nyrmessier011 said:
minnesota and columbus wasn't bad expansion. tampa bay, florida, san jose, atlanta, nashville was...not to mention moving a team to phoenix...thanks Gary
By the way you do know that Gary Bettman had absolutely nothing to do with the expansion to San Jose, Ottawa, Tampa, Florida, and Anaheim - they happened before he was even commissioner. I'm surprised you left out Anaheim (or do you actually think that was a good expansion location).
But my main point (as I've posted here before):
Why doesn't San Jose get any respect???
It was the prime expansion locale for the first round of expansion. The league even jumped though hoops with the whole North Star's threaten to move to Oakland musical ownership fiasco to keep San Jose open for expansion.
You do realize that San Jose is the 10th largest city in the United States (It recently passed Detroit into the top 10). It passed San Francisco a decade ago.
San Jose is also probably the most affluent of all the NHL markets - there are a lot of people with a lot of disposible income. It supports a median house price of well over half-a-million dollars. It is not quite the dot com boom years, but there still is a lot of corporate support.
San Jose is also a market of migrants - there are a lot of people here from New York, Boston, Chicago, Canada, etc who came here for jobs. You can joke that no one here is really from here - but it's largely true.
I grew up an Islander Season Ticket holder before and during the glory years and I can appreciate another intangible that San Jose has as a market - the name. This is an area (like Long Island) that was always in the shadow of the bigger city next door. Being the first (and only) major league sports team in San Jose was a significant draw.
San Jose has not had problems with attendance. They even managed to sell out the Cow Palace (40 miles away and by far the worst dump in recent NHL history) for two of the worst teams in NHL history. They pretty much were a complete sellout for their first 3 years in San Jose (a 100+ sellout streak) and had over 14,000 Season Ticket Holders and a STH waiting list. Even in their down (non-playoff) years they kept very good attendence. They've had one real down year in the debacle in 2002-03, but that was still 85%+ capacity.
Youth hockey is growing incredibly in Norther California thanks to the Sharks. Logitech Ice (the Sharks practice and public ice facility) is the largest public ice facility west of the Mississippi.
San Jose, a bad expansion choice - NO.