NHL Board of Governors to approve opening of expansion process; Atlanta and Houston believed to be leading candidates

[Viqsi]

If you had said 6, 12 or 24 or 30 sure.

It’s very hard to believe anyone thought 21 was the perfect number to stop at.

7 Canadian teams in seven major cities (today's seven but with QC instead of Ottawa), and 14 teams - exactly double that - in the US. "Perfect proportion."

 

[SUX2BU]

 

[Pinkfloyd]

I want more stars, not another 2 teams worth of AHL talent brought into the NHL. If you like a lower overall talent level, that's fine.

Expansion only offers the possibility of more stars being created. We just brought in two teams into the league. They were not AHL caliber teams. The overall talent level cannot be shown to have been lowered in the previous expansions. You're running off of unwarranted assumptions.

 

[895]

7 Canadian teams in seven major cities (today's seven but with QC instead of Ottawa), and 14 teams - exactly double that - in the US. "Perfect proportion."

Was the NHL not divided into two conferences. and 4 divisions with 5 teams, 5 teams, 5 teams and 6 teams?

People thought this was ideal?

 

[Viqsi]

Was the NHL not divided into two conferences. and 4 divisions with 5 teams, 5 teams, 5 teams and 6 teams?

People thought this was ideal?

Yes, it was so divided. And the fact that it's so hard to believe is in fact why the example was brought up. I'm not sure if anyone actually truly thought that particular arrangement was ideal per se but I have seen the claim made before.

I imagine they'd have made "and this is arguably EVEN BETTER" type claims for 24 teams when Ottawa was added 'cause it was still 2:1 US:CA, but that lasted for all of one year.

 

[TheKingSlayer]

More eyes on the sport = more people wanting to play = more talent to draft?

 

[ohcomeonref]

Expansion only offers the possibility of more stars being created. We just brought in two teams into the league. They were not AHL caliber teams. The overall talent level cannot be shown to have been lowered in the previous expansions. You're running off of unwarranted assumptions.

Honestly I never really considered that 2 more teams would naturally develop more stars as well. I was looking at it in a pretty one-dimensional way, my bad. Carry on homie.

Edit: the Ducks got screwed in the last expansion draft too, but that was largely managements fault.

 

[dj4aces]

If NHL hockey in Atlanta didn't work the first two times, why would it now?

That's not a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious.

Well...

1. Better ownership.
The NHL in Atlanta has been plagued with ownership issues of one sort or another since the 1970s. Real estate developer Tom Cousins went broke when the real estate market in the city collapsed, and he had to sell. Ted Turner bought the Hawks and Omni, but not the Flames because he didn't think the sport was good for TV, so the team was sold to the highest bidder.

The Thrashers ownership saga has been covered ad nauseam on these boards, but you can find a lot of those details in the Atlanta thread on the business board.

In terms of Atlanta 3.0, both named groups appear to be deeply passionate and dedicated to making hockey work here.

2. Location.
Downtown is a place no one wants to go. Period. Mic drop. But that's also not the end of the story. In many markets, a team might be located downtown because there are fans in all corners of a metro area who might wish to attend games. But that's not necessarily true for hockey in Atlanta. Hockey fans have, for the longest time, primarily exist north of the city. It's been this way for a good while now. The two known Atlanta groups have arena proposals north of town.


These are the biggest two reasons. I'm sure others have more to add.

 

[Moist ReadOnly]

If NHL hockey in Atlanta didn't work the first two times, why would it now?

That's not a rhetorical question. I'm genuinely curious.

Its well understood that Atlanta, both times, never stood a chance; only thing keeping them there was winning a Cup

Once due to ownership and once due to the old relocation habits of professional sports

 

[LPHabsFan]

Good situations attract good owners. If previous situations attracted bad owners, it's because the situation was bad. As much as we want to blame ASG, and rightfully so, if the underlying situation involving the city of Atlanta as a hockey market was good, an owner would have stepped in and scooped them up for pennies on the dollar even if it meant needing an arena since ASG wasn't going to let them play out of their arena (the name is escaping me).

You're also dealing with a lot of negative history with that city and hockey so that's another hurdle to overcome.

Building in the suburbs has worked out amazingly for sports franchises in the past so I'm sure it's going to work out this time. And while right now the fans might be where they're looking to build it, that may not be the case 5, 10, 15 years from now. Because when you're building where your fans are, you're less likely to attract those that might otherwise be interested if it were not for the location. That's ultimately why a central location was the norm for so many years.

And also, similarly to Arizona, this seems more like a property deal than a true desire to bring the NHL back and watch it succeed despite all the positive things the people involved have said.

When you're dealing with these massive real estate developments, events can make things change real quickly and put a stop to it pretty easily (Westgate).

 

[Viqsi]

Good situations attract good owners. If previous situations attracted bad owners, it's because the situation was bad.

...therefore Ottawa, Chicago, and Toronto should all have been given up on long before now. Among others.

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

Good situations attract good owners. If previous situations attracted bad owners, it's because the situation was bad. As much as we want to blame ASG, and rightfully so, if the underlying situation involving the city of Atlanta as a hockey market was good, an owner would have stepped in and scooped them up for pennies on the dollar even if it meant needing an arena since ASG wasn't going to let them play out of their arena (the name is escaping me).

You're also dealing with a lot of negative history with that city and hockey so that's another hurdle to overcome.

Building in the suburbs has worked out amazingly for sports franchises in the past so I'm sure it's going to work out this time. And while right now the fans might be where they're looking to build it, that may not be the case 5, 10, 15 years from now. Because when you're building where your fans are, you're less likely to attract those that might otherwise be interested if it were not for the location. That's ultimately why a central location was the norm for so many years.

And also, similarly to Arizona, this seems more like a property deal than a true desire to bring the NHL back and watch it succeed despite all the positive things the people involved have said.

When you're dealing with these massive real estate developments, events can make things change real quickly and put a stop to it pretty easily (Westgate).

Nobody wanted to buy the team because they had no place to play.

Well, the one similar mass development in burbs here in Atlanta is the Battery where the Braves play. So far, in the 6 years it's been around, it's printed money and the team has been top-5 in attendance.

 

[dj4aces]

Good situations attract good owners. If previous situations attracted bad owners, it's because the situation was bad. As much as we want to blame ASG, and rightfully so, if the underlying situation involving the city of Atlanta as a hockey market was good, an owner would have stepped in and scooped them up for pennies on the dollar even if it meant needing an arena since ASG wasn't going to let them play out of their arena (the name is escaping me).

The Atlanta Spirit group featured one of Turner's sons as a part-owner, which had a thing or two to do with why Turner Broadcasting broke a verbal agreement they had in place with David McDavid to sell the Thrashers, Hawks, and Philips Arena to him, Now, prior to that agreement, Atlanta Spirit didn't want the Thrashers, but when it was announced that there was an agreement in place, they convinced Turner Broadcasting to sell to them instead by offering to take the Thrashers.

Once the purchase was complete, Atlanta Spirit *immediately* began trying to sell the Thrashers for relocation. A trade the Hawks made, however, put a damper on that as the majority owner (Steve Belkin) disagreed with it and walked away, filing a lawsuit for control of the assets on his way out. As the ownership of the Thrashers was then in question at that point, no one had any rights to sell it to anyone else.

Once the almost six year legal battle came to an end though, the race was on to sell. There were a lot of local suitors lining up to take a crack at buying the team, but it all fell apart when they got to the whole "negotiating a lease" part. Why, you might ask? Because they were predatory, leases that no one in their right mind would pay, that even if an ownership group was desperate to keep the team in town and were willing to legitimately *pay anything* to do so, they still wouldn't pay the lease. And Atlanta Spirit could do it too, because Philips was the only NHL rink in town. Yeah, there's the building here in Duluth, but that's a whole other can of worms, and the league probably wouldn't have allowed it to be used until a new building was constructed.

So no... at least in terms of Atlanta, your paragraph is empirically false. Furthermore, I know you've seen this story before, so you should know better.

 

[Oilslick941611]

Many business ventures fail every damn day. These people aren't half as smart as you believe they are.

It’s very easy to sit here and just say “it will fail”

What takes real moxy is being part of the solution and trying to make something work.

 

[Al Lagoon]

Hasn't Atlanta proved they have no business in the NHL after 2 fails?

Quebec City all the way.

 

[dj4aces]

Hasn't Atlanta proved they have no business in the NHL after 2 fails?

Quebec City all the way.

QC has "two fails" under its belt as well.

If the Flames are fair game, so too are the Bulldogs.

 

[KeydGV21]

So? Selling out leaguewide at some arbitrary high price isn't the benchmark for doing expansion. The league doesn't and never has had to have such a thing to have expansion happen and work. Arizona was in shambles the entire time that Vegas and Seattle came into the league and their inclusion hasn't made anything worse for anyone. There are no teams that makes any sense to worry about resolving some issue with relocation currently. Even if there was, it doesn't have to be resolved for expansion to happen and be fine.

There aren't any good reasons against expansion. It's just people wanting to gatekeep coming up with stupid reasons.

The talent pool gets diluted…

Fans lose games against historic rivals…playing the teams I grew up hating less often so I can get a 10:00 start against Seattle and Vegas is absolutely horrific.

Currently, there has to be at least one team that hasn’t won a cup in 31 years, add 4 teams and that goes up to 35 years. As there becomes less and less of a reason to think there will eventually be a championship won in your lifetime, eventually there isn’t a real reason to ever get invested.

I honestly can’t think of a single benefit to existing fans that expansion provides.

 

[Three On Zero]

The talent pool gets diluted…

Fans lose games against historic rivals…playing the teams I grew up hating less often so I can get a 10:00 start against Seattle and Vegas is absolutely horrific.

Currently, there has to be at least one team that hasn’t won a cup in 31 years, add 4 teams and that goes up to 35 years. As there becomes less and less of a reason to think there will eventually be a championship won in your lifetime, eventually there isn’t a real reason to ever get invested.

I honestly can’t think of a single benefit to existing fans that expansion provides.

Talent pool dilution really gets overstated, it’s not this big issue that people try to make it out to be, we’ve gone through expansion with Vegas and Seattle and have had no issues with talent. More teams is good for players and good for the league. The league is at the perfect spot for expansion talent wise. Add a couple more teams and give it a couple years and the cupboards will all be full again.

 

[Al Lagoon]

The talent pool gets diluted…

Fans lose games against historic rivals…playing the teams I grew up hating less often so I can get a 10:00 start against Seattle and Vegas is absolutely horrific.

Currently, there has to be at least one team that hasn’t won a cup in 31 years, add 4 teams and that goes up to 35 years. As there becomes less and less of a reason to think there will eventually be a championship won in your lifetime, eventually there isn’t a real reason to ever get invested.

I honestly can’t think of a single benefit to existing fans that expansion provides.

I like your thinking here.

While Euro footie leagues are shrinking their top flights down to 18, we bloat our pro leagues to meaningless dimensions.

Greed, and more greed, coupled with the idea that they are "growing the game," well I can't wait for that first Utah-Houston game.

 

[BlueSeal]

I'm ready for contraction, not expansion.

 

[Viqsi]

I'm ready for contraction, not expansion.

Let he or she who would take a team away from fans first volunteer his or her own. No exceptions whatsoever; it doesn't matter who you cheer for - you want to play that game, you offer yours up first. Have the guts to take the hit yourself rather than demanding that others suffer for your entertainment.

 

[rojac]

Was the NHL not divided into two conferences. and 4 divisions with 5 teams, 5 teams, 5 teams and 6 teams?

People thought this was ideal?

I don't think it was so much that some people thought 21 was the perfect number, just that they felt that 21 was more than enough teams and there was no need to add more.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Expansion only offers the possibility of more stars being created. We just brought in two teams into the league. They were not AHL caliber teams. The overall talent level cannot be shown to have been lowered in the previous expansions. You're running off of unwarranted assumptions.

Funny one.

 

[NoelVilla]

Not any more teams. Just not what the league needs.

 

[Ghost of Murph]

Stars will rise to the top regardless of number of teams. There are only so many people on the planet talented enough to be a NHL star.

The pool absolutely does get diluted with expansion. Expansion will certainly give more mid-level players a chance to be in the NHL, however the number of great lines will decrease as the top-level talent is spread more thin. It's not complicated.

32 is more than enough teams. Rivalries have already been damaged enough as is due to the scheduling. There are enough mediocre to subpar teams at the moment as well. Adding more teams exacerbates both of those issues.