“NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly acknowledged Monday morning that the establishment of a second franchise in Southern Ontario is a possibility.
And if the Toronto Maple Leafs don’t like it, Daly said in so many words, they can lump it.
However Daly would not speculate on when this could happen.
“I suppose, without talking about time frame, there may be,” he said of the possibility.”(source-David Shoalts, Globe Sports)
After all the speculation as too the possible reasons for why the NHL was so intent on blocking billionaire Jim Balsillie from re-locating The Phoenix Coyotes to Hamilton during the off season, it’s still somewhat unclear what was really going on.
What is clear is that the league already had designs on putting a team in southern Ontario, and it’s more likely than not that it was the expansion fee that would be collected from the potential buyer(s) that was the real motivator to block Balsillie.
The expansion fee amount is speculated to be in the neighbourhood of $500 million (US Dollars), which is over double what Balsillie was bidding for the Coyotes.
It’s hard to say what’s really going on behind the scenes when you’re talking about the NHL front office, but this had the feel of lawyers all over it and it truly re-enforces the fact that hockey (all major sports for that matter) is really a business.
That’s not to suggest that I ever had any other impression of the reality here, but it does sting a bit with the whole “make it 7″ campaign that Balsillie was trumpeting. For me that whole thing wasn’t about Canada or patriotism per say, it was about the feeling that the fans had a voice and Balsillie was listening.
What a novel idea?
To actually listen to the people who fill the stands, gather in bars and restaurants, crowd around the television at home and friends houses to watch the product your selling. The same people who are wondering why the NHL is so opposed to what seems so obvious to them. Why wouldn’t the NHL want to listen to the voice of the passionate hockey fans who only want something to cheer for?
There’s no doubt that Balsillie was looking to make money too but at least he gave the impression that he was interested in serving the southern Ontario hockey fans with an option other than the Toronto Maple Leafs. The NHL is giving an entirely different impression.
#1 by johnny at November 9th, 2009
NHL is definately a business. The Leafs are different though. Lets say you went to a bar to watch a game and you ordered 20 wings and a jug of beer. A fat chick with no teeth brought you 12 wings and a jug of flat beer and the bill was 230 dollars. This bar would be called the Maple Leafs. Everyone knows that a team in southern ontario would make it more difficult for the leafs to get away with this, and i look forward to that time. Not to cheer for the other team, but maybe cheer for a better leaf team.
#2 by Derek at November 9th, 2009
Well said Johnny… Does the NHL not have some part of this bar though?
#3 by Brinny at November 9th, 2009
Bahahahahahaha……. I love it!! So True!!
#4 by Mark at November 10th, 2009
The NHL will mess this up in some way, as they always seem to do.
#5 by Joe at November 16th, 2009
The leafs are the laughing stock of the league generation after generation of failure the NHL should come back to Canada but Winnipeg is probably the best choice overall then maybe Quebec or Hamilton how the leafs ever became so embarrassingly pathetic is not hard to understand if you ever met the idiots who call themselves torontonians