Damn I miss hockey

[OccamsRazor]

 

[intheslot]

[intheslot]

JUST IN: NHL looking at restarting season in July.

Games would be played at 4 or 5 neutral sites with limited or no fans, according to Florida Panthers president Matt Caldwell.

On the conference call, he said this plan is not finalized.

While not finalized, as there is a ton on the health aspect of things to work out, it's down to the final details for the NHL and should be announced in the coming day(s) their plans for July restart!!!!

It's believed the sites will be one team's arena from every division. The plan would be to finish the 82 game regular season and begin the playoffs from there. While early on, there will be no fans, the hope is by playoffs or maybe the conference finals, depending on the health restrictions, perhaps some fans could enjoy it first hand.

More details are expected to drop later this afternoon, once the conference call is over.
 

2,189

11:29 AM - Apr 22, 2020

Edited April 22, 2020 by intheslot
added letters

[intheslot]

Old Time Hockey....Eh..

 

[intheslot]

 

 

[OccamsRazor]

1 hour ago, intheslot said:

JUST IN: NHL looking at restarting season in July.

 

I just think this is a bad call.

 

The season should be canceled. Now this is going to affect the offseason and free agency as well as put the players and next season at risk.

[intheslot]

28 minutes ago, OccamsRazor said:

 

I just think this is a bad call.

 

The season should be canceled. Now this is going to affect the offseason and free agency as well as put the players and next season at risk.

If they restart questions begin like freeagents ,most of the contracts go to july 1.., will the players be able to sign and play in other cities..?? also the draft..

 

[OccamsRazor]

1 minute ago, intheslot said:

If they restart questions begin like freeagents ,most of the contracts go to july 1.., will the players be able to sign and play in other cities..?? also the draft..

 

 

So many question and what about everyone involved who will be put at risk???? For a game.

 

They should just call it a wrap on the 2019-20 season get ready for the draft and the start of next season.

 

And hope and pray they will be able to play next year.

[intheslot]

[Howie58]

On 4/10/2020 at 1:29 AM, WordsOfWisdom said:

 

Atlanta crashed and burned twice. If it were up to me I'd say "never again". Atlanta is not a hockey town, and it's obvious why that is. Atlanta is a mostly black city, and for the most part, black people don't watch or play hockey. It's like putting a team in Mexico City. Wrong demographic. Sure, there are exceptions..... but you don't fill a 20,000 seat arena with exceptions.

 

Kansas City has the right democratic in that sense but no hockey history and no fan interest there. That's baseball/football country. Bad place for hockey imho and probably why it failed the first time. 

 

Quebec City is the perfect hockey market in every way. I'd be interested to know how much money the NHL has lost by not being in Quebec City the past 25 years. Having lame duck teams like the Panthers, Devils, etc..... rather than add another "Montreal Canadiens" franchise to your league. Hmmm.  That's like MLB saying "nah, we don't need the Dodgers in our league, we'd much rather have a team in Alaska". 

 

 

Greetings:

 

I am sorry for not responding.  

 

Your points regarding demographics have some value.  I suspect South Florida, which is becoming "majority minority," may be an exemplar.  But you should try to find Gary Bettman's announcement of Vegas, and rejection of Quebec City.

 

I was driving home when this was announced.  The rationale was interesting.  Of course, conference balance was important.  The 16-14 at the time was a driver.  With Seattle, East-West will be equal.

 

But...the bigger kicker was the small market-Canadian Dollar connection.  Remember, NHL salaries are paid in U.S. Dollars.  Small market Canadian markets (Ottawa is an example) are marginal financially and probably money-losing without playoffs.  Bettman had nothing but good things to say about the proposed management.  The facility must be top-tier.  But the finances were questionable.

 

I read a report several years ago that the big, underserved and very profitable market that isn't serviced is Southern Ontario/Hamilton.  However, your Leafs will put the kebosh to a team so close, and there is fear in the league that a franchise so proximate to Buffalo (which went bankrupt years ago) may hurt them, being a small market.

 

I hope you are doing well.  Things are OK here.

 

Stay safe and sane!

 

Howie

 

Howie

[Puck_Pun]

[WordsOfWisdom]

On 4/22/2020 at 1:13 PM, intheslot said:

JUST IN: NHL looking at restarting season in July.

 

That would be awesome.  Maybe they read my post!   

[WordsOfWisdom]

6 hours ago, Howie58 said:

Greetings:

 

I am sorry for not responding. 

 

Hi. Not a problem. I was about to check out for summer and come back in the fall again.   

 

6 hours ago, Howie58 said:

Your points regarding demographics have some value.  I suspect South Florida, which is becoming "majority minority," may be an exemplar.  But you should try to find Gary Bettman's announcement of Vegas, and rejection of Quebec City.

 

I know that Bettman didn't hesitate to yank the Jets and Nordiques out of Canada when the opportunity presented itself. Both cities held rallies, had tens of thousands of fans, and yet Bettman pulled them out as fast as he could. Compare that with Phoenix, Florida, or any other market that loses money year after year and has little to no fan interest: the league keeps them in place. Even without an owner, the NHL kept the Coyotes where they were. It's a different standard for those teams.

 

6 hours ago, Howie58 said:

But...the bigger kicker was the small market-Canadian Dollar connection.  Remember, NHL salaries are paid in U.S. Dollars.  Small market Canadian markets (Ottawa is an example) are marginal financially and probably money-losing without playoffs.  Bettman had nothing but good things to say about the proposed management.  The facility must be top-tier.  But the finances were questionable.

 

If the players were also paid in Canadian dollars it wouldn't be an issue. How can anyone run a business where they bring in 0.73 of the revenue that their American counterparts do and pay all of the same expenses? It's impossible.

 

I think the league should invent its own currency... and then manage the exchange rate between Canada and the US internally. That way Canadian and American teams would pay players in NHL currency and bring in revenue in NHL currency. The Cdn/US exchange rate would become irrelevant.  (I thought they did something like that a few years ago.)   

 

6 hours ago, Howie58 said:

I read a report several years ago that the big, underserved and very profitable market that isn't serviced is Southern Ontario/Hamilton.  However, your Leafs will put the kebosh to a team so close, and there is fear in the league that a franchise so proximate to Buffalo (which went bankrupt years ago) may hurt them, being a small market.

 

You are correct! The Leafs have veto rights to any franchise entering southern Ontario. I remember Gary Bettman going on a radio show denying this a few years ago and I went and downloaded the actual document from online. (Don't ask me where/how I found it but it was the actual CBA and other stuff from way back when.)  Long story short, in the document it clearly states that NHL franchises have full veto rights for any new potential franchise that wants to enter their territory, and I think it defined that territory to be a 50 mile radius (I forget).

 

Hamilton is within 50 miles of Toronto (probably not Buffalo), so there will never be a franchise in Hamilton without the permission of the Maple Leafs (and that usually means someone has to pay them a massive fee). Same goes for Markham, Mississauga, or any other city around the GTA. 

 

 

[Podein25]

8 hours ago, WordsOfWisdom said:

I know that Bettman didn't hesitate to yank the Jets and Nordiques out of Canada when the opportunity presented itself. Both cities held rallies, had tens of thousands of fans, and yet Bettman pulled them out as fast as he could.

 

In fairness to Bettman (you should Report me for that statement), Jets 1.0 were not viable. The ownership group was fukced, the arena was sh!t, and there was no local way out, no solution to the impasse. 

[WordsOfWisdom]

3 hours ago, Podein25 said:

In fairness to Bettman (you should Report me for that statement),

 

REPORTED!  

3 hours ago, Podein25 said:

Jets 1.0 were not viable. The ownership group was fukced, the arena was sh!t, and there was no local way out, no solution to the impasse. 

 

But if this was the Coyotes, the league would have taken ownership of the team and kept it in Winnipeg until a new owner could be found and a new arena could be built. Especially given the fact that the team was selling out every game, had tremendous fan interest, and did everything possible to block the move.

 

Normally when a franchise dies, it dies with a whimper. The games are played out in nearly empty buildings. Nobody tries to save the team. It leaves town without anyone noticing. That was not the case in Winnipeg or Quebec City.  It made me very angry that the NHL turned the Winnipeg Jets into the Phoenix Coyotes.... especially given how much of a flop the Coyotes franchise has been.

 

You can argue that the Avalanche have worked out well in Colorado, but I'd argue the Nordiques (with currency equalization by the NHL of course, and the obligatory new arena) would be even more successful in Quebec City. But anyway.... it is what it is.   

 

 

[Alexandron]

On 4/16/2020 at 5:37 PM, AlaskaFlyerFan said:

Mmmmm...Bread.

Mmmmm....Bread and Butter.

[Alexandron]

On 4/22/2020 at 1:52 PM, OccamsRazor said:

 

I just think this is a bad call.

 

The season should be canceled. Now this is going to affect the offseason and free agency as well as put the players and next season at risk.

Agree. Kind of a risky call. Sadly to say, the season of 2019-2020 should be cancelled as is, like it happened in similar situation about 100 years ago(1918-1919) because of Spanish flu. Maybe by the fall , medical science will find some effective solutions in prevention that virulent infection, including in sports too or at least to find out who from our hockey players will be immune by that time(October) by testing their serum on anti-bodies to COVID-19.

I mentioned at this thread(on April 14) that one single country at our hockey world, which successfully finished this season (on April 3rd) without missing any games was Republic of Belarus. But, yesterday,  I have heard that one hockey player from that country was placed already in the hospital by urgency few days ago because of the viral infection of COVID -19. No one knows yet how many more players could be seriously infected after playing with him.

[intheslot]

[flyercanuck]

4 hours ago, intheslot said:

 

It's either "Where's that @#$%ing jerk that jabbed me in the back of the knee earlier" or "We Won! We Won!".

[SpikeDDS]

@WordsOfWisdom

 

I live in ATL, and I agree with you, never again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, I’m a freaking idiot!!

 

I will say that the Thrashers were doomed because of several factors, the main one being that leadership was able to keep their jobs throughout the ENTIRE 12-year experiment. That Don Waddell was never replaced despite zero playoff wins until they were already being moved was ridiculous!

 

But add to that that you are trying to build a hockey team where there is no hockey culture. If you can build a winner quickly, like Carolina did, you have a chance. But lose and lose badly for a decade, and you are toast, UNLESS you have hockey in your culture like Detroit did in the Dead Thing era. Atlanta does NOT have hockey culture.

 

Atlanta also has the other three major sports that to some degree compete with hockey. Plus, they have a competitive MLS soccer team that has a TREMENDOUS following. If you try hockey here,  you HAVE TO win and win relatively quickly. Vegas-like.

 

The Thrashers sucked and sucked HARD. For 12 years. Straight. With the Falcons going to the Super Bowl in the time. With the Braves in the middle of 19 straight years of playoffs. With the Hawks playing at the same time. It was doomed from the start.

 

And the Ferrari accident didn’t help anything either.

 

With the addition of a successful soccer team, with no hockey culture here, we should NOT see an NHL franchise in Atlanta again in my lifetime. 

[WordsOfWisdom]

1 hour ago, SpikeDDS said:

But add to that that you are trying to build a hockey team where there is no hockey culture. If you can build a winner quickly, like Carolina did, you have a chance. But lose and lose badly for a decade, and you are toast, UNLESS you have hockey in your culture like Detroit did in the Dead Thing era. Atlanta does NOT have hockey culture.

 

Agreed. I've always been of the opinion that you can't put a franchise somewhere unless the culture for it already exists. In my view, there should be minor league teams in the city first and foremost, and there should be genuine fan interest for the sport. If (and only if) that exists first, would I then put an NHL franchise there. 

 

To me the NHL does things backwards. They just pick large American cities and throw franchises in them, hoping something sticks. They've had lots of failures over the years as a result. A franchise can't survive in a city where the expectation is that it will win every year or the team goes bankrupt. There has to be fan interest beyond just wins and losses. It has to be more than just a novelty.

 

In roughly 50% of the NHL's current markets, hockey is just a novelty. It's something people do only when the team is winning, the tickets are cheap enough (or giveaways), and it's "fashionable" to do so.  Even cities that have had franchises for decades (and extraordinary success) like LA/San Jose/Anaheim are still not hockey markets. They're just not. The NHL is constantly fighting an uphill battle in those locations to be relevant, and Bettman seems like a glutton for punishment.   

 

 

 

[intheslot]

[intheslot]

[intheslot]

Color for Hockey Fans...

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by intheslot

[intheslot]

Color for Hockey Fans...