NHL met with a group interested in expanding to New Orleans

[TheTotalPackage]

NHL is crazy. 32 teams is more than enough. Even 30 was more than enough. Just crazy.

Completely agree.

But it certainly seems like Bettman wants his legacy to be getting the league up to 34/36 teams before he finally retires. Way too much talk about further expansion to think otherwise.

 

[HisIceness]

I shared my thoughts on this in the BoH thread but I'll repeat here. Small market NBA towns probably aren't the best long-term spots for NHL teams. I'm still not sold on Utah. Same owner yeah, but I'm not convinced yet, but that's his problem to figure out.

New Orleans is a fun town. It's a unique place, culturally and geographically, and infrastructure-wise for that matter. However when it comes to sports, it's very much a Football town. The NBA team I got the feeling was liked but not "loved". The Saints are loved, LSU football is loved. Pelicans are liked. Any Hockey team will face the same battle.

I do think New Orleans would be a good ECHL town, especially if you got a Saints player like Cam Jordan as a part owner. I think that's the route to start with. Get a good minor league following and see where that goes.

 

[Neil Racki]

1. Too many teams to begin with

2. New Orleans is a sports destination mecca of sorts. I lived there for a while and every NFL team that visited brought a huge contingent of visiting fans bc people circle New Orleans as a fun destination city to also catch an away game.

Also Convention Centers, hotels and casinos

Big ticket sports events and New Orleans go hand in hand

New Orleans is a vital sports city imo for the hosting purposes alone

 

[NyQuil]

Must be some kind of scam to get the public to pay for an entertainment venue owned by someone else by having an anchor tenant.

 

[FriendlyGhost92]

I don’t think Carolina wants to share it’s team name

Why would you ever name a city's team after the biggest disaster in the city's history?

Like, you'd never see the Chicago Fire or the New York Jets...

 

[ynotcaps]

NOLA is my favorite place to visit -- we go a couple of times a year on average over the last 15 years or so. That said, I don't see the team ever having a home-ice advantage because I don't see the team ever having the local sales/STH base required to really support a franchise long-term. A barn packed with opposing fans every weekend and next-to-empty most weeknights is not a place players are going to want to play.

OTOH, the real home-ice advantage might be playing opponents who are murderously hung over from getting Bourbon-faced on S*** Street.

 

[Terry Yake]

the last thing this league needs is more teams

 

[iamjs]

ECHL has been tried in New Orleans and no support....

You sure about that?

The team holds the top four regular-season average attendance numbers in ECHL history: 11,433 in 1996-97, 11,196 in 1997-98, 9,857 in 1998-99 and 9,776 in 1995-96. The IceGators also hosted the eighth-largest and nine of the 10 largest postseason crowds in ECHL history, including four capacity crowds of 11,800 in 1997.

Had the team not had financial issues, they would have lasted a lot longer than a decade.

 

[Sniper99]

Successful except for winning the big one.

Sure they havent won the big one, not exactly easy to do when you're playing the Penguins, they've made it farther than most of those teams that have been in the league way longer in the last 50-60 years.

 

[FriendlyGhost92]

the last thing this league needs is more teams

It's gonna happen lol.

32 sounds like a lot until you realize it's still several American markets short of the NFL/MLB/NBA.

 

[covfefe]

You sure about that?

The team holds the top four regular-season average attendance numbers in ECHL history: 11,433 in 1996-97, 11,196 in 1997-98, 9,857 in 1998-99 and 9,776 in 1995-96. The IceGators also hosted the eighth-largest and nine of the 10 largest postseason crowds in ECHL history, including four capacity crowds of 11,800 in 1997.

Had the team not had financial issues, they would have lasted a lot longer than a decade.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

New Orleans would be spectacularly stupid. It's barely large enough to support a second pro team, as evidenced by the Pelicans.

 

[FriendlyGhost92]

New Orleans would be spectacularly stupid. It's barely large enough to support a second pro team, as evidenced by the Pelicans.

Houston and Atlanta are the trophy fish. Everybody else is there to drive up the price.

 

[the valiant effort]

The league is not watered down.

We've got 4th line forwards and 7th Ds today who will struggle to reach 100 games in this league but are better than a stay at home D like Doug Houda who was able to miraculously play over 500 games in this league for being a pylon on skate.

The worldwide pool of talent is growing faster than expansion teams.

I don’t know the stats for other hockey countries, but Canadian minor hockey registration is in a steady decline over 15+ years. Not sure that bodes well for an infinity pool of hockey “talent” when the NHL is at 36 teams.

 

[NYRfan85]

The NBA Hornets basically kicked out the successful ECHL team they had for 5 seasons (New Orleans Brass). It's a basketball and football town, no way an NHL team would work there. If anything, they should try ECHL again since there's so many teams in the Southeast now.

 

[CHRDANHUTCH]

The NBA Hornets basically kicked out the successful ECHL team they had for 5 seasons (New Orleans Brass). It's a basketball and football town, no way an NHL team would work there. If anything, they should try ECHL again since there's so many teams in the Southeast now.

you have to convince the ECHL..... SIMILIAR TO WHAT Tahoe and other teams that have applied..... where's the arena/ownership, etc.... if the current NBA Arena isn't an option nor is the Ceasars Superdome

 

[ShootIt]

What?

I could get Houston due to population, but New Orleans?

 

[Cas]

What?

I could get Houston due to population, but New Orleans?

I'm not sure why you or anyone else would assume this is anything more than this:

"We have money, can we have a meeting?"
"Sure, how's next week sound?"
"Great!"

--- one week later ---

"So, we have money and want an NHL team."
"Do you have two billion dollars in bribes for the existing owners?"
"No."
"Ok, come back when you have two billion dollars and we'll think about it."

 

[Jozay]

They don’t even give a shit about their NBA team out there. NHL would have no chance in that market.

 

[westc2]

The NHL would not be "watered down" by adding a few more teams over time. Hockey is consistently growing in the United States. Look at the USA hockey registration statistics.

It's also been growing a lot in Europe apparently. We've been seeing more great players from countries that generally haven't produced much NHL talent like Germany, Switzerland and Latvia. Just increase the scouting.

The player base is growing, and so the top tier league should be able to grow as well.

I think they are targeting New Orleans because it's a big tourism city like Vegas, and they saw the success of Vegas. New Orleans would be one of those teams that relies heavily on visiting teams fans coming there for a little vacation.

If they expand in the near future, they really need to change the expansion draft rules so they don't screw existing teams over so badly like they did with Vegas and Seattle.

 

[CHRDANHUTCH]

The NHL would not be "watered down" by adding a few more teams. Hockey is consistently growing in the United States. Look at the USA hockey registration statistics.

It's also been growing a lot in Europe apparently. We've been seeing more great players from countries that generally haven't produced much NHL talent like Germany, Switzerland and Latvia.

The player base is growing, and so the top tier league should be able to grow as well.

uh, answer this then, what pro hockey league has targeted New Orleans as a potential franchise based off the history of the market realistically....

 

[Galaxydoggystyle]

Better off just getting a team in China then New Orleans of all places.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

Better off just getting a team in China then New Orleans of all places.

The travel would be a killer, how about we try Mexico City instead?

 

[tarheelhockey]

You sure about that?

The team holds the top four regular-season average attendance numbers in ECHL history: 11,433 in 1996-97, 11,196 in 1997-98, 9,857 in 1998-99 and 9,776 in 1995-96. The IceGators also hosted the eighth-largest and nine of the 10 largest postseason crowds in ECHL history, including four capacity crowds of 11,800 in 1997.

Had the team not had financial issues, they would have lasted a lot longer than a decade.

The IceGators played in Lafayette, not New Orleans.

 

[tarheelhockey]

The NHL would not be "watered down" by adding a few more teams over time. Hockey is consistently growing in the United States. Look at the USA hockey registration statistics.

It's also been growing a lot in Europe apparently. We've been seeing more great players from countries that generally haven't produced much NHL talent like Germany, Switzerland and Latvia. Just increase the scouting.

The player base is growing, and so the top tier league should be able to grow as well.

I think they are targeting New Orleans because it's a big tourism city like Vegas, and they saw the success of Vegas. New Orleans would be one of those teams that relies heavily on visiting teams fans coming there for a little vacation.

If they expand in the near future, they really need to change the expansion draft rules so they don't screw existing teams over so badly like they did with Vegas and Seattle.

It’s also plummeting in Canada, and has fallen off significantly in the former USSR.

On balance the talent pool has probably broken even since 2000 or so, perhaps making a small gain or small loss, but not enough to matter. Meanwhile they’ve added 6 new teams to grow the league by around 25% during that time.

Watering it down isn’t necessarily a bad thing (it’s a big part of having a fun high-scoring league) but no doubt, it has been watered down.