Radical Idea: So Many Expansion Candidates...New League?

[jetsmooseice]

“That is to say it would be a somewhat pumped up farm league as opposed to a full-on competitor to the NHL.”

That’s precisely what the AHL is.

I assume you weren't alive to see the IHL of the 90s

 

[KevFu]

The nhl and mlb has a affiliate minor league system and the nfl doesn’t do that why springs leagues are always popping up.

I get that for AHL/Triple A baseball, but with football, it's finances are more about supply/demand than minor league.

Minor league hockey and baseball are going on at the same time as major league baseball and hockey. The spring football leagues obviously aren't going on at the same time as NFL.

Minor League sports just aren't getting a TV deal with ABC/ESPN and Fox/FS1 like spring football does. The AHL doesn't have a $100m TV deal with, spring football does.

 

[Martin Veillette]

With so many expansion candidates and even cities with empty NHL-ready stadiums (and fan bases) is it time to consider a rival league? With expansion fees being so high with so little in return, and TV ratings falling, a new league that does things the *right way* (three points for a win, for example) could have a future. You could even call it something like the World Hockey Association. For starters, these are all cities with stadiums or significant expansion interest:

WEST:
Houston, San Diego, Portland, Phoenix, Kansas City
EAST:
Atlanta, Cincinnati, Hamilton, Quebec City, Milwaukee

And then, you could possibly get Nashville to defect to the West, and Carolina to defect to the East. Perhaps Winnipeg and one other Canadian team (Ottawa? Edmonton?) could eventually defect too.

I'd rather see a new 12 team league doing things right than a bloated 36 team NHL with stale leadership and marketing.

Sounds like the
INTERNATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE (IHL)
and it failed...

 

[joelef]

The problem with an alternative league is the threshold is so high in pro sports that it would be nearly nearly impossible to take on. Wha, Aba , afl and the original usfl existed at a time where the pro leagues had a small geographical presence and much lower salaries . The cable sports boom of the 90s basically destroyed that.

 

[edog37]

I assume you weren't alive to see the IHL of the 90s

Then you would be wrong…again

 

[KevFu]

The gap is far too big now for a "Rival League" in hockey, baseball or basketball.
It's also massive in American Tackle Football, but you CAN have a supplemental league (aka spring) that makes money, just no where on the scale of the NFL.


I still think that you could make a soccer league that could possibly either (a) usurp MLS or (b) force MLS to drastically change (like the 60s/70s rival league mergers in the other sports).

The success of Welcome To Wrexham is proof enough to me that there's a demand for that kind of league, and that the quality of soccer is secondary. And since MLS is low quality anyway, the people craving to be part of the European soccer culture for their city here in US/Canada makes it possible.

 

[varsaku]

The gap is far too big now for a "Rival League" in hockey, baseball or basketball.
It's also massive in American Tackle Football, but you CAN have a supplemental league (aka spring) that makes money, just no where on the scale of the NFL.


I still think that you could make a soccer league that could possibly either (a) usurp MLS or (b) force MLS to drastically change (like the 60s/70s rival league mergers in the other sports).

The success of Welcome To Wrexham is proof enough to me that there's a demand for that kind of league, and that the quality of soccer is secondary. And since MLS is low quality anyway, the people craving to be part of the European soccer culture for their city here in US/Canada makes it possible.

I think MLS is also now at a point. Multiple USL teams have moved or shutdown once an MLS team moved into their market. I think most major sports in the US have one pro league that dominates the market. The barrier to entry is just too high.

 

[jkrdevil]

Your point on spring football is excellent: The main revenue creation is more focused on TV dollars than on building fan bases paying high ticket prices, because there's no competition on the TV front with the NFL. And by putting a third of the teams in markets that don't have NFL teams, they can do both.

An independent competing league wouldn't have that in hockey. You'd be the second or third best hockey team in Toronto; and you could put teams in Hamilton or Quebec City, but AHL teams have tried and not stuck around long...

The massive issue is arena availability.


If anyone could pull off building a competing league, I'd think it would be soccer.

This is getting off topic, but even MLS is too well capitalized for a competitor. The NASL basically tried to do this a few years ago on this theory and it was a joke. MLS controls its own stadiums for the most part (and while smaller they are still state of the art of the most part and geared toward revenue generation) and its owners/investors are also far wealthier than any competitor. If anyone truly wanted to compete they would just raise salaries and expand to stave it off.

I can’t imagine a start up league having to begin playing in old minor leagues parks or secondary college stadiums being able to amount a successful challenge. Even if you had a few ownership groups that could fund the team strongly and built proper facilities they would quickly be awarded an MLS expansion team. Which is what MLS did with the well funded NASL teams.

 

[MasterofGrond]

Bring on relegation.

But seriously, there's no way another league, even in a different geographical footprint is going to compete with the NHL enough to stay afloat. Without all the big NHL markets, there's not enough money in TV and in general to keep salaries competitive, and if you don't have competitive salaries, you won't have elite players, and if they league doesn't have elite players why wouldn't consumers just watch different existing lower level hockey?

Could be done I guess if someone extraordinarily rich decided to just absolutely light money on fire for a long time to get everything going, but at that point just tell the NHL you're gonna pay 3B for an expansion team and get one next year.

 

[Golden_Jet]

With so many expansion candidates and even cities with empty NHL-ready stadiums (and fan bases) is it time to consider a rival league? With expansion fees being so high with so little in return, and TV ratings falling, a new league that does things the *right way* (three points for a win, for example) could have a future. You could even call it something like the World Hockey Association. For starters, these are all cities with stadiums or significant expansion interest:

WEST:
Houston, San Diego, Portland, Phoenix, Kansas City
EAST:
Atlanta, Cincinnati, Hamilton, Quebec City, Milwaukee

And then, you could possibly get Nashville to defect to the West, and Carolina to defect to the East. Perhaps Winnipeg and one other Canadian team (Ottawa? Edmonton?) could eventually defect too.

I'd rather see a new 12 team league doing things right than a bloated 36 team NHL with stale leadership and marketing.

Already been done, and the best teams from that league ended up in the NHL.

The only reason that league lasted a little bit, because they paid a lot more than the NHL initially.

 

[patnyrnyg]

@KevFu it feels like I'm picking on you because I've responded to several of your posts in a row, but really it's not personal...

I hated it when the NHL had teams only play once per season against the other conference. That mean each team from the other conference would only come to your city every other year, Which meant a Crosby, or McDavid, or whomever, would only come to town every other year. It was a big improvement when you had to have a home-and-home against every team.

So I'm a Jets fan. I mean I get it - nobody is really itching for a Jets vs Blue Jackets game. But you know what - no one is really itching for yet another Jets vs Dallas game either, so we might as well just try and keep as many matchups new as we can.

I will never buy this argument. Especially since it means that to get McDavid in the eastern buildings every year, it means the other 15 western teams as well. Would rather sacrifice the game against McDavid every year for 8 extra division/conference games. BUT, this argument has been beaten to death for years on this forum. If it is about ticket sales, if an Eastern team NEEDS McDavid and Bedard to come to town every year to sell ticket packages, then they are in deeper trouble than 2 games can solve.

 

[patnyrnyg]

Again, only positing this in the context of a 40-team NHL, in which the odds of winning a championship are small enough that a 50 or 60-year Cup droughts may well become the norm rather than the exception. I think, frankly, 32 teams is as big as a league should be; bigger and you start to lose the ability for each team to play every other team every season while still playing enough within your division to maintain rivalries.

As to the relegation-wouldn't-work-in-North-America argument, this isn't really relegation, because the draft, salary cap and guaranteed contracts would remain in place. The biggest problem that relegation would pose in North America is that teams in large markets would get buried so far down the league ladder that you'd go a generation without NHL hockey in, say, Chicago. But the relegation system in Europe is such that teams in second or third divisions are structurally limited in their ability to move up. Given that this remains functionally a single league, and the lower tier teams would always have the higher picks in the entry draft, and given that there would be four teams moving up and down every year, there would be ample opportunities for teams to not be stuck in the lower tier.

I'm a Habs fan and I would hate having my team stuck in purgatory under this system. But it would still be a hell of a lot of fun, and it would put a lot more pressure on teams to get their shit together and not stink for extended periods of time.

To be clear, I accept that many owners would be reluctant to try this, but that's more a factor of NHL owners being reluctant to try anything other than the white bread they've been eating for the past forty years. And this is only if we're going to advocate expanding beyond the current 32 teams.

But the fans would love it. More chaos. More opportunities for clubs to win. Fewer meaningless games. It would be a lot of fun.

Ok, I will play along for the fun of it. So, with your original idea of 4 teams being relegated. So, San Jose, Columbus, Anaheim, and Chicago this year would go down. So now, the "top tier" is losing it's biggest young star to the lower tier? I am sure the networks will love that. How much interest do you think fans in Chicago are going to have to see the Blackhawks play a full season to try to win the JV Cup? Do you really think fans are going to be willing to spend NHL level money for tickets for JV competition? If salary cap (and I assume salary-floor) would still be the same, how are those teams going to bring in enough revenue to pay those salaries? Now, let's say Montreal gets relegated at the end of next season. Then, they win the JV Championship. Are they putting up a JV banner next to the 92-93 Stanley Cup Banner they have hanging?

The nhl and mlb has a affiliate minor league system and the nfl doesn’t do that why springs leagues are always popping up.

The NFL has a minor league "system", it is called the NCAA. The spring leagues never work and I doubt we will ever see them last more than a few seasons.

 

[patnyrnyg]

While there are "plenty" of expansion markets, the problem is that there aren't enough empty top markets like there were in the 1970s.

When the OG WHA formed, you had NHL teams in 12 cities. The people in those 12 cities added up (using today's population because I'm not going to research this point) was like 100m, while the markets the size of Winnipeg and larger WITHOUT the NHL had about 175m people.

It was easy to create a rival league when you could compete head-to-head in a couple major markets and then go to places without teams that rivaled the same populations the other league had.

For example, you take Hamilton, Quebec and the 19 biggest markets without an NHL team, you have about 65 million people in those cities. Add in a team in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto for 24 teams. Okay, that's not bad. But the NHL has 156 million fans in their markets.

Going toe-to-toe would be extremely difficult. Is there "room" to make money? Sure, but any player is going to want to sign with the NHL first even if it means playing in the AHL instead of the Rival League.


The real reason I don't think it could ever happen is arena availability. You'd need to have the AHL owners who control arenas be ringleaders. Like Cleveland, Charlotte, San Antonio, Orlando, Portland, San Antonio, Milwaukee, and Kansas City. But some markets would just be off the table because where would they play? You have AHL teams owned by NHL teams in San Diego, Riverside, Toronto. You have non-hockey arenas in some NBA markets.



And on the PRO/REL thing, the only way to pull off PRO/REL ever would be "Expand via promotion to a much, much, much larger size" first. For example, the 12-team WNBA has a boatload of investors interested in expansion teams. So sell 20 "WNBA-2" expansion teams and start that league. Then promote to the WNBA while expanding the WNBA-2. And then start relegating one per conference each year when both leagues are 36 teams.

Not only was the league smaller, TV wasn't what it is now. Now, anyone with an internet connection can get ESPN+ and watch all the games they want even if they live in Boise, Cheyenne, Santa Fe, etc.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I will never buy this argument. Especially since it means that to get McDavid in the eastern buildings every year, it means the other 15 western teams as well. Would rather sacrifice the game against McDavid every year for 8 extra division/conference games. BUT, this argument has been beaten to death for years on this forum. If it is about ticket sales, if an Eastern team NEEDS McDavid and Bedard to come to town every year to sell ticket packages, then they are in deeper trouble than 2 games can solve.

lol, guess you’ve never been a STH, going by that response. That was the number one complaint among STH in the league when you’d see a team every third season, then became every second season, until they finally got it right, once a year.

Ok, I will play along for the fun of it. So, with your original idea of 4 teams being relegated. So, San Jose, Columbus, Anaheim, and Chicago this year would go down. So now, the "top tier" is losing it's biggest young star to the lower tier? I am sure the networks will love that. How much interest do you think fans in Chicago are going to have to see the Blackhawks play a full season to try to win the JV Cup? Do you really think fans are going to be willing to spend NHL level money for tickets for JV competition? If salary cap (and I assume salary-floor) would still be the same, how are those teams going to bring in enough revenue to pay those salaries? Now, let's say Montreal gets relegated at the end of next season. Then, they win the JV Championship. Are they putting up a JV banner next to the 92-93 Stanley Cup Banner they have hanging?


The NFL has a minor league "system", it is called the NCAA. The spring leagues never work and I doubt we will ever see them last more than a few seasons.

The NFL doesn’t have a minor league system, you can’t send players back to college, or call one up from college,
Sounds like you don’t understand what a minor league system is.

 

[patnyrnyg]

lol, guess you’ve never been a STH, going by that response. That was the number one complaint among STH in the league when you’d see a team every third season, then became every second season, until they finally got it right, once a year.


The NFL doesn’t have a minor league system, you can’t send players back to college, or call one up from college,
Sounds like you don’t understand what a minor league system is.

HAHA, I have been a Rangers season ticket holder since 1998. I loved it when I only had to deal with games against Calgary and Edmonton once in 3 years in oder to get more games with the Flyers, Isles, Devils, Penguins.

I am well aware the NFL can't send players to the NCAA. It was said tongue-in-cheek. I have had Giants season tickets since 2005.

 

[Golden_Jet]

HAHA, I have been a Rangers season ticket holder since 1998. I loved it when I only had to deal with games against Calgary and Edmonton once in 3 years in oder to get more games with the Flyers, Isles, Devils, Penguins.

I am well aware the NFL can't send players to the NCAA. It was said tongue-in-cheek. I have had Giants season tickets since 2005.

Great we’ve both been long time STH, and when they played 8x against certain teams it was awful seeing the same teams over and over again, without seeing the other teams for up to 3 years.

Didn’t realize it was tongue in cheek, hard to get that across in text I guess.

 

[patnyrnyg]

Great we’ve both been long time STH, and when they played 8x against certain teams it was awful seeing the same teams over and over again, without seeing the other teams for up to 3 years.

Didn’t realize it was tongue in cheek, hard to get that across in text I guess.

Seeing division rivals 4x in your arena was 'over and over again'? Nowadays, games I keep is mainly based on the day of the week. Back then, it was opponent. Couldn't wait to dump the games against Western conference teams. Yup, can't wait for Rangers-Anaheim next season. Going to circle that one on my calendar.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Seeing division rivals 4x in your arena was 'over and over again'? Nowadays, games I keep is mainly based on the day of the week. Back then, it was opponent. Couldn't wait to dump the games against Western conference teams. Yup, can't wait for Rangers-Anaheim next season. Going to circle that one on my calendar.

Yep can’t wait for Colorado, Vegas, Dallas , Edmonton as well.

 

[MeHateHe]

I am sure the networks will love that. How much interest do you think fans in Chicago are going to have to see the Blackhawks play a full season to try to win the JV Cup? Do you really think fans are going to be willing to spend NHL level money for tickets for JV competition? If salary cap (and I assume salary-floor) would still be the same, how are those teams going to bring in enough revenue to pay those salaries?

What was Chicago playing for this year? What will Chicago be playing for next year? If your contention is accurate that teams not playing for the Stanley Cup have no reason to attract fans, then there are at least 10 teams that should have been playing to empty buildings. In my scenario, you'd have more teams (24) playing playoffs, plus four teams trying to stay alive in the top tier.

In truth, fan bases typically accept the level where their team is at. Washington fans were thrilled to make the playoffs and it doesn't seem to bother them that they played four games and their top player was barely visible.

The two-tier model essentially makes the whole season into a playoff race for the second tier. and it gives non-playoff teams in the top tier a reason to compete right to the end, lest they wind up shuffled down a tier. Add in the mid-season tournament, institute the Gold Plan for purposes of draft positioning and suddenly you have - with a shorter season - more meaningful games.

Would star players suddenly get fewer turns on national TV? Not necessarily. Between the in-season tournament and the late-season games with promotion/relegation implications, there are plenty of story lines for TV to grab onto. Aside from that, Bedard is already not playing this spring: in a 40-team NHL, there will be lots of great players who go missing by April 1.

You mock about teams playing for a JV Cup, but the truth is, by the trade deadline, there are usually 8-10 teams playing for nothing, Might as well make them earn their supper. Of course the prize is the Stanley Cup, but earning promotion to the top tier means that teams will have the chance to play for the Cup the next year, and if you've ever watched a promotion scenario play out in English football, for example, that's a thing to get riled up about.

 

[patnyrnyg]

What was Chicago playing for this year? What will Chicago be playing for next year? If your contention is accurate that teams not playing for the Stanley Cup have no reason to attract fans, then there are at least 10 teams that should have been playing to empty buildings. In my scenario, you'd have more teams (24) playing playoffs, plus four teams trying to stay alive in the top tier.

In truth, fan bases typically accept the level where their team is at. Washington fans were thrilled to make the playoffs and it doesn't seem to bother them that they played four games and their top player was barely visible.

The two-tier model essentially makes the whole season into a playoff race for the second tier. and it gives non-playoff teams in the top tier a reason to compete right to the end, lest they wind up shuffled down a tier. Add in the mid-season tournament, institute the Gold Plan for purposes of draft positioning and suddenly you have - with a shorter season - more meaningful games.

Would star players suddenly get fewer turns on national TV? Not necessarily. Between the in-season tournament and the late-season games with promotion/relegation implications, there are plenty of story lines for TV to grab onto. Aside from that, Bedard is already not playing this spring: in a 40-team NHL, there will be lots of great players who go missing by April 1.

You mock about teams playing for a JV Cup, but the truth is, by the trade deadline, there are usually 8-10 teams playing for nothing, Might as well make them earn their supper. Of course the prize is the Stanley Cup, but earning promotion to the top tier means that teams will have the chance to play for the Cup the next year, and if you've ever watched a promotion scenario play out in English football, for example, that's a thing to get riled up about.

And, you think ABC is going to pay big money to have the 3rd largest tv market in the US NOT playing in the top league? If the Habs, Leafs, Canucks fell to the lower tier, do you think Sportsnet is going to be ok paying top $ for those teams to be in the lower tier?

Yep can’t wait for Colorado, Vegas, Dallas , Edmonton as well.

Great, now take the other 12 that eastern teams really do not care about.

 

[MeHateHe]

And, you think ABC is going to pay big money to have the 3rd largest tv market in the US NOT playing in the top league? If the Habs, Leafs, Canucks fell to the lower tier, do you think Sportsnet is going to be ok paying top $ for those teams to be in the lower tier?


Great, now take the other 12 that eastern teams really do not care about.

Is it markets or is it stars, because we're talking about both. If it's markets, how come we see so many Pittsburgh games? Why didn't we see more Arizona games on national TV? Would a 40th-place team in a 40-team NHL playing against the best team - even if that last-place team had a player like Connor Bedard - make for good TV?

I think that properly packaged, TV will be fine. MLS is horrible soccer, but it shows up on TV all the time. So New York or Toronto or whoever playing another NHL team will still get air time.

 

[patnyrnyg]

Is it markets or is it stars, because we're talking about both. If it's markets, how come we see so many Pittsburgh games? Why didn't we see more Arizona games on national TV? Would a 40th-place team in a 40-team NHL playing against the best team - even if that last-place team had a player like Connor Bedard - make for good TV?

I think that properly packaged, TV will be fine. MLS is horrible soccer, but it shows up on TV all the time. So New York or Toronto or whoever playing another NHL team will still get air time.

MLS is on tv all the time? What qualifies as "all the time"? I didnt even realize their season started and when I turn the tv on, if I dont have something specific I am going to watch, I look through what is on the sports channels on my tv package. If they were on "all the time" I would have noticed them listed.

Do you think the fans in Chicago would be ok paying the same prices they do know for the Blackhawks to spend a year in the JV league? Are owners going to be ok with drastically lowering ticket prices while still having to pay the players their full NHL salaries? What about the employees? How do they get paid if revenues for the team are down?

My fantasy football league has a consolation play-off for those who do not make the real play-offs. Since the league has 32 teams, why not just have consolation play-offs for the 16 teams who do not make the real play-offs? Now, every team stays in the varsity NHL for regular season and then the inferior teams can still compete for a "Championship". But they will need to do something for the conspiracy theorists. For example, the Flyers pulling their goalie in a tied game in regulation. When they get accused of tanking so they could play the JV play-offs and have a better chance of advancing? Maybe teams will not be able to profit off these games? So, revenues beyond what it costs to run the games, pay the refs, employees, must be used to off-set the players escrow charges?

For Pittsburgh, it is the market as their local ratings have been very good since Crosby was drafted.

 

[KevFu]

This is getting off topic, but even MLS is too well capitalized for a competitor. The NASL basically tried to do this a few years ago on this theory and it was a joke. MLS controls its own stadiums for the most part (and while smaller they are still state of the art of the most part and geared toward revenue generation) and its owners/investors are also far wealthier than any competitor. If anyone truly wanted to compete they would just raise salaries and expand to stave it off.

I can’t imagine a start up league having to begin playing in old minor leagues parks or secondary college stadiums being able to amount a successful challenge. Even if you had a few ownership groups that could fund the team strongly and built proper facilities they would quickly be awarded an MLS expansion team. Which is what MLS did with the well funded NASL teams.

It is OT, but it's a GREAT topic. I don't know enough about the NASL. But I think that the massive difference between trying it "a few years ago" and trying it NOW would be exposure and publicity...

The NASL deciding "there's money to be made in soccer, let's have a league" and if fans found out about it, it was blurbs. Who were the key people?

I think the reason it could work NOW is because of Welcome To Wrexham. Its' success has caused a bunch of people to try and copy-cat that, and it shows the significance of publicity, promotion and celebrity. An uber Rich guy finding a charismatic celebrity like Ryan Reynolds and saying "Let's give EVERYONE in the US and Canada their own Wrexham." That could drum up the people needed to say "We can build this here."

Build a league around that model: You have a team, your team is special. It's your story. Every team is going to have a documentary crew. You might be a small city that's never getting MLS. You might be a big city that HAS MLS, but you're not getting that same kind of football culture as the European Leagues because MLS plays in the summer, not on the world calendar. We want our OWN World Football League. We don't have a soccer league that's as good as the English Premier League. But why can't we build one that is? Together."

You media blitz that message -- probably during the Wrexham episodes! -- and fans, including celebrity investors who could be potential sugar daddies, and gonna respond with "Are WE gonna have a team?"

You don't start with a Premier League, second division and third division. You start with a huge league in regional conferences, more like the NCAA. And the champs of each play a post-season tourney at the end. But the whole thing builds to launching the Premier League on top of that league, and then there's PRO/REL. No "they've always been the richest." Everyone gets in on the ground floor and earns their way in. You can sell that.

 

[KevFu]

I will never buy this argument. Especially since it means that to get McDavid in the eastern buildings every year, it means the other 15 western teams as well. Would rather sacrifice the game against McDavid every year for 8 extra division/conference games. BUT, this argument has been beaten to death for years on this forum.

YES!

If it is about ticket sales, if an Eastern team NEEDS McDavid and Bedard to come to town every year to sell ticket packages, then they are in deeper trouble than 2 games can solve.

NO! You were so close! Short-sighted people think that McDavid and Bedard HELP, but ignore that 5 teams helping attendance and 11 teams hurting or breaking even at best is a net loss.

Not only was the league smaller, TV wasn't what it is now. Now, anyone with an internet connection can get ESPN+ and watch all the games they want even if they live in Boise, Cheyenne, Santa Fe, etc.

This is a great point. I also think that plays into why it's not a big team to me if McDavid or Matthews don't visit you every year. Your team plays at 7 pm, you can fire up ESPN+ and watch them at 4 pm or 10 pm. "Oh, but in person is better." Sure, but ESPN+ and "full season 41-games lower bowl tickets" are not the same price, and that's everyone's number one factor.

I think you also lose money when you guarantee their visits every year because it reduces urgency. You know he's coming back next year, so if you miss this year's visit, he'll be back. If it was a four-year rotation, it's an event.

Last month, we all stood outside looking up for an hour like idiots with special glasses. If that happens once a fiscal quarter, it's not special TV programming interrupting soap operas, it's a Wednesday.

 

[patnyrnyg]

YES!



NO! You were so close! Short-sighted people think that McDavid and Bedard HELP, but ignore that 5 teams helping attendance and 11 teams hurting or breaking even at best is a net loss.




This is a great point. I also think that plays into why it's not a big team to me if McDavid or Matthews don't visit you every year. Your team plays at 7 pm, you can fire up ESPN+ and watch them at 4 pm or 10 pm. "Oh, but in person is better." Sure, but ESPN+ and "full season 41-games lower bowl tickets" are not the same price, and that's everyone's number one factor.

I think you also lose money when you guarantee their visits every year because it reduces urgency. You know he's coming back next year, so if you miss this year's visit, he'll be back. If it was a four-year rotation, it's an event.

Last month, we all stood outside looking up for an hour like idiots with special glasses. If that happens once a fiscal quarter, it's not special TV programming interrupting soap operas, it's a Wednesday.

The argument they make with the ticket packages is the teams will package the game against Edmonton with 3+ games that traditionally will not draw. But, I agree. Yes, you get the one game with McDavid that gets all kinds of hoopla and then 3-4 that may have a little buzz, ala Panthers-Knights this year may have, and then 10 or so duds.

Agreed on tv. in 1985, NYers had 9 chances to see Gretzky on tv which were the 3 games against the Rangers, Isles, Devils. OCCASSIONALLY, Sportschannel or ESPN would show an out of market game, but even into the late 80s, Sportschannel carrying an out of market game in NY was rare. Now, you can see McDavid every night.