Bettman says no expansion or relocation; why were Conferences made unequal?

JLP

Refugee
Aug 16, 2005
10,706
576
Re these statements made recently by Bettman, if there are no plans for expansion or relocation, why were the East and West Conferences recently reorganized to have an unequal number of teams? I thought this was because expansion or relocation was anticipated in the near future.

Commissioner Bettman said the League has no plans to conduct a formal expansion process at the present time.

"We get expressions of interest all the time and those are informal conversations that we have, but in terms of a formal bid process I'm not focused on doing anything like that right now," he said.

Relocation of franchises is also not a concern with new ownership in place with the Florida Panthers, Phoenix Coyotes and New Jersey Devils.

"Relocation was never anything we were interested in and we've been very clear about that and we never believed there would be a reason for relocation despite the speculation to the contrary," Commissioner Bettman said. "And the problem with the speculation to the contrary is it raised expectations, and we didn't think that was fair to our fans in the places that were hoping to get a franchise."
 

HanSolo

DJ Crazy Times
Apr 7, 2008
96,405
30,657
Las Vegas
This seems contradictory I seem to remember Daly saying the NHL was looking at expansion including a franchise in Seattle.
 

Bobby Smash

Registered User
Feb 13, 2008
1,451
10
MX
I think Detroit is the western most eastern conference team... they would play the majority of their road games at 9 or 10 pm Detroit time. Not exactly great for tv viewers.
 

Buck Aki Berg

Done with this place
Sep 17, 2008
17,325
8
Ottawa, ON
Was anyone in 1979 suggesting that the 4-division, 21-team alignment (which was in place for twelve seasons) was "proof" that NHL expansion to 24/28 teams was imminent?

Maybe the 16/14 split is there because they wanted a 16/14 split.
 

viper0220

Registered User
Oct 10, 2008
8,473
3,436
Re these statements made recently by Bettman, if there are no plans for expansion or relocation, why were the East and West Conferences recently reorganized to have an unequal number of teams? I thought this was because expansion or relocation was anticipated in the near future.

Commissioner Bettman said the League has no plans to conduct a formal expansion process at the present time.

"We get expressions of interest all the time and those are informal conversations that we have, but in terms of a formal bid process I'm not focused on doing anything like that right now," he said.

Relocation of franchises is also not a concern with new ownership in place with the Florida Panthers, Phoenix Coyotes and New Jersey Devils.

"Relocation was never anything we were interested in and we've been very clear about that and we never believed there would be a reason for relocation despite the speculation to the contrary," Commissioner Bettman said. "And the problem with the speculation to the contrary is it raised expectations, and we didn't think that was fair to our fans in the places that were hoping to get a franchise."



Gary Bettman is full of ****.
 

MoreOrr

B4
Jun 20, 2006
24,420
438
Mexico
Re these statements made recently by Bettman, if there are no plans for expansion or relocation, why were the East and West Conferences recently reorganized to have an unequal number of teams? I thought this was because expansion or relocation was anticipated in the near future.

Commissioner Bettman said the League has no plans to conduct a formal expansion process at the present time.

"We get expressions of interest all the time and those are informal conversations that we have, but in terms of a formal bid process I'm not focused on doing anything like that right now," he said.

Relocation of franchises is also not a concern with new ownership in place with the Florida Panthers, Phoenix Coyotes and New Jersey Devils.

"Relocation was never anything we were interested in and we've been very clear about that and we never believed there would be a reason for relocation despite the speculation to the contrary," Commissioner Bettman said. "And the problem with the speculation to the contrary is it raised expectations, and we didn't think that was fair to our fans in the places that were hoping to get a franchise."

While it's still quite possible that there will be expansion sometime in the next 5 years, as well as relocation since Glendale has a 5-year opportunity to prove that it can make the Coyotes work there,.... This still all goes to show what very few of us had been saying all along, that realignment has zero directly to do with expansion. Most of you just couldn't or still can't seem to grasp that the League simply wanted a different alignment. I don't like the alignment myself, I'd much prefer a 6-Division alignment with 30 teams, but then everyone argued that the League is going with this new alignment because it has plans to expand. Well, at least for the time being, Bettman is saying: No we're not!
 

Mightygoose

Registered User
Nov 5, 2012
5,586
1,382
Ajax, ON
Because the Thrashers moved to Winnipeg, neither Detroit or Columbus wanted to be the only ETZ left in the West.

This

Plus there was no way the PA would approve a 4 conference alignment unless the league had a multiple of 4 teams (32, 36 etc...) so they had to stay with a 2 conference model.

Since the league will revisited it after 3 season (or expansions/relocation...wahtever happens first). This is just for the short term.
 

Henkka

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
31,077
12,078
Tampere, Finland
Was anyone in 1979 suggesting that the 4-division, 21-team alignment (which was in place for twelve seasons) was "proof" that NHL expansion to 24/28 teams was imminent?

Maybe the 16/14 split is there because they wanted a 16/14 split.

Yep. That 16/14 split could be a key for better TV deals, because it means more TV spectators for Red Wings road games in general.

That travel was an issue, but could also see this marketing reason when putting all the Eastern Time Zone teams together.

Better TV deals, more money for NHL, better growth. It's all business.
 

MoreOrr

B4
Jun 20, 2006
24,420
438
Mexico
Because the Thrashers moved to Winnipeg, neither Detroit or Columbus wanted to be the only ETZ left in the West.

Exactly, ... Well no, not exactly!

This is rehashing old an topic, but there were a number of teams which wanted their alignment fixed, but it seemed like an impossible task to get enough teams satisfied within the confines of the 6-Division arrangement. So Mr Bettman came up with the idea that the League try a 4-Division alignment, which initially a majority were against, but eventually most came round to liking it. Still though, the original arrangement left both Detroit and Columbus in the West, apparently both content with that. And then came the original ideas from us, the peanut gallery, that the League must have plans to expand to QC and perhaps southern Ontario (wasn't my thinking), why else have two vacancies in the East? But the saga didn't stop there, because the PA didn't approve of the alignment, and ultimately, with some tinkering to satisfy the PA, and also a bit more time to reconsider the alignment, the League then, only then, decided to put both Detroit and Columbus in the East. And once again came the speculation that that must mean that the League has plan for two expansion sites in the West; when actually it should've caused some to question if the League had any specific expansion plans at all, since first it left two vacancies in the East, then two in the West, yada, yada, ya...

Ultimately, it's as you say, neither Detroit nor Columbus wanted to stay the lone ETZ team in the West; either both or neither.
 

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