NHL commissioner Gary Bettman recently
spoke with the media concerning re-alignment and expansion within the league.
The league currently sits at 30 franchises with 16 of them being the Eastern
Conference with eight teams per division and 14 teams in the Western Conference
with seven clubs per division. Bettman said if the league does expand, which
would be the first time since 2000, he wouldn’t really want to move any of the
existing clubs from the East to the West or vice versa. Both the Columbus Blue
Jackets and Detroit Red Wings relocated to the Eastern Conference from the West
before the 2013/14 campaign and he believes they should now stay there.
Bettman stated there isn’t anything new
concerning expansion right now, but that could change later in June when the
league’s board of governors meet in Las Vegas, Nevada for the annual NHL Awards
show. The board is set to discuss expansion bids from both Quebec City and Las
Vegas. The commissioner said the executive committee may recommend no expansion;
one team, two teams, or deferred expansion and they’ll make this recommendation
before the board of governors gets together. He mentioned that Kansas City isn’t
in the running for an expansion franchise and nobody from Seattle, Washington
has ever filed an application as the city is still trying to work out details
on a new arena.
This basically leaves Quebec City and Las
Vegas as serious locations for new franchises and both cities have brand new
arenas to ice an NHL team. Of course, Quebec City had a franchise in the past
when the Quebec Nordiques played in the league started out in the old World
Hockey Association (WHA) from 1972 to 1979. The franchise then joined the NHL
when several WHA clubs merged into the league and the Nordiques played in the
NHL from 1979 to 1995. The franchise still exists technically though as it
moved to Denver due to financial difficulties and became the Colorado
Avalanche. Along with Winnipeg, Quebec would be one of the smallest markets in
the NHL and the city itself believes it will be awarded a franchise sooner or
later.
Placing a team in Las Vegas may be a bit of
a risk since the city has never had a professional franchise in any of the
major North American sports. However, the new arena has already opened and is
hoping to use it for an expansion team. The city is typically filled with
visitors from all over North America each week and there seems to be enough
interest to host a franchise. Las Vegas advertises itself as the world’s
entertainment capital and it held a season-ticket campaign back in 2014 to gauge
interest in a franchise. It seemed to be successful enough as 13,000 season tickets
were snapped up.
Many Canadian fans would likely head to the
Las Vegas heat on weekend getaways during the cold northern winters and it’s
believed they’d be interested in buying hockey packages. A franchise in Sin
City may also do brisk walk-up sales on game days as well. Other possible
expansion cities in the future could include Seattle as well as Houston, Texas;
Portland, Oregon; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and Hamilton Ontario. However, it’s
not likely that Toronto would be given one as the simple fact is the city might
not have the fan support.
The Maple Leafs currently rely on corporate
ticket sales to survive and have had problems selling out the Air Canada during
the club’s last two woeful seasons. The owners, Maple Leafs Sports and
Entertainment (MLSE) have taken to emailing members of Leaf Nation on game days
to try and sell off unsold tickets. If Leafs can’t sell out their home games
then things wouldn’t bode too well for a new franchise. In addition, many fans
in the Greater Toronto Area now decide to make a 90-minute trip to Buffalo, New
York to see the Sabres and pay more reasonable prices for tickets. At the
moment though, it seems Quebec City and Las Vegas are the only serious bidders
for expansion. If the NHL does decide to add two more teams to make it 32
franchises then it would be common sense to have 16 teams in the East and 16 in
the West. This means two clubs would need to be added to the Western
Conference.
That
wouldn’t be a problem for Las Vegas, but Quebec City doesn’t make sense in the
West. This means a current Eastern Conference team may need to be persuaded to
join the West. As Bettman said, he isn’t a fan of asking clubs to move and he
definitely wouldn’t ask Columbus or Detroit to head back to the Western
Conference. The commissioner may need to offer some sort of financial
compensation or other types of perks to find a volunteer form the Eastern
Conference to switch divisions. Labels: Ian Palmer