Pavel Bure wrote:Would you agree some teams need moved due to money issues though? The league owning teams isn't good. Heck the NBA owns a team and can't seem to give it away.
I would agree that some teams might need to be moved. But if we moved teams that lost money, we wouldn't have any home games in this league. The Devils got into trouble with their arena, other than that, they appear to ok financially...they had an investor get out of it, now they need someone...VanderBeek wants someone to contribute as much as him and still allow him to control what's going on...tough sell...
"You want to invest $100 million in hockey team?"
- You bet I do!
"You want to own 47% of the team?"
- You bet I do!
"You want to let me retain complete control and you have almost no say whatsoever?"
- You bet...ter find somebody else...
I mean, the Devils just didn't generate the revenue they thought they would by owning their new arena. In this economy, in that ****-factory called Newark, it became very difficult...
There's only so much you can do with moving teams around...
Adding a team to the SE Ontario doesn't add X amount of hockey fans, it just takes away from the Toronto or (longshot) Ottawa or Detroit market...does adding a Quebec team add fans? Maybe, maybe not. Are we sure it just doesn't take Montreal fans or Boston fans from the pot (Maritime provinces have a lot of ties to Boston, AIUI)?
You have to be careful. The league has only had one team move in the last 15 years, IIRC. Atlanta to Winnipeg. In that same time, they've expanded from 26 to 30. If you're going to have a "moving sale", I say get it out of the way all in one basic time (like 1995-1997) and get it done with...but they have to go to real sturdy locations...moving Columbus to Kansas City doesn't alleviate fears for me, it just creates a bastard franchise...