Quebec City Needs Patience with NHL

It’s not a state secret that Quebec City wants an NHL team back in Quebec, it is also not a secret that Quebecor, the future owners of that potential team, are really hoping that they will be granted an NHL franchise. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Quebec City will someday have a team to call their own, likely with a familiar name being the Nordiques, but right now people need to have patience.

Quebec City and Las Vegas both placed bids and made pitches to the NHL telling everyone in the hockey world that they are ready to bring the League to their respective cities. Technically Quebec should have a small advantage over Las Vegas seeing as they have a state of the art arena ready to go and a fan base more than ready to support. Las Vegas is currently building their venue and apparently has many people interested in purchasing tickets. Vegas currently has no major league sports teams and is looking to change that. Although they would have to grow the game in Vegas and get people who live there interested in the sport and the team, Quebec fans don’t need to learn with the city starving for a return of a familiar logo.

It sounds like it should be an easy decision for the NHL to make, but Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs didn’t seem like he and other NHL owners are 100% ready to accept expansion just yet.

“I don’t know if there’s a desire or will within the board of the existing franchises for expansion yet, but they both made very interesting proposals. Both have very legitimate arenas in place and organizations in place. There’s a capacity out there, I don’t know if there’s a will from a league standpoint.”

-Jeremy Jacobs

When the NHL sent out all the applications for expansion to all the different potential ownership groups, along with Quebec City and Las Vegas they were hoping for many bids from groups in Seattle, Toronto, Kansas, etc. In the end they got two bids, they were happy to take them, there’s no doubt about that, but there is reason to believe they wanted more. There are also a few other things that might lead to NHL delaying expansion to one, or both teams.

First off, the NHL needs to fix their conferences. Right now there are only 14 teams in the Western Conference, with 16 in the East. The ideal plan would be to make the conferences even. The Canadian dollar has been weak recently, affecting revenue streams. This and the recent Rogers and NBC T.V. deals could affect a new team in Canada with their finances. The NHL is keeping an eye on the constant headache that is the Arizona Coyotes and the financial situations of the Carolina Hurricanes and the Florida Panthers any of these teams could be on the move at some point.

There is also the potential of the NHL only expanding to Las Vegas. Beating the NFL, NBA and MLB would be good to get fans in, so it shouldn’t be a surprise if the League wants to get its feet wet in that regard. However, before the fans of Quebec cry foul and get their torches and pitch forks out, there is another possibility other than expansion. Three teams in the NHL are struggling financially and are having a hard time drawing fans, those are the aforementioned Coyotes, Hurricanes and Panthers. The last team on that list has a very feisty team building, too. If and when one of these teams has to relocate, the NHL would need a city and a building ready for that team to move to and Quebec is an ideal place especially if the Panthers and Hurricanes end up moving seeing as they are in the Eastern Conference.

We still don’t know what will happen yet, whether the NHL expands to one, or two cities, or if they decide to wait a while. If the end result isn’t something the people of Quebec City aren’t happy with, what they need to do is show patience, just like what the Winnipeg fans and ownership did. Don’t burn any bridges, don’t upset the wrong people. The NHL knows Quebec wants a team and they do seem interested in putting a franchise there. It might not happen today, it might not happen tomorrow, but some day it will happen, just be patient.

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Quote from Jacobs courtesy of NESN