More Moving Rumors

As some of you, including Ben Wright, is aware there are more rumors about the Thrashers sale and relocation. Of Course the official position from the Thrashers is that we're not going anywhere, and I do believe that, for the record.

Friday, Feb. 12, 2010
Scott Taylor’s CITI Sports Reports
92 CITI FM IS AN OFFICIAL STATION OF THE VANCOUVER 2010 OLYMPIC RADIO NETWORK.OK, here’s the rumour: Wealthy David Thomson of Toronto, the man who most of the shares of the MTS Centre and True North Sports and Entertainment in Winnipeg, has purchased the Atlanta Thrashers of the National Hockey League and will move them to Winnipeg for the 2010-11 season. The Moose will move to Saskatoon. The announcement will be made right after the Olympics. Believe whatever it is you want to believe.

There's the rumor. The level of bullshit wafting from this is enough to give most fertilizer companies a chub just by being around it.

As much as Canadians long for another team, and I want them to get one, it isn't going to be a Southern hockey team. You may get one in expansion but it will not be relocation of a Southern hockey team. Did Bettman's titanic struggle in the desert of Arizona not teach you anything?

New flash for all you Canadians and Gary Bettman haters...it isn't the commissioner that is making all these decisions. You have to realize that the owners of the NHL collectively got together and hired him and gave him a mission. That mission being to expand the reach of hockey on the North American continent. It serves the NHL no good to contain hockey to the Northern United States and Canada only, and this isn't me talking this is the NHL ownership and their appointed commissioner. The goal collectively of the NHL was to move into Southern markets and make them work, and they are looking on a much longer time scale than most people are giving them credit for.

Because hockey is a sport that must be built from the grass roots the NHL has been trying to make amateur hockey more popular in the Southern areas and thus building their fan base not from the existing adults, who are used to sustain the club at this point, but to grow their fan base from children who have been exposed to it their whole lives and grow to be adults spending their dollars on hockey. That means that by their business model they aren't expecting large attendance growth in Southern markets for the first 20 years of existence by a club.

Now, the other side of this coin is that you have to give fans a reason to come out and watch hockey when your club is younger. It's easier for somebody like Boston or the long suffering Maple Leafs to live a life of mediocrity and still do well financially because hockey is an ingrained part of the local sports landscape and doesn't have to compete at the highest level to still garner fan support because those fans have been fans since they could watch and understand the sport. In the South it's a much different story for hockey, they are trying to carve out their place in a competitive sports market that will not tolerate mediocrity or worse failure.

Now, back to Atlanta...the NHL is very committed to making Southern hockey work and they are nowhere ready to throw in the towel. Like I stated before, if you think that Bettman is ready to let Atlanta relocate I suggest you take a long hard look at the Coyotes. This club is nowhere close to the shape that Phoenix was in and the NHL pulled out every stop it could to not only block the relocation of, but to sustain the club until new ownership could be found that was committed to keeping the franchise where it was. Phoenix is not as big an area as Atlanta, I'm pretty confident that before any move were made that Gary Bettman would exhaust all means at his disposal before allowing that to happen.

The Atlanta Thrashers, however, must soon begin to make themselves competitive to maintain sustainability in Atlanta and it's extremely tough market for entertainment spending. The only way that that is going to happen is with prolonged success on the ice. The question then becomes how to achieve that success, to that end, perhaps it's time for Gary Bettman and the NHL to step in and give the ASG some "advice" on how to make that happen.

The Thrashers aren't going anywhere and all the rumors of Winnipeg, Hamilton and Quebec getting a Southern team are just that...rumors....whispers on the wind...and with the ever changing wind, so will the rumors appear and disappear