in Quebec City could be denied would be if there was something else that the league was not telling us. It is possible that there may be a relocation opportunity soon, and that if that possibility opens up, the league may not want to be caught off guard, without a viable city or arena. This would make perfect sense for having Quebec City as a card in the league’s hand, similar to the situation they ran into with the Atlanta Thrashers.
So who are these teams? Recently, reports have surfaced that Carolina Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos Jr. is looking to sell the team. Although Karmanos intends to sell to an owner for the purpose of keeping the team in Raleigh, some people have suggested that this may hint towards Carolina relocating. However, Gary Bettman and Bill Daly have been quick to throw water over these rumours, adamantly maintaining that the Carolina Hurricanes are not going anywhere. This is most likely true, as the Hurricanes low attendances have more to do with the team performing poorly rather than a market that cannot sustain hockey. Gary Bettman’s legacy over the last twenty years has been to get hockey into the Southern United States, and he is not going to let a decent hockey market move away just so Quebec City, a market he knows will always be there, can have a hockey team.
The other option is the Arizona Coyotes. After the City of Glendale terminated their 15-year $225 million contract with the Coyotes in 2015, they were somehow able to renegotiate a 2-year contract. This contract will expire at the end of next season (2016-2017), leaving the Arizona Coyotes looking for a new home. Recently, the City of Glendale has also hired the services of arena management firm AEG to turn their arena into a better revenue generator. The deal is for 5 years, and AEG has maintained that their analysis involved the Coyotes sticking around in Glendale. How true is this? Who knows, it will depend on the Coyotes being able to work out an arena deal with Glendale, Phoenix, or another suburb in the area.
It is possible that the league has chosen to go with one expansion team for now because they want to be prepared in the case that Arizona is not able to decide on its future and needs to be moved prior to the 2017-2018 season. Quebec City would give the league that option, without having to run around. This would also mean that the league has chosen to turn down a payment of $500 million in favour of a much smaller relocation fee as part of a potential Phoenix Coyotes purchase. Why would the league do that unless the threat of the Coyotes moving was not real?
Unless it’s true that the NHL really can’t reconcile with an imbalance in the number of teams in the Eastern and Western Conferences. This may be true, but in my opinion is a stupid thing for the league to be concerned with. There is a very simple option that would eliminate having to worry about more Eastern Time zone teams.
The only reason that it has been a problem has been because the league has opted to go with a 2-conference system. If there are naturally more hockey markets in the Eastern Time zone, then why not work with it and try to find a solution.
One easy fix that would not be much different from what the league does now is getting rid of the 2-conference system and moving to a 4-conference system. The biggest concern that Detroit and Columbus had when playing in the Western Conference was that their road games were on T.V. very late for their viewers back home when they played teams in the Mountain or Pacific Time zone.
With 4 conference of 8 teams, as long as teams were one time zone over, they could play in the same conference. This would mean that a team like the Detroit Red Wings could play with teams in the Central Division without having to be in a conference with teams from the Pacific and Mountain Time zone. This would be far more favourable for those Eastern Time zone teams, and would also mean the NHL could add as many teams in the East as it wanted, without having to consider fringe western markets for the sake of achieving geographic balance.
However, this has not been something that the NHL has alluded to in the past. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Regardless of what happens with Quebec City, we know that the Edmonton Oilers will have a new division mate in 2017-2018 with the addition of Las Vegas.
What do you think about the addition of Las Vegas? How would you manage the geographic imbalance in teams?
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