Nashville Predators moving to Canada? NOPE! Sorry, Canucks (and KC!)...

Re: Nashville Predators moving to Canada? Sure seems like it...

Well if I go by your logic, JR I'd say that the market is oversaturated. There is no where else to get money from.

 

Re: Nashville Predators moving to Canada? Sure seems like it...

Slight correction: Anaheim is at 95 percent, so it's above that 85-90 mark of most expansion franchises. And San Jose was at 99.7 percent this year.

 

Re: Nashville Predators moving to Canada? Sure seems like it...

Bob,

I think you should take the NHL's attendance figures with a shovel of salt.

And the fans--real live hockey fans--in Boston, St. Louis and Chicago are staying away because as you rightly pointed out, in every single case, ownership has fucked up the franchise.

Chicago was once a great hockey town--it's not even on the radar any more.

And, as someone (Elliotte) pointed out about Nashville, the Preds got practically no corporate support. The upper bowls were packed, the lower one, empty.

 

Re: Nashville Predators moving to Canada? Sure seems like it...

Which brings us back to where we began. Where does the NHL go?

 

Re: Nashville Predators moving to Canada? Sure seems like it...

There was no market to saturate down there to begin with. The NHL force fed the market.

Lots of money in other places to relocate some of those teams--in traditional hockey markets.

 

Re: Nashville Predators moving to Canada? Sure seems like it...

Where?
Canada. Where else?

K-Waterloo, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Quebec City and the Maritimes. Three out of the five in that list might be a stretch but anyone of them would make more sense than say, Nashville.

 

Re: Nashville Predators moving to Canada? Sure seems like it...

At the cities mentioned are potential hot spots. Winnipeg had a team as did Quebec. Does Canada actually have that many fans in those areas to support such a saturation. I don't think so.

 

Re: Nashville Predators moving to Canada? Sure seems like it...

I didn't say all five at once.

I wasn't talking about "saturation" or "expansion" I was talking about relocation--which is going to happen to Nashville.

 

Re: Nashville Predators moving to Canada? Sure seems like it...

Wayne Gretzky's time spent with the Kings has more to do with franchises in Anaheim and San Jose than Bettman.

Speaking of that, Gretzky should probably get his name etched on the Stanley Cup if Anaheim wins it all this year.

 

Re: Nashville Predators moving to Canada? Sure seems like it...

Claws

From what I've heard support for the Sharks has always been very strong. I also have heard that in certain areas of California, youth hockey is booming.

My eldest went to Roger Neilsen's AAA hockey school a few years back and five of the twelve kids on the team were from the San Jose area.

 

Re: Nashville Predators moving to Canada? Sure seems like it...

Son of a Preds season ticket holder chiming in here...

The Preds are gone from Nashville after this next season. The city government is on the hook for about 2,000 tickets a game and the mayor who arranged that deal is now long gone -- no one in Nashville wants to see taxpayers' money subsidize a Canadian billionaire! The Preds were lured long before it was ever thought that a city Nashville's size could support a NFL team. Now that the Titans are 2 blocks down Broadway from the Sommet Arena (whoever Sommet is!) and now that the Preds have flamed out in Round One of the playoffs for the second year in a row, no one will shed a tear about their departure.

Nashville was/is a bit of a hockey town (see Flyers, Dixie from the '70s for proof), but unfortunately about 20 percent of the fans cheer for the Red Wings, since that's the team they grew up on before moving down to the Saturn and Nissan car plants in Middle Tennessee.

I'll be sorry to see the Preds go, but go they will. Hopefully, to Canada, where Jordin TooToo can get fresh whale meat!

 

Re: Nashville Predators moving to Canada? Sure seems like it...

What are you going to do with the other floundering U.S. franchises? Send them all to Canada? Nice try. I don't see it working.