about a quarter of the league is in the red, according to forbes. that doesn't mean much. it says more about how the NHL is vying with MLS for "least popular major professional sports league in North America."

past ownership issues also do not auto-translate to the current ownership situation. as i noted previously, Alex Meruelo is now the majority owner of the Coyotes, and he is actually a billionaire and (based on reporting from The Athletic) appears to be the kind of person that commits to his owned assets and doesn't just casually toss them aside at the first sign of trouble. of course, you appear to have completely blown by that fact and insisted on re-iterating your original assertion, as if merely repeating it would give it any more validity.

Cool, still doesn't mean anything. No one cares about the Coyotes in Arizona

ah, and, here, we see the crux of the issue: you're not very good at internet arguments, it seems. you're simply trotting out re-treads of the same argument without any evidence to back it up and hoping that that (somehow?) will let you bull your way into being right. got it, got it. who needs facts and evidence when you can simply just ignore everything that somebody is saying?

5 bucks you're one of those people who whine "Please Like My Sport" and complain that hockey's the least popular of the 4 major pro league sports in NA and then turn around and gatekeep for the sport.

What the hell does that have to do with anything? Arizona has had terrible attendance since they moved to Glendale and it's never changed. No one cares about the team there. It doesn't matter what sport is the most popular in the US. The team loses money year after year and it's just a matter of time before they leave. Same with the Panthers. Organizations that lose money year after year just won't survive.

It makes no sense for a Canadian city to be part of an expansion very expensive due to exchange rates. To understand melynak in Ottawa try converting salaries to Canadian dollars it costs more to operate in Canada and have much less condensed cities than the states. If a relocation happens to Quebec I can’t see with the finances of the league being worth moving even the worst attendance team from states up however a team like Ottawa.... I think would make most sense low pay roll huge damage between ownership and fans. Ottawa is smack dab in the middle of two much larger markets. I don’t see it happening now but it’s been my best guess how Quebec could gain a team...

what part of "past ownership issues also do not auto-translate to the current ownership situation" did you not get? just because the team hasn't historically done well doesn't mean they can't change with new ownership that's committed to making the team successful. how is that not a concept that crossed your brain? *le gasp*

and, again, attendance is not a single factor that you can point to in "is a team doing well." it, itself, is a product of several different variables. the Bill Wirtz-era Blackhawks had terrible attendance issues, and we didn't call for their heads and re-location (because they're an Original Six market and no traditionalist would ever call for that). their attendance was bad for a number of reasons. we didn't just look at the bad attendance numbers and go, "oh, well, nobody cares about hockey in Chicago." because it's a dumb chain of logic.

see what i mean about "it looks like you're basically just glossing over every single point i make"? do i necessarily believe that you inherently can't construct a good argument? no. but, from what you've demonstrated so far, it sure looks that way. your entire argument is basically pointing to "nobody in the Sun Belt likes hockey, so why should any team be located there?" but, if there have historically never been hockey teams there, of course there wouldn't be a basis for anybody liking hockey. people don't start liking a sport out of thin air. you don't just snap your fingers, and, suddenly, people like hockey.

Enjoy em while they last, it won't be long before another owner tries and fails to make the team work there.

I don't think it was the media at all. It was Babcock. Dubas and the Leafs would be 100 times firing Babcock after one or two seasons.

Dawg, we should hire you as a motivational speaker for those who believe the Nordiques will return.

Language is an obstacle, sure. But an important variable here is that the team was struggling financially in a league *without salary cap*. Introduce the cap earlier in 1994, and I don't believe the team would ever have left. Things are quite different now. And like you said, "past ownership issues do not auto-translate to [future] ownership situation".

That being said, I'm aware Quebec City is far down the league's priority list. And I don't really support the team's return, for other reasons. But in the future, it may happen.

AM is going to play in Arizona eventually, just a matter of whether he's 28 or 35+

Meh... I don’t think so. The only people in the stands when Toronto comes to town are Matthews’ parents.

The issue is trying to grow the sport where it doesn’t thrive. Arizona is a perfect example. The panthers are another.

I think vegas and Seattle were two good markets to tap into. I still think a team in Saskatchewan could be viable as well.

I think the NHL should be looking to expand into Europe. Could easily double the league size.

As a former Saskatchewanian I say it has no chance there. Saskatoon is the biggest market and its only 250K. There isn't enough disposable income to sell enough season tickets. The team would have to hope they could draw 5 thousand fans a night from other communities and I think that just wouldn't happen on week days. Their CFL franchise works because they only need to sell tickets for 9 home games and playoffs. Not 41 home games all winter. I think Quebec City will work, the problem last time was the Dollar, a lack of a salary cap and revenue sharing and an arena issue. They have an arena, they have a fan base and they have ownership as well. I think Quebec will get one of Florida or Arizona eventually.

Regina and Saskatoon are two of the fastest growing cities in Canada. Saskatoon is actually 325k and Regina is over 230k. I’m not sure it would be feasible to stick an arena between the two but I have seen the support they give the Riders, yes it is 41 games but they average over 30k in attendance. I would imagine they could do better than both Florida and Arizona. It’s a place that deserves a team. Even if it’s a poor one.

Because he doesnt play for them, but hes from there and is a latino. If the NHL pushed that heavily I could see it bringing in much more players kind of like what they did with California

Oh probably but still not enough. Also Saskatoon is 273k at the last census

Nope, 325k now. Those were the numbers from 2016. Projected to be over 350k by 2025

That is fast growing. Still doubt it would work but maybe I am wrong.

if our doofus team is still in contention in his final year he'll re-sign. if not then i don't know, he'll probably re-sign.

It appears there is a lack of understanding concerning Arizona. Yes, Mathews will be coming home....to Arizona. Even if the Arizona team is playing in Mexico City by then. They have a plan. That said, new Coyotes owner is serious about building a new arena. He ain't moving the team to the land of fishing with your parents in the summertime as the players now call it [you guys call it Canada].

my dude here just slapped a bunch of words together and thought they would make sense