Originally posted by chongo:
Originally posted by dnewma04:
If all you canadian fans are such die hard fans, what happened to Jets and the Nordiques? Can't make money there, so they move them to states where the bandwagon fans keep them afloat.




Hmmmmm
This statement man you have no idea how wrong that is.....

The teams weren't moved because of lack of fan support. They moved because other US city's offered a more lucrative deal than the city's they came from.



Let's see, they moved because it wasn't economically viable to stay...hmmm...sounds like what I said. Can't afford to keep the teams. You have Ottawa who is one of the top 3-4 teams in the league, and they had weeks last year where the team couldn't pay their players. Then you have Edmonton, who let's any talent they develop go sign with another team because they can't afford to keep them....whether it's the Canadian dollar or lack of advertising revenue, or just ownership and cities not committed to keeping the teams, the fact remains that it was based on financial reasons.
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The real problem is the value of the US$ vs CDN$. That's the real reason we lose Canadian teams.
We have to pay all our players in US$ and this adds a more challenging problem on how to make up the difference through revenues. If the Jets stayed in Winnipeg your damn skippy they would've been better off...



How is the currency exchange the problem? It's just a currency conversion and anyone with a single high school level accounting class should understand that if you have pay employees in USD, then you account for the conversion in all other aspects of business. If it takes 40.00 USD tickets, you don't sell them for 40.00 CD.

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Pittisburgh, Phoniex, Carolina etc can't get fans into the arena, but we had no problem filling them.

Minnesota didn't leave for Dallas because of lack of fan support they left cause the owner was greedy!



No doubt there is greed in the sports business...again, part of economics...Do we make just enough in Minnesota or do we move to Dallas for a lot more money and incentives. You'd be a fool to stay.

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I compared the Superbowl only as an example. If the Superbowl gets those type of ratings no matter who's playing then any sport should be able to do the same.
It's upto the NHL to market the game to bring it up to that level.





And I completely disagree with any other sport comparing to the NFL or Super Bowl. The World Series and NBA finals ratings vary drastically depending on the teams playing. They can't and won't in the foreseeable future. The NHL can only hope for a more solid 4th place in pro sports. The NHL gets absolutely atrocious shares when they are on TV and most of the networks aren't offering much to get dead air. Actually, the first priority for the NHL is continued existence, once they get around that issue, then they can worry about marketing it more successfully.

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I agree that large market teams would be what the NHL/fans would want in the finals, but with so many teams in the league it won't happen.
Having tons of money (large market) to buy a great team doesn't work.
The coach and player chemistry does, so it's unpredictable as to who will win to be there.

If you always want the large market teams to be in the stanley cup final then get it back to the original 6 or 8.





The only unpredictable teams in the last 10 years have been Carolina, Buffalo and Anaheim. And all of them didn't do much for ratings, even with Detroit, Dallas, and NJ on the other side.

I guess my main point is that as much as I love hockey, it will always be a fringe sport with a small but loyal fanbase. It will NEVER be the NBA or even MLB...and it certainly can't ever hope to even remotely compare to the NFL. I love your idea of reducing the number of teams. Get rid of half of the teams, get rid of the instigating rule, make goalie's pads smaller, more intense training for referees, and market it only to the diehards. Expansion into a bigger market has failed and alienated the true fans.


"If you are flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit" -Mitch Hedberg