Quebec City trying to keep the flame alive

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PKP went on record today and is seeking partners to submit a bid and show interest.


Interesting.

First he says "for once, I'd say the Premiere is right" - I told you they were old political rivals.

But then he seems to blame Bettman, saying the league has been quiet and there are no "clear signals".

So, it's hard to tell. Is this the league going cold on QC? Or PKP coming up with excuses why he doesn't have the money?

My semi-educated guess has always been that PKP doesn't have the money - that if he could have offered $1.2 bil for the Coyotes the league would be quite happy to move the team to QC (after all they have an arena ready to go, unlike SLC).
 
PKP went on record today and is seeking partners to submit a bid and show interest.
Hasn't PKP been looking for investors since before Seattle Joined the league in 2018?

I do genuinely hope QC gets a team. I'm just not confident that PKP is even able to drum up investor support to see that happen.
 
Ottawa generated multiple interested groups. Now that he is officially looking for investors, I think we will hear shortly of those potential partners coming forward. It would be interesting to watch.
 
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They can deny it if they want, but I don't see how having someone involved in Quebec separatist politics heading an ownership group isn't going to harm their chances of getting in the good graces of the Board of Governors. PKP is basically an advocate of a policy that would harm the Canadian dollar, which hurts franchise valuations.
 

Interesting.

First he says "for once, I'd say the Premiere is right" - I told you they were old political rivals.

But then he seems to blame Bettman, saying the league has been quiet and there are no "clear signals".

So, it's hard to tell. Is this the league going cold on QC? Or PKP coming up with excuses why he doesn't have the money?

My semi-educated guess has always been that PKP doesn't have the money - that if he could have offered $1.2 bil for the Coyotes the league would be quite happy to move the team to QC (after all they have an arena ready to go, unlike SLC).
The league said a lot of pro-QC things in the run up to the Videotron Centre getting approved. Now at the time teams were worth less than $200M, the Canadian dollar was at par and both the Coyotes and Thrashers were on thin ice (no pun intended). Had Glendale not paid the $50M they would have gone back to Peg so that would have left Atlanta with no place to go so QC would have been a good landing spot. So with the CAD now back to the lower end of the its normal historic range (70-80 cents is where its been for most of the last 40 years but it did dip into the 60s for like 5 years between 98-03) and the price of a team crossing $1.2 billion its a lot harder to pull off. In 2011 CAD was 1.05 USD. So USD$170M for the Thrashers would have been CAD $162M. Now USD$1.2B would be over CAD$1.6B. So that may put it out of reach for QC.

As far as PKP needing investors. That's true of a lot of teams. Ryan Smith isn't the sole owner of the Jazz. His net worth is listed at $2.2 billion. The Jazz cost $1.6B and the Coyotes $1.2B so clearly he couldn't have done it without the other investors. Does anyone even know how many investors there are in True North other than Chipman and Thomson?

I don't think QC would have been an option for the Coyotes since it would have involved realignment and a bigger change in schedule. I speculated that Houston would have been a preferred option since they have an arena ready to go and was geographically just as much of a fit as Utah but its clear they don't want to pay the price.
 

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