puckhead103 said:
news to fans....the nhl doesn't care about you....especially passionate canadian fans.
do you think the nhl in a couple of years decides to expand, will they think of placing a hockey franchise in canada?
the answer is obvious.....even with the salary cap and meager revenue sharing, calgary, ottawa and edmonton will relocate in 6 years.
I'm not going to touch the first part. I think it's rediculous to think the NHL doesn't care at all about it's fans.
Of course Canada would have trouble finding another suitable place for a franchise. They simply don't have that many cities with millions of people in them to fund an NHL team. It doesn't mean something is wrong with Canada, it just a smaller country compared to the US (population wise more so than land mass).
puckhead103 said:
bettman will still continue in his blind vision of getting that big US TV contract.....
I don't like Bettman really, but it's starting to get annoying to me how people blame EVERYTHING on him. It's as if people thinks he owns the NHL. Bettman is an employee. He has a lot of say in his company, but he's still just an employee. The team owners are ultimately the one's who make the decisions. The big US TV contract is the owner's dream. Bettman is persuing it because, ultimately, he works for the owners of all the teams.
puckhead103 said:
i think its time for a canadian pro league similar to the CFL.
imagine a league having affordable ticket prices to allow your family to see quality hockey...compared to the corporate, stuffy persona of going to a nhl game..
canadian cities such as regina, saskatoon and others will be first line in getting teams...those canadian cities, in the past, would've been overlooked or never given any thought in the US-based corporate nhl...
It sounds like to me you were just talking about the CHL. If you expect Lecavalier, Thornton, or even Morrow to play for Windsor or Saskatoon you're really out of touch with what these players are playing for. Yes they are playing for the love of the game, but they are also playing for their livelihood. You may say they don't need millions of dollars, but they aren't playing for JUST themselves, but for their family too. All the money they make in the NHL doesn't just go to living some insanely lavish life for themselves, but also for their wife, parents, children, grand children, possibly siblings, etc to be able to live a good life, too. I know I wouldn't turn down millions of dollars so that I could give my children a chance to make the most of their life, too.
puckhead103 said:
also having an extra canadian franchise would set them back in terms of getting US tv money...
I find this a extremely rediculous. How in the world would another Canadian team set them back in getting a US TV deal? If anything a truly successful Canadian team would bring more money into the NHL than take out. If there was a market that could support an NHL team in Canada, it would very quickly receive a team. Don't try and say Quebec or Winnipeg, also. They were tried and failed. Not because the fans don't love their team there, but because they simply cannot generate enough revenue to survive against other Canadian teams, even.
From how things are right now, if Canada wants more teams they need to make their government give NHL teams tax breaks so they can make a competitive team without losing millions upon millions of dollars. US teams receive a huge amount of tax breaks, especially compared to Canada.
puckhead103 said:
remember the nhl is a strictly american based league and needs american dollars more so than catering passionate, knowledgeable canadian hockey fans.
anyone with me? its time for a new movement for a canadian superleague of hockey and ditch the NHL
Do you actually think the NHL is strictly an American based league? The game has grown as much as it can right now in Canada, for the most part. There really isn't much the NHL can do for Canada. Canadians, as a whole, love the NHL and hockey. When the entire country loves a sport, what need is there to do more for them? They did as much as they could in the new CBA, which was done more for Canadian teams than for US teams.
A Canadian Superleague wouldn't go so well, even if they could somehow legally claim the Stanley Cup. I find it very hard to believe they could somehow acquire the Cup from the NHL, though. Also, why would a Canadian player want to play for less money against weaker competition (unless they didn't want the challenges faced in the NHL)? Kids dream of winning the Stanley Cup not only because it is the Stanley Cup, but also because it represents having beat the best players in the world, and therefore being the best. If some AHL-like Canadian league controlled the Cup, the interest in it would gradually fizzle out over many years. It wouldn't be viewed as the achievement it once was.
If a Canadian team looked to actually be able to support a competitive NHL team I have no doubt that they'd be awarded a franchise quite quickly. Much more quickly than a comparable American city would, imo.