Lucic performing surgery...

[SpikeDDS]

Atlanta is a large market. So is Phoenix. Trying to jam a square peg into a round hole isn't growing the game much there though is it? Putting franchises in places where people are hockey crazy might make the league look a little better than having the Coyotes drain millions out of the rest of the league for a decade.

 

Define "large." Phoenix is 4.3M. Atlanta is almost 6M (latest available figures). Just for the sake of comparison, and because I am most familiar with it, Detroit's mtero population is the same as Phoenix's. Granted, Phoenix IS growing faster (I think) than Atlanta's, and Detroit's is actually shrinking. So, if you have a city of 6 million people and you can get 1/5 of them interested in hockey, does that make sense over Quebec or Hamilton, both of which are at ~700K but who may have 70% interested in hockey? (Yes, there are still a percentage of Canadians who have little to no interest in hockey. At least there is a rumor going around...)

 

If the idea is growth of the sport, does putting a club in a market where it is already saturated with fans make sense? Or is it better to take a chance? I just think the idea should be to do BOTH, not JUST try to grow it, but to ESTABLISH it too. That's why Winnipeg made sense. Atlanta was hurting the league. So put one in a hungry Canadian market. But don't totally give up on expansion. Just be more sensitive to which markets you take your chances on. Look for cities like those in Wisconsin, for example, where winters are longer and there is likely already a culture, but you could expand on it.

 

Also, look at cities, unlike Atlanta, where there aren't many other major sports to compete with. It might be better to invest in a smaller city, but where your attention to it would be appreciated.

 

I dunno. Safe IS safe, but if you don't take chances, you'll never really grow. You've just got to do it carefully, not brazenly. And not all at once, or you'll go broke.

[Vanflyer]

It wasn't even Bettman's fault for trying it here. It could have worked, but the team was mismanaged.

 

It depends on how you look at it. The NHL should not be in the business of managing NHL teams (it is a direct conflict). However, Betteman and  NHL have done EXACTLY that with Pitts and Phoenix. 

[SpikeDDS]

It depends on how you look at it. The NHL should not be in the business of managing NHL teams (it is a direct conflict). However, Betteman and  NHL have done EXACTLY that with Pitts and Phoenix. 

 

And I would agree that they SHOULDN'T. The league should not be helping teams win (or lose). These things called NHL franchises are RISKS. Some carry more risk with them than others do. There is a time to play some risks, and there is a time to play it safe. The NHL has made a few risky deals which have and are backfiring. Their last one was to relative safety: Thrashers to Winnipeg. That SHOULD be safe for a while, because Winnipeg knows that they don't want to lose a team. They've been there and done that. They have been selling tickets even though they aren't very good yet.

 

I think their next risk should be in a new market, but one with established hockey culture. I keep saying Wisconsin, and it's not because I like it there (been one time for a SHORT stay--have no opinion). It's because I perceive that it has the climate and has hockey already as part of its culture. It also, depending on which city you give it to, won't be competing with most of the other 3 major sports in those markets.