Globe and Mail reports that NHL may be loaning money to Phoenix Coyotes

Aweseome. Maybe he can make the Islanders a Hattrickinator.

 

I'm sure Perry the Platypus is a Rangers fan.

 

Both of you rock.

 

That show fucking rules.

 

The end of the saga hopefully is near as a referendum drive to overturn the lease agreement with Jamison fell short on signatures and were late according to city officials.

The number of signatures is a hurdle opponents probably can't overcome as cities are given the power by the state constitution to define how to calculate the percentage of voters needed to get a referendum on the ballot.

 

Given NBC seems to think the NHL is a five-team league, I'm not sure how Phoenix moving to Toronto would affect them in any way

Number of times the Yotes have been on the big network in the regular season since NBC got the contract: zero. Same as at least half the U.S.-based franchises, including just about all of them in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, so I'm not 100% sure what dog NBC has in this fight.

Even NBCSN tends to give us a steady diet of DET-NYR-WAS-PHI-PIT with a little bit of Chicago & Boston thrown in for good measure, and a lot of Buffalo on the cable.

 

Sarcasm, it was in response to Marks usual idiocy.

 

It's dwindled in Dallas only because Dallas is the biggest frontrunning town in North America and the Stars have missed the playoffs four years running. If and when they do start to win again, the fans will be back.

 

I'll be honest: I don't have a dog in this fight other than thinking the Jets should never have moved to PHX in the first place, but the monolithic Canadian storyline of "the NHL hates us, see how many of our deserving towns are being denied their right to the NHL by these crappy Sun Belt cities" is also getting a bit old.

I understand that some Canadians determine their national sovereignty from hockey -- whether it's participation in the Olympics, number of NHL franchises, et al.

But the whole notion of Canada being offended as a whole because Phoenix, Nashville and Miami have NHL teams, while Quebec City and Saskatoon don't is fairly weak. There is not a grand conspiracy to deny Canadians their rightful place in the game (and to be honest, the moves of WPG/QUE/HFD had more to do with either a weak Canadian dollar and awful ownership and an anti-WHA bias than some sort of anti-traditional market one).

Quebec and either Hamilton or a second Toronto team might be the only viable Canadian markets that are currently untapped. Hamilton is awfully close to both Buffalo and Toronto, and so there's a chance of oversaturating that area to begin with.

Then again, the NYC market doesn't really support 2/3 of its teams. Moving teams out of oversaturated markets might be a better solution than trying to pry the Coyotes out of Phoenix, which is a pretty important market in the Southwest due to the presence of corporate HQ (sponsor dollars), et al.

 

When the players are locked out this winter it will because of a handful of dreadful hockey markets. For me, it is not about Canadian markets as it is about hockey markets. There is simply not enough good hockey markets in North America. Quebec and and another team in Southern Ontairio area bout the last ones left. There is not one rational Canadian hockey fan that believes Saskatoon is an NHL market, neither is Phoenix or Miami.

 

Even if Jamison is able to buy the Coyotes, does anyone really believe that they'll be successful long term? Phoenix isn't the best sports town as it is. And how many of these southern markets could even be considered a success?

Should the NHL be able to give the Yotes to Jamison, I could easily see the league talking about relocation five years down the road.

 

There are two markets likely better than Phoenix -- another team in the GTA and Quebec City.