Yesterday on a local sports show here in Nashville a guy from Canada called bragging about the Predators moving there. He said "now you know Americans how it feels to lose a team". Please explain the revenge factor involved in the Preds moving and the Hate directed at Nashville (since we came into the league). Yes the Jets and Nords did move to the US. Both were gone before the Preds even existed. It's like you want to stick it to America with us leaving. Why??? Us Nashville fans did nothing to Canada other than accept your national sport and learn to love it like you do. I mean no one here celebrated when the Expos moved to Washington. Even when the Girzzlies moved most people in Nashville did not care. Most fans feel sympathy for the fans of teams that move not rub it in their face. It's really very classless to do so. Honoring Balsillie as a "hero" in Edmonton makes no sense to me.
Also "be careful what you wish for you may get it" this could set a dangerous precedent with the NHL breaking the 7 year clause and allowing the team to be moved. A Billionaire in Houston may offer 220 mill for the Oilers in five years and use the "you allowed Balsillie to move after 1 season" thing when he wants to relocate (I think this almost happened one time). Yes the CN Dollar is strong but can you garentee that in 5 years??? Canada may gain the Preds but lose other teams if this happens. Did anyone ever think of that????
Plus why does Hamilton and Winnipeg not get critized for trying to steal teams?? I mean Hamilton tried to aquire the Jets in 96. Winnipeg tried to steal the Pens in 04. Yet KC is run through the ringer for doing the same thing.
Instead of going through all the whining and fighting in this thread, I just want to respond to the original post here.
What people in Canada are celebrating, is the fact that the NHL has finally publicly admitted that what it's done to Canada over the past years was a mistake. Let's hop in the time machine.
Salaries in pro sports were spiraling out of control. NFL and MLB salaries in particular were getting huge. Not to be outdone, NHL players started signing similar contracts. There was just one problem: the NHL was, and still is, a gate-driven league. While baseball and football stadiums can hold up to 60,000 fans, NHL attendances were typically one quarter of that. To compensate, teams started building "bohemoth" buildings, but even those could hold in the neighbourhood of 20,000 fans.
Owners soon felt in in their pocket books, and teams began to bleed oceans of red ink. The impact was especially felt in Canada. The country had 30 million people to the United States 300 million. (On a weekday, during regular business hours, there are more people in New York City than there are in Canada.) Canadian owners had to pay out salaries in American greenbacks, even though their major source of revenue -- ticket sales -- was coming in Canadian funds. That meant swallowing a 35 per cent discrepancy between money in and money out that teams south of the border didn't have to.
American superstar athletes, and the American economy, were fueling the demise of Canadian pro sports teams. Not just any sports teams, but the ones playing Canada's national sport. Eventually, owners in Winnipeg and Quebec were put up for sale, and it was widely believed more teams were to follow. Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa nearly found themselves in similar situations, but the league stepped in to over "equalization payments" to make up for the gap between the American and Canadian dollars.
Naturally, Winnipeg and Quebec felt gilted that the league stood idly by when their teams were in danger. In Winnipeg's case, the business community actually stepped up at the last possible moment to ensure the team wouldn't become the Minnesota Wild following the 1994/95 season. The group needed a new arena and capital to cover the losses that were plauging NHL teams at that time. The cost: $111 million. People across the province banded together to raise more than $13 million in just a few days. A deal was struck by the business group purchased part of the Jets for $32 million and also absorbed $23 million in debt. Ultimately, infighting in the ownership group and a power struggle between the new group and present owners resulted in the deal being dropped before the beginning of next season. The team was allowed to stay before becoming the Phoenix Coyotes in 1996.
What stung in Winnipeg, was the fact that the Coyotes continued to lose even more money than the Jets had in in their final season, but had owners who weren't bothered by this. "The NHL is a business now." That phrase was repeated to me time and time again by Phoenix fans. And they were right. The only numbers that mattered were on paychecks, not how many hockey fans were in your community.
To help make up for rising salary costs, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had a plan to secure an national TV deal in the States, a major source of revenue for most major leagues in the country. This meant expanding the league to fit a "national footprint." Expansion teams were awarded, and massive "hockey education" programs launched in an effort to create a national fan base.
Canadians watched in disbelief as cities several times their size built fan bases sometimes comparable to theirs in size. Behind the scenes, minor hockey progams in these cities even started to grow. However, these teams still lost millions every year, but were guaranteed survival thanks to wealthy owners and the desires of the league.
It boggled the minds of Winnipeggers, who live in the city with the most hockey rinks per capita in the world. Their money-losing franchise had died, but several more money-losing franchises were born in the United States. It was a tough pill to swallow.
People in Canada aren't celebrating the possible agony that American NHL fans would suffer if they lose a team. Far from it. We feel your pain. We know how unfair it feels to lose a team due to circumstances beyond your control.
However, there is celebration in the fact that the NHL has admitted that they were wrong to leave and mistreat Canada. As saddening as it was to watch the perfect storm develop that nearly swept all but 3 of our NHL teams off the map, it's exhilirating to watch things balance out:
* Leaked NHL info is showing that revenue from Canadian teams are working heavily to prop up the league, which now depends on revenue sharing and salaries tied to revenues.
* The national American TV deal never materialized. Fans much prefered to watch their own team on local stations. The NHL doesn't get national rights money from NBC. Instead, it gets pre-empted for horse racing chatter.
* The Canadian dollar is at 94 cents American and is expected to hit par in the next couple of years.
* There have been rumblings for some time that American owners are getting fed up with absorbing losses, and will be willing to put their teams up for sale in the next few years.
A lot of these things have happened quite quickly, which has hockey fans north of the border VERY excited. In fact, the final point was rumour and speculation until the recent email and press conference from Craig Leopold. Because Nashville is the first team with a pending sale in place, their fans have wrongly been labeled as uncaring and been forced to bear some brutal insults.
I know what that's like. I went through all that stuff too. Even right now there are some individuals on HF (including a mod), who say that it's blasphemy to say anything bad about Nashville, but use those same fingers to criticize Winnipeg at every opportunity.
Just for the record, re. "stealing teams." Winnipeg has simply been in talks with the league to say that we're interested in a team. Those folks, the people who matter, don't care whether it's through relocation or expansion. Fans honestly don't care either. Sure, their excited at the psopect of maybe having a Pittsburgh or a Nashville, because they are AMAZING teams. Yes, our deputy mayor even wrote to Pittsburgh when there was a CHANCE they might move. That's what started the Winnipenguin hype, and now it's happening with Nashville, especially since Mr. Canadian Moneybags might end up with the team and the league is saying they don't want another Ontario team.
I trutly wish hockey fans in Nasvhille all the best. All year, I've been reading in The Hockey News about your great fans but lack of business support. I'm not sure what advice to offer, since buying season tickets isn't the same as getting corporate sponsorships out there, and it seems like no matter what promos and advertising approaches are taken, the number of corporate accounts still declines. I would urge anyone with a flex pack to upgrade to season tickets, as that's one thing a Preds rep mentioned to the media that was hurting the team -- the fact that they are iving and dying with the 12 game or 6 game pack (can't remember the exact number).
The other thing to remember to, is that the league will ultimately end up doing whatever it wants. It kept the Pens from being bought by the very same guy by attaching all sorts of requirements to the deal. They blocked the sale of the St. Louis Blues to people who would have moved the team to Saskatoon. They gave Ottawan and Florida an expansion team over Hamilton because of the pull the Maple Leafs have as a leading moneymaker in the league. This may work in your favour, it may not. I'm pretty skeptical, but that's only because I've seen this movie before, and the ending made me sick.
Good luck and be strong.
