Politics of Hockey
June 23, 2007 · By Shane Edwards
Heh. This is a bit of a stretch.
But hey – I am sure some people who come here have an interest in Hockey.
So, this whole Balsillie thing – with the co-CEO of Research in Motion (the producers of the Blackberry) are trying to buy the Nashville Predators and move them to Hamilton.
Now, granted, Copps Coliseum is old. It needs at the least, refurbishment, at the most, to be replaced. Balsillie could always make that problem go away by throwing money at it.
The real objection is, and has always been, the Toronto Maple Leafs (though to be fair, Buffalo is almost equidistant). They don’t want another team horning in on “their” market.
But I don’t get that, at all. I mean, the Golden Horseshoe (including Buffalo) is home to 7 million people. 7 Million people! 6.7 million of them are Canadian, which means at least half rabid hockey fans.  By comparison, there are 3 teams in the New York-New Jersey triangle, home to a population of 18 million. 2.5 times larger, yes. But what percentage hockey fans, as compared to the golden horseshoe?
The thing that Bettman and company need to be asking themselves is, “where are our fans?” They need to put teams where their fans are – places like Hamilton or Winnipeg, or yes, even Quebec City again. In Canada, people get HNIC even if they don’t have cable (and who really doesn’t have cable anymore?). They get tons of hockey exposure, top of the sports news in every paper, every radio station, every TV news broadcast. They DON’T get that ANYWHERE in the USA. They can build popularity in Canada – right now, they can’t in the USA.
At the height of popularity of hockey in the USA, (probably coinciding with the Rangers winning the Cup in ‘94), there was momentum. There was the jealousy factor – there were good clubs in major northern USA cities – New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Detroit, Boston. Other cities in the USA wanted into that club, because it was fun. Now, it ain’t fun. The big cities’s teams all suck (with the possible exceptions of NY/NJ where one team has sucked for years until this year and the other has played the most boring style of hockey humanly possible for 10 years or more) . Those markets need re-strengthening, and people in the USA need to see people LOVING hockey before that jealousy will return. They won’t see it when the odd game that makes it to television features a 3/4 empty coliseum in Tampa or Nashville or Atlanta. They will see it when they see a Canadian dome, packed to the rafters every night, screaming their fool heads off.
But back to Toronto. Does Maple Leaf Sports And Entertainment not see that competition incites rivalry, excitement, and drives ticket sales? If they are the only game in town, who cares… but if there is a team down the road that are “evil” – that are the hated “other”… how much more money would you make? How popular would Edmonton or Calgary be in Alberta if they weren’t BOTH there to fight with?
Just my thoughts.
As far as I am aware, the deal is dead.
http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Sp.....7-sun.html
The owner doesn’t want the franchise in Ontario.
I read something of that too… I don’t think it’s really dead though. There is some price haggling going on – this is just posturing. There have been all kinds of stuff floating around about how the current owner shipped off two of his top defencemen to Philly for a song because he is dumping payroll. Kariya and Forsberg are both free agents, they won’t likely re-sign. The guy put a team together that was top 5 in the league all year, and they still couldn’t put butts in the seat. The writing’s on the wall, he is just trying to milk Balsillie.
The Problem is the league I maintain.
Two Things:
Balsillie is a bastard. I wouldn’t trust this guy as far as I could throw him. His behavior in the Pittsburgh deal was atrocious. The man was ready to take away one of the best supported teams in the USA, all while talking out both sides of his mouth. Next thing, I want the Preds to stay in Nashville. Why? Because the Preds have huge grassroots support in Nashville, but they really lack the corporate support. This team really does have a chance to succeed in the area, and if they keep putting the on-ice product that they have in recent years, they have a chance. The faith Leipold had in the team and the success was pretty amazing, and look how they turned out. I think we should show Nashville at least an ounce of the same kind of faith. Thousands of kids in Nashville and the surrounding area now know exactly what hockey is and they really want to play it because of those ‘dirt’ expansion teams like Nashville and Atlanta.
The NHL will never have the same kind of TV support that college football and basketball have, if only because hockey in the US isn’t a part of the cultural fabric, and it won’t be for a long time. But in the North, Midwest, and heck, even SoCal, teams are showing that they can make money and make an impact for hockey in there communities. Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Minnesota, and Detroit can all put butts in the seats, and can claim fans JUST AS devoted as any Leafs, Habs, Sens, Canucks, Oilers, or Flames fans. Carolina, Anaheim, Tampa, all have shown that they can win and then put butts in the seats, and really, for those who say attendance is down because of where the clubs are located, and point you to Detroit (!) and Boston, two of the biggest clubs who couldn’t sell seats, even when the Wings were winning.
In another twenty or thirty years, when all of the sudden the adult population of the US will have been exposed to hockey at a young age, then who knows.
But I guess I’m the only Canadian whose sad to seen our beloved game being restricted to a bunch of uppity-assed elitists and not exported as much as humanly possible. Oh well, I guess I do pick all the lonely causes: being conservative, capitalist, Christian.
But alas, this rant is over.
No worries for Leafs and Sabres. Bettman wants US based teams and that’s how it will go.
The Predators will stay in Nashville. Bettman wants it that way, although he won’t admit it.
Canada provides the players. Just look at Anaheim. That’s why they won the cup. Bettman wants a World Series of Hockey with all NHL teams in the US. That’s his dream.
The Leafs get money based on more than just ticket sales. Their TV revenues would go down (as their region shrinks) as well as merchandise sales going down if Hamilton now becomes a natural market for another team.
And that’s exactly why Balsillie reportedly talked with MLSE about helping to manage Copps Coliseum and broadcast Predators games: http://www2.sportsnet.ca/blogs.....y_to_deal/
If MLSE stands to make money off of the Hamilton Predators, then they are going to be much less opposed.