Thursday, December 20, 2007
Where Would YOU Put an Expansion Team?
by Jes
We all love to argue about why the NHL should relocate this franchise to that place and why we shouldn't expand to Arkansas.
Well, over at The NHL FanHouse, I put together a list of four cities that I would choose for expansion, if I was given THE POWA!!!
1. Las Vegas
2. Hamilton
3. Houston
4. Seattle
Surprise you at all?
Go check out the article, as I give my reasons for selecting those cities. I believe all four would be profitable and successful. As much as I'd love to see Winnipeg with an NHL club, they just don't have the corporate support necessary.
We all love to argue about why the NHL should relocate this franchise to that place and why we shouldn't expand to Arkansas.
Well, over at The NHL FanHouse, I put together a list of four cities that I would choose for expansion, if I was given THE POWA!!!
1. Las Vegas
2. Hamilton
3. Houston
4. Seattle
Surprise you at all?
Go check out the article, as I give my reasons for selecting those cities. I believe all four would be profitable and successful. As much as I'd love to see Winnipeg with an NHL club, they just don't have the corporate support necessary.
Labels: expansion, Hamilton, Houston, Las Vegas, NHL Economics, Seattle
Friday, June 08, 2007
Stupid Butt-man Tricks
by Jes
Let's have a show of hands here. How many of you think that the NHL ought to expand to 32 teams?
Wow, nobody...except the idiots at the NHL's Front Offices ...
Having an NHL team in Vegas with some big stars is actually a good idea.
Expanding to 32 teams is not.
Want a team in Las Vegas? Want to bring one back to Canada? Get rid of a struggling team like the Nashville Predators or Florida Panthers.
Of course, this would be lost on the ears of the NHL, who crave even more expansion money from would-be suckers like Bruckheimer.
The league can ill-afford to expand and further dilute the product. One problem that NHL has had selling the game is that the star talent is so thinly spread over the league. Yes, there are many capable of filling in NHL spots, but who wants to pay big ticket prices to watch the likes of Alex Burrows and Andy Hilbert?
Leagues with as many problems as the NHL should be not be expanding. Fix the leaks before adding a wing to the mansion.
Let's have a show of hands here. How many of you think that the NHL ought to expand to 32 teams?
Wow, nobody...except the idiots at the NHL's Front Offices ...
Even when the NHL swore that expansion was off the table, no one was buying it.
So it comes as no surprise that the league now appears to be in talks to expand to 32 teams. It's a safe bet those two new teams will be in Las Vegas and Kansas City.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed that the league has been in discussions with powerful film and TV producer Jerry Bruckheimer about owning a franchise in Las Vegas, Sports Business Daily reported yesterday.
Bruckheimer, an avid hockey fan and producer of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, has put together an investment group to locate a team in Las Vegas, meaning the NHL would be the first pro league to settle in the gambling centre.
Daly said "no decisions have been made" and no official agreements are in place.
Las Vegas is one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States and Bruckheimer has Hollywood cachet that the NHL craves.
Having an NHL team in Vegas with some big stars is actually a good idea.
Expanding to 32 teams is not.
Want a team in Las Vegas? Want to bring one back to Canada? Get rid of a struggling team like the Nashville Predators or Florida Panthers.
Of course, this would be lost on the ears of the NHL, who crave even more expansion money from would-be suckers like Bruckheimer.
The league can ill-afford to expand and further dilute the product. One problem that NHL has had selling the game is that the star talent is so thinly spread over the league. Yes, there are many capable of filling in NHL spots, but who wants to pay big ticket prices to watch the likes of Alex Burrows and Andy Hilbert?
Leagues with as many problems as the NHL should be not be expanding. Fix the leaks before adding a wing to the mansion.
Labels: bettman, expansion, Las Vegas, NHL Front Office
Monday, May 07, 2007
More Politicians Trying to Cash In on Hockey
by Jes
It seems that whiny Quebecers aren't the only politicians trying to use the sport of hockey for their own political gains.
From TSN.ca:
Hmm, how can we chop this up?
1. How much do you think Gary Bettman and the Powers That Be want another team in Canada, much less Winnipeg? Not gonna happen, folks.
2. Why should taxpayers and bond investors be footing the bill for a hockey team? Unless the team is generating profits for the people (highly unlikely), then the government has no business spending money on a 'toy' like a hockey team. If a private investor can make money in Winnipeg, let THEM make the investment.
3. Manitoba is not attractive to young people because the weather sucks, the place is full of mosquitos, and the economy pales in comparison to Alberta's. Having a hockey team is not going to entice people to stay. They can get hockey in Alberta, anyway.
Hugh McFadyen should just go back to bullshitting his province and sucking up to his corporate masters like he should be.
It seems that whiny Quebecers aren't the only politicians trying to use the sport of hockey for their own political gains.
From TSN.ca:
Manitoba's provincial election campaign has turned its attention to hockey with the Conservatives promising to bring the NHL back to Winnipeg.
Standing alongside former Winnipeg Jet Thomas Steen, Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen said he'll work with the private sector to bring back the team, who left Manitoba a decade ago.
McFadyen won't say how much taxpayer money he'd be willing to put up, but says the government could follow Manitoba Hydro's example and raise money by issuing bonds.
He also says he would consider a special lottery to raise money as well as a players tax similar to one implemented in Alberta at one time.
The Tory leader says an NHL team would make Manitoba more attractive to young people and help stem the tide of university graduates who leave for Alberta.
Hmm, how can we chop this up?
1. How much do you think Gary Bettman and the Powers That Be want another team in Canada, much less Winnipeg? Not gonna happen, folks.
2. Why should taxpayers and bond investors be footing the bill for a hockey team? Unless the team is generating profits for the people (highly unlikely), then the government has no business spending money on a 'toy' like a hockey team. If a private investor can make money in Winnipeg, let THEM make the investment.
3. Manitoba is not attractive to young people because the weather sucks, the place is full of mosquitos, and the economy pales in comparison to Alberta's. Having a hockey team is not going to entice people to stay. They can get hockey in Alberta, anyway.
Hugh McFadyen should just go back to bullshitting his province and sucking up to his corporate masters like he should be.
Labels: Canadian Government, expansion, off-ice silliness, Winnipeg
Monday, March 19, 2007
Does the NHL need Expansion?
By Jes
Terry "My brains are" Frei of the Denver Post, who also writes for ESPN (which gives you an idea of how much he knows about the game), thinks the NHL ought to expand further.
ORLY?
Article Linkage:
Portland is a good junior hockey town, and has always been mentioned as a good NHL destination, but what makes Frei think NHL hockey would necessarily work down there? Does Portland have the corporate base to support an NHL team? If not, it would be Nashville II.
Umm, no, but I would like a league where a guy like Alex Burrows doesn't have a regular job (Yes, Burrows works his ass off, but his talent level is non-existent at the NHL level. Just watch him try to handle the puck some time). The NHL's talent pool has already been quite diluted, and another two teams means even less stellar players to spread around.
1. Since when is 'the Baltics' a nation? Slovakia is a country, yes, but The Baltics? Umm, there are quite a few Baltic nations, such as Lithuania and Latvia, which have very little in common with each other. I guess this is what passes for geography in Colorado.
2. The NBA has only RECENTLY delved heavily into the European pool, whereas the NHL jumped in quite deep in the Early 1990s. Europe has been mined of talent for the NHL, and there isn't exactly a large pool of quality NHLers-in-waiting over in Europe.
Anyway, Frei does a horrible job of trying to connect the NBA to the NHL, without realizing that the NHL has a handful of struggling franchises and doesn't need more. A better solution would be to move some of the worst franchises into stronger markets, rather than dilute the talent pool further and create even more weaker franchises that have to be supported with revenues from the strong Canadian clubs. This would also, perhaps, prevent us with being subjected to poor sports opinions from the likes of Terry Frei.
Terry "My brains are" Frei of the Denver Post, who also writes for ESPN (which gives you an idea of how much he knows about the game), thinks the NHL ought to expand further.
ORLY?
Article Linkage:
Sorry, but I'm about to use a word many consider an obscenity.Having a new arena means diddly squat if the fans don't attend. Florida got a nice new area, as did the Predators, but the fans simply don't care enough about hockey to support those two franchises strongly.
Expansion. (Jes: Maybe in Utah, where alcohol is considered a deadly sin)
In the wake of the arena deal in Pittsburgh that comes after years of maneuvering and bluffing, the Penguins seem destined to remain in western Pennsylvania.
Kansas City, with a new downtown arena operated by the Anschutz Entertainment Group about to open, probably won't land the Penguins. Neither will Las Vegas, Houston, Oklahoma City, Portland, Ore., or Hamilton, Ontario.
Here's what the NHL should do: Award expansion franchises to two of those cities for 2008-09.
All things equal, my choices would be: a) Kansas City, which benefits from having a new arena and no NBA competition; and, b) Portland, which has a deep hockey tradition with the minor-league Buckaroos and major-junior Winter Hawks, and has become disenchanted with the Trail Blazers.
Portland is a good junior hockey town, and has always been mentioned as a good NHL destination, but what makes Frei think NHL hockey would necessarily work down there? Does Portland have the corporate base to support an NHL team? If not, it would be Nashville II.
Of course, technically it would dilute the talent pool, but it's funny how the folks who whine about that possibility the most long for the days when the NHL virtually was a Canadian, or at least a North American, closed shop. The internationalization of that talent pool - the same thing has happened in baseball and basketball - has changed that picture. Plus, the expansion of NHL jobs by roughly 6 percent isn't going to make that much of a difference.Mr. Frei obviously thinks all fans who hate expansion are Canadian blowhards like Cherry that would like to see the league free of those damn Euros.
Umm, no, but I would like a league where a guy like Alex Burrows doesn't have a regular job (Yes, Burrows works his ass off, but his talent level is non-existent at the NHL level. Just watch him try to handle the puck some time). The NHL's talent pool has already been quite diluted, and another two teams means even less stellar players to spread around.
The NHL doesn't get enough credit for this, but for all the carping from its dinosaurs, the league was ahead of the NBA in opening its doors to Europeans, and unforgettable competitions such as the Summit Series between the Soviet Union and Canada set the stage. Swedes and Finns came and then the defecting Eastern Europeans, such as the Stastny brothers and Alex Mogilny and Sergei Fedorov, before the Iron Curtain fell, the Soviet bloc crumbled and nations such as the Baltics and Slovakia were reborn.
1. Since when is 'the Baltics' a nation? Slovakia is a country, yes, but The Baltics? Umm, there are quite a few Baltic nations, such as Lithuania and Latvia, which have very little in common with each other. I guess this is what passes for geography in Colorado.
2. The NBA has only RECENTLY delved heavily into the European pool, whereas the NHL jumped in quite deep in the Early 1990s. Europe has been mined of talent for the NHL, and there isn't exactly a large pool of quality NHLers-in-waiting over in Europe.
Anyway, Frei does a horrible job of trying to connect the NBA to the NHL, without realizing that the NHL has a handful of struggling franchises and doesn't need more. A better solution would be to move some of the worst franchises into stronger markets, rather than dilute the talent pool further and create even more weaker franchises that have to be supported with revenues from the strong Canadian clubs. This would also, perhaps, prevent us with being subjected to poor sports opinions from the likes of Terry Frei.
Labels: expansion, mainstream mediots, NHL, opinion, Terry Frei
