NHL NOLA expansion?

[Voight]

Salt Lake is not only growing. Goldman Sachs announced 350 new jobs in Utah last fall. They've been expanding there for years. That's one example. Who is expanding in Louisiana. Also its wealthier. Per capita income in Utah is twice Louisiana. Also Utah doesn't have NFL. Even college football, LSU's stadium holds almost as many as Utah and BYU combined.

I'll add that Utah is/was the fastest growing state. Their population grew by almost a quarter from 2010 to 2023.

Fastest Growing States 2024

worldpopulationreview.com

We all saw the video of that guy playing hockey on a frozen Bourbon street last month, clearly the NHL did too

In all seriousness, this seems like an avenue to get back into the ECHL. New Orleans isn't a big market and already has NFL and NBA, plus LSU football is a big deal there and isn't far away, NHL just seems like way too much of a stretch.



Owner of the Monroe Mocassins I think. I think it was at the introduction of the new team and he stated his desire to see the NHL in New Orleans.

Sounds like a late 1800's MLB team

 

[aqib]

So I take it by 2032 we will be at about 40 teams?




But make them count instead of using X games.

Yep. I am talking about regular season games.

Oversaturating an already too-big league with more southern markets that will have zero national appeal and a small local fanbase is not fun. New Orleans is a horrible expansion idea for a number of reasons already mentioned throughout this thread.

The Stanley cup means less when it's a random crapshoot and winning it becomes more and more of a lottery. The idea that it means more just because there are more teams is unbearably naive.

I honestly can't believe there are people here who want to go higher than 32.

I agree New Orleans is a horrible idea, but there are markets that can and would support a team well. No one is going to move any time soon so filling these other markets would require expansion. Also with the explosion of media outlets there is more demand for games to broadcast which requires more teams.

 

[KevFu]

I can also see them taking a shot at the AHL, and can see that working if it's done right. The NHL is a whole different situation, though. Way to much money involved, and I don't think there's enough corporate support to make it sustainable in the long run.

Absolutely. I'd think minor league hockey could work in NOLA.

One of the things that bugs me is how the NHL just has never bought the entire AHL outright. We've seen TEAMS buy AHL teams and move them so their affiliates are in better places. But having AHL teams in like, 25 of the top 32 markets without NHL teams would make a lot of sense.

Obviously you don't want to be like "Ottawa's AHL team is in San Antonio" but a dozen of the matchups are already perfect (ANA-San Diego, BOS-Providence, NYR-Hartford, etc), and another dozen or would be pretty easy to line up. And you leave some of the charming small-town ones like Hershey and either Laval or Belleville, simply because you're not putting Ottawa's team in Indianapolis or Memphis or something crazy like that.

 

[JMCx4]

... Sounds like a late 1800's MLB team

In reality, it sounds JUST like the name of a Western Pro Hockey League team in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Tempted the Monroe FPHL franchise owner to rebrand it for attracting lingering hockey fans in the market. His early business success in very low minor pro hockey may just yield more bombastic quotes on the NOLA resurrection topic ... stay tuned ...