NHL to Seattle/Bellevue: Plan or ploy?

Hasbro

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Yeah, I don't get it either. Omaha is a fine market.
The metro area is under 1 mill, on the smallish side. But look at how they pack cornhusker games. Not like there's anything else to do.

I guess some people will laugh at just about anything. :dunno:

On the plus side it might stem the tide of Nebraskans heading into Colorado.
 

CHRDANHUTCH

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Mar 4, 2002
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Why does Omaha get a laugh?

Their AHL team does very good numbers and there's a big interest in ice hockey with a number of other junior teams. The climate is perfect for breeding ice hockey where it gets colder than the pac nw on average in the winter. And there's a number of F500 companies and lots of other business to buy luxury boxes from. A population of 400k is also enough to sustain the gate revenues. Heck, Buffet is a hockey fan and I'm sure he'd toss in some capital for that city to get it's first pro team.

I don't see what's so funny about putting a franchise in Omaha.

Considering Calgary and the local investors co-own the Knights.
 

Whale

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Jul 29, 2006
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Vancouver has large fanbase outside of the city itself, Victoria Kamloops and Kelowna have regular charter buses to the Nucks games.

I don't think that Van would block a move into Seattle. The Canucks by far have the most travel days/ milage in the NHL and player definatly take that into consideration when picking where to play. In a perfect universe the NW division would be Van, Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle and Portland.

As for where is more likely to get a team in the NW, Portland has to have a strong edge on Seattle. They already have the arena, and they seem to come up everytime someone mentions a franchise moving somewhere.
 

Ted Hoffman

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Portland's arena apparently has an *incredibly* bad lease for the Trailblazers, and I can't imagine it would get any better for an NHL team that would surely play second fiddle.
 

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Portland's arena apparently has an *incredibly* bad lease for the Trailblazers, and I can't imagine it would get any better for an NHL team that would surely play second fiddle.

I think that had more to do with Paul Allen wanting to get out of his financial stake in the arena. An unrelated group might get a better deal.
 

Dolemite

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As for where is more likely to get a team in the NW, Portland has to have a strong edge on Seattle. They already have the arena, and they seem to come up everytime someone mentions a franchise moving somewhere.

As a former Seattle resident....

Whenever this gets mentioned, and it does get mentioned alot, everyone doesn't take into account the people of Seattle. For the most part, Seattle is Hockey-retarted and treat the sport like the lepar child of the sports family. Blame the local media partially as when it comes to hockey, they proverbially don't know the difference between their a-holes and their elbows (to steal a line from Shannon Sharpe).

Add into the mix that the public has spent TONS of money on sports arenas, transportation, light rail and things of that nature. The last thing they are going to do is want to put a new NBA arena up for a vote because former Sonics Owner Barry Ackerly and Sonics whipping boy/CEO Wally Walker didn't want to have an NHL team take money away from their pockets. Man did that ever backfire. They would rather see the Sonics leave than spend a cent of public money on a new arena.
 

kdb209

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Jan 26, 2005
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Irish Blues said:
Portland's arena apparently has an *incredibly* bad lease for the Trailblazers, and I can't imagine it would get any better for an NHL team that would surely play second fiddle.
I think that had more to do with Paul Allen wanting to get out of his financial stake in the arena. An unrelated group might get a better deal.

Yup.

The T-Blazers situation is one of their own (Paul Allen's) making. They chose to have the worst lease in professional sports.

Paul Allen had the company he formed to build and operate the Rose Garden declare bankruptcy to get out from under construction debt. Control of the Rose Garden passed to a group of creditors/bondholders. This left the T-Blazers as just a tenant in the Rose Garden, with the worst lease in professional sports - a lot of revenues (Luxury Boxes, Advertising, etc) which used to go from one Paul Allen owned company to another, now passed to the creditors / bondholders.

Gory details cut-and-pasted from one of the bazillion relocation threads:

kdb209 said:
Correct. Paul Allen no longer controls the Rose Garden, which is a good thing for the NHL in Portland, because Paul Allen had zero interest in the NHL.

Paul Allen lost control of the Rose Garden through bankruptcy. The company Allen set up to build and operate the arena declared bankruptcy to get out from onerous construction debt. Control of the Rose Garden passed to a group of creditors/bondholders who hired a subsidiary of Comcast/SMG to manage the building. Yes the same Comcast/SMG that owns OLN, the Flyers, and operates the <whatever the hell the new Spectrum is called these days>.

Allen's T-Blazers are now just tenants in the building with a really, really sh*tty lease.

http://www.portlandtribune.com//archview.cgi?id=27773

The ownership transfer means Allen and the now-dissolved Oregon Arena Corp. are out from under their colossal annual debt payments, and means Allen is out from under a company that Allen executives have said has made money in only two of the nine years that the Rose Garden has been open.
However, the transfer also leaves the Trail Blazers in an unusual position in the professional sports world — a position to get almost no revenue from the arena where they play.
The Blazers get revenue from television contracts as well as getting most of the revenue from their general ticket sales. But in an era when sports team owners make tens of millions of dollars in revenue from luxury suites and special seating in their arenas or stadiums, and additional millions from companies for the rights to display their names prominently, Allen and the Trail Blazers now will have the rights to none of that.
That’s because the lease between Oregon Arena and the Trail Blazers — a lease between two companies formerly owned by the same man — called for Oregon Arena to get all that revenue. Allen’s creditors now will assume Oregon Arena’s lease with the Trail Blazers and pocket those revenues.
Andrew Zimbalist, who teaches sports economics at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., said he knows of “no situation quite like that.â€
Most professional teams either own their own arenas or stadiums or “have what they call a master lease — which enables them to behave as if they own it,†Zimbalist said. “They completely manage it and get all the revenue from it.â€
...
No one needs to convince Patterson, who became Blazers president in June 2003, that the Blazers’ lease with Oregon Arena is unusual.
“The Blazers have, by far and away, the worst lease in all of professional sports,†he said, citing the revenue that the lease diverted away from the Allen-owned Trail Blazers to the formerly Allen-owned Oregon Arena. “It’s the least favorable lease to a professional sports team in all of professional sports.â€

http://www.portlandtribune.com/archview.cgi?id=28173

Global Spectrum began managing the arena Jan. 1 for Portland Arena Management, a Delaware-based limited liability company formed as a new entity by the 12 investment companies that are the bondholders of the Rose Garden. Oregon Arena Corp., owned by Trail Blazer owner Paul Allen, lost the building after it declared bankruptcy.
...
Global Spectrum bills itself as “the fastest-growing firm in the public assembly management field.†Its parent company, Comcast-Spectacor, owns the Philadelphia 76ers. Global Spectrum manages such facilities as Philadelphia’s Wachovia Center, where the 76ers play, the 28,000-seat FargoDome in North Dakota and several minor-league ballparks, along with the Arizona Cardinals’ new stadium in Phoenix.
Scanlon said the company will attempt to increase the number of dates in which the Rose Garden is used.
“To put 150 event days in, aside from Blazer and Winter Hawk games, is an achievable number,†he said. “Having 40-some-odd buildings throughout the country gives us the connecions we need to get more things put together.â€
 

Bear of Bad News

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Whenever this gets mentioned, and it does get mentioned alot, everyone doesn't take into account the people of Seattle. For the most part, Seattle is Hockey-retarted and treat the sport like the lepar child of the sports family. Blame the local media partially as when it comes to hockey, they proverbially don't know the difference between their a-holes and their elbows (to steal a line from Shannon Sharpe).

I really do think that the city of Seattle killed Dolemite's dog, or something, because this topic is the only thing that manages to get his panties in a bunch.
 

AdmiralPred

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Hey! There was nothing in there about hockey only belonging where it snows!:confused:

Hey! I had family living near Johnson AFB in NC for over a decade and they said they'd received some snow on a handfull of occasions. That should at least validate Carolina's Cup. I can't speak for Nashville or Portland.:sarcasm:
 

Hasbro

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Hey! I had family living near Johnson AFB in NC for over a decade and they said they'd received some snow on a handfull of occasions. That should at least validate Carolina's Cup. I can't speak for Nashville or Portland.:sarcasm:

Further more how can there be a post in a contraction thread without saying the fans in a prospective city are a bunch of hicks who would rather tip cows?
 

Transported Upstater

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Further more how can there be a post in a contraction thread without saying the fans in a prospective city are a bunch of hicks who would rather tip cows?

In Russia, the cows tip YOU.
 

Pepper

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Aug 30, 2004
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The first part is false - there is no "minimum arena seating" requirement set by the NHL. If the Rangers wanted to downsize into a 12,000-seat arena, they could do so and the League couldn't do anything about it. The NHL would just REALLY PREFER that any new arena seat at least 17,000 or more for hockey.

Ottawa struggled to survive in an arena that seated 10,500. I don't think the NHL wants to go down that road again. Besides, they'd prefer an arena where every seat could actually see the ice; in Key Arena, something like 3,000 seats or so in the upper tier can't see their end at all - meaning that on TV, the place would look barely half-full on certain angles. The fact that a huge chunk of seats can't see half the ice is more damaging than the actual capacity of the arena itself.

The second part is absolutely true - especially since there's nothing in the area that's even suitable for hockey on the scale the NHL would like. Still, among cities who've expressed interest in having an NHL team, Seattle is *way* behind other cities like Kansas City, Houston, Winnipeg, and even Oklahoma City and Hamilton.

There's no written rule that teams need to have arenas with certain capacity but in practice it's as good as written because no NEW city will get a franchise with a small arena.

What Rangers do or don't do is irrelevant as they are already in the league.
 

Jazz

Registered User
seattle isn't within vancouver's territorial rights.
I thought they were.
Regardless, I would expect the nucks to make a stink about this just because.
That's crazy and competely non-sensical.

The Canucks have one of the worst travel schedules in the league. They will be happy to see a close geographical rival.
 

Hawker14

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Oct 27, 2004
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There's no written rule that teams need to have arenas with certain capacity but in practice it's as good as written because no NEW city will get a franchise with a small arena.

really? greensboro got the hurricanes. explain that. if an nhl team wants to move, there's not much the league can do about it, just ask the nfl.
 

OG6ix

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Apr 11, 2006
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Actually it does snow in Carolina in the mountains. My cousin came from there with pictures. People are comfortable with Portland and Seattle being in the NHL (probably because of the history of hockey here) but it doesn't snow much in these parts. More rainy than anything. I am sure it doesn't snow that much in Vancouver either since I went there in January and there was no snow on the ground also it wasn't that bad, but I could be wrong.
 

schreibkrampf

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Jul 16, 2006
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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2003228522_blai27.html

New Sonics owner demanding "world class" arena (in Seattle) for NBA team, that is do-able for NHL team. But could be a ploy to move to Bellevue (a suburb).

Article includes a history of pro-hockey in Seattle.

First off, here is to the 1916-1917 Stanley Cup the Seattle Mets won !!!

A new arena is needed either way to keep the Sonics in there so you may as well build it to host NHL hockey.

I remember the old Coyotes arena being like that in the fact that you cannot see the ice from the upper balcony in one end. That arena also had the two beautiful support beams in the lower bowl that blocked the view of some fans.

It would be interesting to see if Seattle could support a team. Rumors in the past have always said that people are trying to move a team to Portland and to be honest with you moving them to Seattle might make a lot more sense.

It would also be interesting to see if the Canucks ownership would approve that being that their is a team in their 200 mile radius. The reason why I say that ... that is one of the main reasons why Hamilton has never been able to get a team because the Leafs make such a big stink.

I wonder if there was a team if the fans in Vancouver would ever really see the Van/Sea games as a rivalry?
 

Lam7825

Go Goldy Go!
I love these "NHL to Seattle" posts- as a resident of Puget Sound (Tacoma, actually), I can state positively that this area is hockey-Pejorative Slured (as someone said previously).
The Key Arena? Ruined for hockey by Barry Ackerley and his Sonics in 1994/95. The WHL Thunderbirds are drooling over a proposal from valley city Kent to build a new downtown entertainment and civic center, so they can finally leave Seattle Center. The old Arena was bad enough- but the new Key Arena is the worst for hockey- a horseshoe seating arrangement is ridiculous.
Everett Silvertips are faring well in their new building, with some early franchise success and a nice fan base. WCHL Sabercats didn't last long in Tacoma, nor did the WHL Rockets. Let's not even start to discuss the worst hockey venue ever in the Tacoma Dome............

And having lived here for 20 years, I know this area doesn't have the fan base to support pro hockey. If the Sonics manage to convince the cities of Bellevue or Kirkland or Renton to build them a nice new home, it still won't be enough to get an NHL team to flourish here. Personally, I'd love it- Vancouver is a 3+ hour drive to see a game, and I'm certain that Vancouver and San Jose would like a NW rivalry.

But it won't happen here. Mark my words. The Pacific Coast league did well here back in the day- Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Vancouver made a nice rivalry....but those times have changed. Hockey works in Vancouver because those Canuckleheads are serious, serious fans- and games there are an event because of pure Canadian passion for the game.

Meanwhile, I'm looking to move to Minnesota to see some snow and live in hockey country. A rink in every town.....gotta love it. :handclap:

Lauri from Tacoma :banghead:
 

Bear of Bad News

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You simply cannot compare poor support for a junior hockey team with the level of support an NHL team would receive.

But I'm sure it's easy to throw around terms like "Pejorative Slured". :shakehead
 

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