Quebec City was one of only two cities to submit bids for an NHL expansion franchise last week, which means it’s time for major Canadian newspapers to explain why the League’s inherent bias against the Great White North will prevent the return of the Nordiques.

The Globe & Mail editorial page featured this piece on expansion, which we’ll attempt to translate for you here:

Quebec City recently completed a major public infrastructure project ahead of schedule, and under budget. The normal course of events would see its spanking new, $370-million arena occupied by an NHL team. That’s why so much (public) money went into the building. The timing even looks to be ideal, as the league is in the midst of receiving applications for expansion franchises; two cities could advance to the next stage. What’s more, there are only two bidders – aspiring owners in Quebec and Las Vegas – for those maximum two expansion slots. The return of hockey to hockey-mad Quebec would seem to be as easy as scoring an empty-net goal from inside the crease.

It isn’t.

Yes, the normal course of events is to build a state-of-the-art arena and then have the NHL drop a team into it like a coin in a fountain.

As Kansas City will no doubt tell you …

The fact is that Quebec built an arena well before the NHL’s formal decision to explore expansion. One assumes they were privy to that new cycle’s arrival, but by no means was there a direct line between “build an arena” and “acquire a team,” nor is that a “normal course of events.”

Anyone distracting themselves from the summer heat with daydreams of a revived Nordiques vs. Montreal Canadiens rivalry (The Battle of Quebec! The Good Friday Massacre!) had best take a deep breath. Just because Québecor principal shareholder/aspiring premier Pierre Karl Péladeau and irrepressible Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume built the Vidéotron Centre (with, we again note, a massive helping of taxpayer dollars) doesn’t mean the NHL will come.

But bilking a municipality out of millions of taxpayer dollars in order to build an arena that may or may not house a team is the normal course of events!

If anything, the NHL appears eager to avoid Quebec City, or any other location in hockey’s northern homeland. Here’s looking at you, Hamilton.

Hamilton had one thing going for it, and then he (a) sold season tickets for the Hamilton Predators before he even owned the Nashville Predators and (b) attempted to use bankruptcy courts as a backdoor to NHL ownership because he knew the Board of Governors would never approve him and (c) is, to this day, having to defend his pursuit of an NHL team within the context of his company’s fall from its tech throne.

So yes, here’s looking at you, Hamilton, and the smoldering carcass of your golden goose.

Los Angeles has two NHL teams but the Toronto area still has but one; artificially limiting hockey supply in the biggest hockey market on Earth predictably leads to the Leafs recording league-topping revenues, year after year, regardless of their record on the ice.

The NHL has denied for years that the Toronto Maple Leafs had veto power over another team in the market, despite the team having inferred as such when Jim Balsillie attempted to make his Hamilton move.

But the kicker here, obviously, is that the NHL can only grant a franchise to someone that wants to buy one and house one. And did Toronto submit an expansion bid for a second team this week? See: Paragraph One.

Winnipeg only got its Jets back in 2011 because, when the Atlanta Thrashers went into financial cardiac arrest, Winnipeg was the one hospital available. It was a similar story for Calgary in 1980, after an earlier attempt at Sunbelt expansion failed: When the Atlanta Flames flamed out, they were moved north. (Recite now the Canadian Hockey Fan’s Prayer: Almighty NHL, we beseech thee, put another team in Atlanta. Please.)

It should be also said that Winnipeg played the backroom handshake game better than many other suitors have with the NHL, keeping talks private and off the record. Rather, than, you know, doing everything Quebec City has done so far.

At first glance, Quebec City’s bid ticks all of the league’s boxes: deep-pocketed corporate owner, ready-made television deal, rabid fan base and, of course, a state-of-the art arena, gifted by taxpayers. It might not matter.

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