Ismellofhockey
Registered User
That writer is naive, not to mention full of BS. He (and presumably you) are expecting new markets to behave the same as markets that are 40+ years old.
You do realize that people outside of your little "approved hockey areas" also love hockey, do you not?
First of all no, he's not, and that's the point. New markets behave differently than older markets: they are attracted by the novelty, which boosts attendance short term but in the long run, when the team isn't winning, they're no better than the original market whence the team came from and perhaps even worse. All of a sudden you've got a market alienated by the departure of their team and a market that's criticized for not foaming at the mouth at the thought of hockey.
I dislike the argument that cities don't deserve their team for the main reason that in every NHL city there's a good group of fans that have bought into hockey 100% and they're no different in Phoenix than they are in Winnipeg.
The problem comes from the bitterness of fans in a market that lost their team seeing the new market perform marginally better.
IMO the true lesson to be learned from that is not that Phoenix doesn't deserve a team nor that Winnipeg didn't deserve theirs but that Phoenix didn't deserve Winnipeg's team.
Corporate sponsorship and new arenas have changed the NHL for better or worse which makes comparing Phoenix and Winnipeg in different decades very complicated
however, when I look at the Minnesota Wild's attendance in comparison to the North Stars', I figure Winnipeg's attendance in today's NHL would be similar to Edmonton's. Winnipeg certainly deserves a team, hopefully though it won't be at Phoenix or another city's expense this time.
There's no reason to argue against the fact that there are fewer NHL fans per capita in Phoenix than in Winnipeg (the # of rinks argument) but that doesn't mean there are fewer NHL fans in Phoenix in absolute numbers due to the size of the city.
So unless you're going to quantify scientifically how much those fans in Phoenix care about their team in comparison to Winnipeg Jets fans, I don't see how anyone can argue that Phoenix doesn't deserve a team based on the lack of hockey exposure in Arizona.
The best argument I can find right now against Phoenix is the lack of coverage be it TV or print that the Coyotes are enduring. However, the fact they attract 16000 fans despite that becomes even more impressive, so I guess there are different ways of being successful in the NHL depending on what your market is.
As a side note, Marcel Aubut did receive an offer from Jacques Parizeau and the PQ government but reports say he didn't want to allow the separatist governement to be the saviours of the team fearing they could use it as political leverage. Whether that's true or not...