It is established historical fact that his starting interest in hockey came from watching the Phoenix Coyotes play when he was a kid. That team's existence is directly responsible for his existence as a star hockey player. That is indisputable.
As he was part of that media market, he would not have seen the team otherwise. You're attempting to draw a distinction without a significant difference.
It's honestly insulting how they don't just cop to the reality of why they don't want certain markets in the league.
Well both sides are going to find out one way or the other 5-10 years from now when we see the reality of these major US cities getting teams over Canadian ones. It's no guarantee they're successful. I'd imagine they would be, personally, otherwise people much more capable than myself wouldn't be making 9-figure investments into owning a team.
I mean, that's the case in almost every market, even those so called "hockey crazy."
There's no reason to believe they won't be successful, as long as their ownership isn't actively sabotaging them. Success in Atlanta won't look the same as Toronto but it would be asinine to expect it to.
I agree with you as it relates to Arizona. I don't think there is real ownership there at this stage and it still takes years even with them to get this sort of process taken care of. I suspect the more realistic place is San Diego and Kansas City. Then the league would move Chicago to the Eastern Conference.
There's no reason to listen to their fans on this issue in part because fans will be divided on this issue too and they aren't exactly the most informed group on this sort of topic. Besides, the league isn't going to listen to the fans on anything unless there's financial consequences. If there aren't then why shouldn't they feel like the fans support it? They have with Seattle and Vegas. They probably will with Atlanta and Houston. They probably would with places like San Diego or Kansas City without really impacting previous franchises.
And if not, 4th time's the charm.
The NHL has maxed out the non nba markets now in the US. It's the big markets remaining without an NHL team that is their focus.
It's based on the anticipated audience size. Again, 90% of 100,000 versus 1% of 10,000,000. The latter is already a larger actual number and has much more room for growth.
Crazy to think that hockey as a game is good enough to attract and maintain the interest of people who don't have congenital frostbite. Next thing you'll tell me that people in North Carolina like it.
