I'm talking about Katz moving them. Bettman has never stopped a team from leaving Canada.
The topic was, crowds at Oiler games in 1996.
The reason crowds at NHL games suffered in Edmonton in the mid-90s was because of economics. Pocklington was struggling in his businesses outside of hockey and, as a result, couldn't afford to ice a competitive team. The economic environment of the NHL with no salary cap only made this situation worse as the LA Kings and NY Rangers salivated at the opportunity to buy most of the Oiler players.
For money reasons, between 1987 and 1994 Pocklington dumped: Paul Coffey, Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, Grant Fuhr and replaced them with lower salaried, glorified AHLers. Once those AHLers wanted more money they were replaced with a new wave of AHLers.
Yes, the reason the Oilers attendance suffered in the mid-90s was that they were a farm team and there was no hope of ever building a winner with Pocklington as the owner. Oiler fans were rightly pissed off.
Once Pocklington left Edmonton in 1997, attendance bounced back. To this day, the Oilers sell out every night with a 30th place team because they are not a farm team and have the economic capacity to build a winner. Bettman's salary cap and Katz's financial strength are the reasons why.
This is a hockey town. The NBA would never survive here nor would MLB or the NFL. Vancouver cannot properly support an NBA team either - it would be much like Atlanta supporting the NHL.