Jim Balsillie believes Canada should have another NHL franchise.

Why does nobody ever mention the Islanders being on the moving block? Dead last in attendance, and have been scraping the bottom for decades now. The Drive For Five was a lonnnnnnnnnnnng time ago.

 

'Cause Charlie Wang made eyes at Cleveland and Suffolk County (Long Island), only to find that neither was willing to build the Islanders a taxpayer paid for playpen.

I believe Wang is now willing to work with Nassau County to build a new Coliseum.

 

If they get another team, then they could celebrate it by having (wait for it, wait for it . . .)

"Balsillie Day."

And: The NHL should not try to move franchises. Take a cue from MLS (which shockingly has better TV exposure right now). They expanded too quickly a decade ago, and have found that some cities simply cannot justify having an NHL franchise.

The NHL should begin folding franchises. Not too many; maybe three or four.

Starman: not that LA "needs" two franchises . . . but the Orange County market is most assuredly NOT the LA market.

Oz: I don't know how Kansas City is as a hockey market. But that would go a long way toward tapping the Dust Bowl as a region. I wonder if that would work, though.

 

What's the speculation on the eight teams for sale?

 

Wait, so because they struggled for a decade, their success now doesn't count?

 

<i>The whole "Oh Bettman rolled back salaries" is a topic for another discussion. All I'll say, "Yeah, he shut down the league for a year and in a country where the sport is barely on the radar, he made it pretty much invisible. Oh, but the league got Versus,"</i>


The NFL embarrassed itself by dressing replacement players for three weeks. MLB wounded itself by shutting down pennant races and the entire postseason. Neither got a dime back on existing contracts.

The league that has the incompetent boob for a commissioner got back 24 cents on every dollar that had already been committed. Run that deal past an MLB owner and see if he doesn't start foaming at the mouth.

 

So, Smash, your definition of a good commish is a union buster? He even fucked that up.

In the long run the new CBA is counterproductive because escalating salaries haven't stopped and the have-nots prior to the lock-out are still the have-nots. And he still doesn't have a TV deal.

All this CBA did was protect the truly idiotic owners from themselves and created two classes of players: the really rich and the drones. Wow, kinda sounds like American society.

So tell me, what was the upside of shutting down the league for a year?

 

Why does everyone climb all over Bettman's ass? He did EXACTLY what he was hired to do.

The owners wanted to battle the union and cut the salaries no matter what it took. That's what they told Bettman to do and he did it. Bettman makes a nice fall guy, but your own beloved franchises wanted the lockout.

And I'm all for Quebec City or Southern Ontario, but put a team in Winnipeg and they move again within 5 years.

I really don't see a team succeeding in Portland or Seattle. I used to go to WHL games in Portland, where they drew a good crowd of supportive fans who didn't seem to know shit about hockey. Bring in an NHL team with significantly higher ticket prices and I think it's doomed.

Frankly, I think the NHL is close to tapped out. I don't see a lot of open markets where I think a team would do well. I believe Las Vegas could support a major league sports franchise, but I'm not sure hockey's the best bet there.

 

PC
You're right.

The owners (well at least some of them) wanted to fight the union. And yes, they won.

But when the book is written on the lockout, I think you'll find that there were franchises that didn't want a cap (hello, Rangers, Leafs)

My question: which teams are better off financially under the new CBA than before the lockout?

It's a question. I don't know the answer but I'm thinking, not too many

 

Because the Key Arena is too small for the NHL in this day and age to be fully productive. The building when set up for hockey only seats a shade over 15,000, when the golden number in the NHL now seems to be in the 18,500 range - not too big but still big enough to sell out plus create the demand and keep some atmosphere. while 3500 tickets may not seem like a lot it adds up to a ton of money over the course of a season (with an average ticket cost of $80 it adds up to $11.48 million for a regular season and that's just ticket revenue, that does not include concessions or merchandise or parking. In the NHL that's a boat load of money). Plus it is apparently too out of date for the Sonics, so the NHL I'm sure is not exactly chomping at the bit to move in.
If Seattle could get a new facility it would be the perfect place for an NHL team, but until then it's not happening.

 

The commissioner of any sport is a CEO hired by the owners.

If I were an owner, I would be very happy with a CEO who clobbered the union in a labor negotiation. Repeating: He not only got a salary cap implemented, he got a giveback on existing contracts.

The Rangers and Leafs don't need a cap because they can outspend everyone else. Very few teams are in that situation.

As far as who likes the current deal, I'm guessing the Pittsburgh Penguins might be pretty happy with it.

 

Some very interesting numbers here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHL_payrolls

Compare the payrolls before and after the lockout. There are a number of teams that actually had their payroll increase post-lockout. Nashville's payroll was 44% higher in the first season after the lockout than it was immediately before. (Pittsburgh was almost unchanged, though they did benefit from the goofy post-lockout draft lottery that gave them Crosby.)

A few teams shed a lot of payroll, but not many. Just the laughably bloated ones, like the Capitals and Rangers. It really shows you how foolish the whole thing was.