NHL expansion – four teams added by 2017, Quebec City, Toronto, Seattle, and Las Vegas $1.4b in expansion fees
— Howard Bloom (@SportsBizNews) August 27, 2014
It may be too soon to pull on your Seattle Metropolitans jersey, but sports business journalist Howard Bloom says that the NHL is planning to expand by 2017, with four new teams slated for Las Vegas, Quebec, Toronto, and yes, Seattle. All that’s missing here is an owner and an arena (and an actual plan to expand, says NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly, who denies Bloom’s report), but that can’t stop local hockey fans from dreaming.
Bloom told Q13 that Seattle’s rich junior hockey tradition and geographic proximity to Canadian markets makes it an ideal expansion city. No doubt the lack of winter sport competition from the NBA wouldn’t hurt either as a new team worked to win fans’ hearts and wallets.
So Bloom thinks Seattle should strongly consider revising the Memorandum of Understanding on the Sodo arena deal, to allow for construction with an NHL team first.
“Look, it’s pretty simple Seattle. If you want to have a major winter sport in your market, the NHL is knocking on your door then you’re going to entertain the people that are coming to you.”
Yeah, except it’s not that simple. The politics have gotten more complicated since former mayor Mike McGinn’s defeat, and there’s no indication that would-be new Sonics owner Chris Hansen has any interest in building an arena without an NBA team in his pocket. Still recovering from our abusive relationship with the NBA, if there’s any big city politically primed to tell the NHL to fuck off, it’s Seattle.
Which is a shame. Because I was really looking forward to pulling on that Seattle Metropolitans jersey.
If this city’s team is anything but the Metropolitans it will be a Babe Ruth level curse on them. Seattle has the FIRST EVER UNITED STATES Stanley Cup victory. “Seattle” is on that cup. You do not walk away from that tradition. Madness.
Trivia: when the 1917 Stanley Cup banner is hoisted into the new arena on Opening Night 2017, the Seattle Metropolitans will have gone exactly 100 years without a championship.
You walk away from that? Bad, bad, bad, bad sports ju-ju.
What’s wrong with Key Arena for NHL?
Who’s gonna pay for this? (Do I need to ask? Not kids holding car washes.)
Talk about a slippery slope. Once introduced by McChinn as “both NBA and NHL will sign on before we build” (and reviewed by Seattle’s blue ribbon committee on that basis), then revised to be NBA first, and now they’re talking about NHL expansion teams (because think of all the highly successful NHL expansion teams in the US).
I thought that Hansen going forward under that MOU without Ballmer was going to be financially draining but doing that for the NHL… lol.
@4 No slippery slope. It was always NBA first, never NBA and hockey. There were additional guarantees put in there to assure that Hansen covered the costs, even without an NHL team. And Hansen has shown no interest in building the arena without an NBA team.
To build this arena for an NHL team would require a new MOU, and most likely a new partner to share the cost of building the arena, because Hansen has no interest in owning an NHL team.
Finally, Hansen doesn’t need Ballmer. Ballmer was a minority partner brought on in order to up the local ownership angle.
That said, it doesn’t look likely to happen. The MOU will likely expire before Hansen snags a franchise, and Mayor Murray is hostile to the whole thing anyway.
I guess that depends on your definition of what “always” is.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seat.....00-dpi.pdf Signed by Hansen
No public funds committed until NBA and NHL franchises secured.
http://www.seattle.gov/arena/d.....Report.pdf
pg 6 of the seattle review panel’s final report also says nba and nhl
Now would be a good time to do what Blethen can’t and admit when you’re wrong.
@6 I was working from recollection, and specifically referring to the MOUs, but yes, clearly from the documents you cited the public was first told it would require both times. So I stand corrected on a hastily written comment in a comment thread.
Quebec – okay. But Toronto already has the Maple Leafs!
Wow. Was it as painful to write that as it was for me to read it? You forgot to add, “yes–mistakes were made.”