Another NHL franchise in Toronto?

According to The Globe And Mail, the NHL's Board Of Governors is weighing the pros of placing an expansion franchise or moving an existing franchise to the GTA.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081020.shoalts21/BNStory/National/home

 

Sure, why not?

Still won't have one that's playing in May.

 

Zing!

 

I could've went with:

"What do you mean ... 'another' ?"

 

Q: Why doesn't Hamilton have an NHL team?

A: Because if it did then Toronto would want one.

 

Ouch, baby. Very ouch.

 

I can see one pretty big problem with this idea.

If you were starting an expansion team, or moving an existing team to Toronto, why in the hell would you agree to be goat-fucked on rent by the Maple Leafs instead of building your own arena in which you control the revenue streams?

 

If they bring one somewhere else in GTA and not Hamilton, there's gonna be a riot.\Bettman could be an even bigger idiot than advertised...

 

I'll say it again, the Kitchener-Waterloo area is perfect for several reasons, none of which have anything to do with Jim Balsillie.

• Booming population base - from 383,000 in 1996 to 451,000 in 2006
  
• Part of the GTA, meaning more than six million people and the necessary corporate community are either already there or right on the doorstep
  
• Historic and very knowledgeable hockey communities in K-W and nearby Cambridge and Guelph, with solid junior, national and international reputations
  
• Well serviced by air, road and rail transportation links
  
• Most importantly, it's outside both Toronto's and Buffalo's existing territorial areas as the crow flies

Why would/should the NHL look anywhere else in southern Ontario? It's an absolute no-brainer.

 

When I played NHL 06 on the PS2, I moved a team (might have been the Preds, can't remember) to Mississauga and called them the Dolphins. We kicked ass. We made the playoffs. The Leafs did not. Thus all of Toronto rejoiced.

 

For the love of god no. We have one so called hockey franchise in toronto that's jammed down our throats enough. Could they support it, absolutely. But put them in KW or Hamilton, or Oshawa or Orillia or Beaverton for crying out loud not in Toronto. (OK, some of those towns are obviously not NHL towns, but you get my drift)

 

I just figure, why not pick a centre where hockey is actually thriving, where people actually know and care about the game?

Toronto might be the centre of the universe as far as most things in Ontario (Canada?) are concerned, but not hockey. Too many people there don't care about anything hockey-related but the Leafs, and they don't even care about the team, per se - it's all about "being seen" at the ACC, which is why they continue to pay through the nose for the privilege of "watching" a truly shitty hockey team that is no closer to winning its 14th Stanley Cup now than it was when Pierre Trudeau was still only Lester Pearson's justice minister.

Many real hockey fans in southern Ontario, however, can't afford to go to a game at the ACC without taking out a second mortgage...that is, assuming there were even tickets available to them in the first place. These are the people who would lap up the Kitchener-Waterloo Blackberries or whatever the hell you want to call them.

If anything, another southern Ontario team would actually benefit the Leafs from a hockey standpoint. If there were another option for us championship-starved fans, it might inspire Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment to actually give a damn about putting a competitive team on the ice. As it is, with the cash registers continuing to ring up the sales at an ever-increasing rate, when you're already making money faster than you can count it, what incentive is there for MLSE and its bean-counting fund managers to make improvements? That's right - zero.