This has not been an issue lately, I realize that. Will the NHL ever come to Houston? Eventually. The NHL is going to have to get their financial house in order first. Then there's the arena situation. Rockets owner, Les Alexander, will have control of all revenues in the new arena. If Les were to own the NHL team, there would be no situation. He's thought about buying an NHL team in the past. Unlike the NBA, there's no salary cap and revenue sharing in the NHL meaning, he's not in a hurry to buy an NHL team for Houston.
well it definitely couldn't be an expansion team because houston fans won't support it unless it's winning. football doesn't count. i could see it maybe working if we brought in an established, competitive team but i don't know if any franchises are looking to move.
I've heard that if we do get a team it would most likely be one of the Canadian franchises. I know Les has tried before unsuccesfully. If the new arena is planned to be a b-ball/hockey site it's going to hurt the b-ball side because it's accomadating both. Since that's the case we'd better get a team. I only fear for the fan attendance.
i don't think fan attendance for a bad team here would be any worse than it would be in places like charlotte, atlanta, miami, or los angeles. we have a huge corporate base that would gobble up tickets and, more importantly, luxury boxes. would it be a hockey hotbed??? no....would it support a team well enough to justify its existence....absolutely!
Ottawa or Edmonton would relocate here. I rather have Ottawa than the Edmonton Franchise. Edmonton comes with too much baggage. That Wayne O' guy. Yeah, Who ever he is, I wouldn't want that number 99 hanging in a rafter in a Houston Arena.
It would so not work here. In Dallas, it seems that they are eager enough to 'be cool' like other cities, that they'd watch a couple of dogs crap if it was all the rage in New York or LA. I see absolutely no way that we'd support the NHL here at NHL type prices.
Where will all those coporation dollars come from? After spending on the Texans, Astros and new Rockets arena seats I can't see a lot of dollars being left around. I think hockey would be a horrible failure in this town. There just isn't enough interest from the people who spend that kind of money. The majority of Aeros fans can't afford NHL and don't want it here for that reason. Even they don't draw well. os
OldSchool -- where would corporate dollars come from??? are you kidding?? if this town is good for anything, it's a corporate base!!! last I checked, we were 2nd in the nation in number of Fortune 500 companies here, tied with Chicago. These companies throw money at tickets like nobody's business....they don't think, "oh, we bought tickets to the Texans, so we're not gonna buy Astros seats this year." Ask Enron, who even in the midst of bankruptcy made sure they were current on their season tickets!!! don't equate hard-core Aeros' fans with potential NHL fans...they're not the same. I'll give you that there are some just so hungry for hockey, they'd pay anything for it. But the Aeros sell on the fact they're a pro sports team that sells lower-priced tickets. That's not the audience you get at an NHL game. Again, if Charlotte and Miami can support it, so can Houston. I GUARANTEE that an NHL team in Houston, Texas would be more profitable than leaving it in Ottawa. Unless they're talking of retraction, franchise free agency is the only solution...and Houston is the largest open market available. It doesn't have to be the hottest ticket in town to be successful to NHL standards...the NHL isn't the hottest ticket in most towns in the US. But that doesn't meant it can't be profitable here...and it doesn't mean that it can't be relatively successful compared to franchises in other cities. Hell, the local TV deal alone would be probably twice what Charlotte brings in!
givne the lack of major pro-expansion teams added to the Houston market over the last 30 years (with the Texans being the only major expansion team we've had), I don't see where this blanket statement comes from. After 3 or 4 years, if the team still sucks, they will have fairweather fan attendance. But people in Houston, like people everywhere, do like to be "cool." The first few years in town, suck or not, people would just want to go see a pro-NHL game. I've been to some minor league hockey games and they're real fun. But if it was an NHL team, for some reason, regadless of the higher prices, I think I would just go much more, especially initially. I think the NHL in Houston is a great idea and would love to see it.
Actually, an NHL team here wouldn't be an expansion franchise because, well, the NHL isn't expanding anymore...Of course, this IS the same league that put an NHL team in Columbus, OH for some reason...
2nd arena? A new arena would have to be built, mostly private funded, for an NHL team to come to Houston.
SOmeone who lived in Ohio recently told me Columbus is it's most populated city. Maybe not the biggest TV market, but does the attendance do poorly?
Not a chance. With the non-compete agreement the Rockets have in the new arena, that won't happen. Actually, I got a bit of insight into this issue a while back. I was having a conversation during the arena campaign about the Rockets attempts to buy the Senators (that was the team, right?). I was told that Les Alexander knew going in that his chances of getting the team were not great and that he would very likely be villified by the press in Ottowa. Both things happened but he graciously backed down when the team sold enough seats to keep the team. The implication of this was that the NHL really wanted the Senators to remain in Ottawa but they felt like the city needed some competition that, until Alexander, hadn't emerged. Apparently, the city couldn't even enact the clause that allowed them to keep the team with ticket sales unless there was an offer to buy the team. In essence, they were not allowed to bid on the team, only to MATCH an outside offer. As a result, the NHL put Alexander knowingly into a losing situation and Alexander went along willingly. The NHL, according to what I was told, assured Alexander that they would be more supportive of him the next time around if he were to acquire a new arena and attempt to re-locate a struggling franchise. So, my guess is that, when the new arena is finished and the Rockets are in a better position financially than they are at the moment, talks with an NHL franchise will happen.
It's Ottawa Jeff. Don't worry. It's only our nation's capital. I'm sure you wouldn't expect me to be able to spell Warshinktun right either. Houston has a long tradition of hockey too, IIRC. Mr. Hockey and his sons played there for a number of years. I don't think that any more Canadian teams will be moving. Ottawa was never really in danger of leaving. They have a brand new arena they built for the team, which has no other major tenant. They were just playing games trying to get some government support or tax breaks. Calgary and Edmonton are getting killed by free agency, which better be an issue that is dealt with in the new CBA, but if either of these moved the credibility of the league would be seriously in jeopardy here in Canada. Several teams in the States are struggling, including Carolina and the Florida teams, so I expect that it would be one of those teams that would move.
Of course, there was a similar scuttlebutt in regards to Les supposedly helping Edmonton keep the Oilers a few years back. Is there ever going to be a team that the NHL wants to move to Houston, or will Les forever be the guy who gets to threaten so the NHL can spur the locals into fighting to keep the team. I suspect that Houston will be a straw dog several more times for the NHL. I'll believe the NHL's coming to Houston when I actually see a team skating out onto the ice for their first home game at the new arena. As for Carolina and the Florida teams, here in the states, we have these things called 'leases' that tie teams to their facilities for many years. The Hurricanes have several decades left on their lease, making it cost prohibitive to attempt to move them (and things are supposedly getting better there). The Tampa Bay Lightning are owned by the guy who owns the master lease for the arena, one would hardly expect him to sell the team to be moved since that would leave him with a new arena (opened in 1996) without a major tennant. Same story in Sunrise with the Panthers. With each passing day, there are fewer and fewer teams that could even be considered for movement, and the few that actually make sense to move are apparently protected by the League these days. All that adds up to No NHL in Houston, at least in my opinion. Think about it, if the Canadian teams are off the table and Carolina and the Florida teams are off the table and Anaheim is off the table, what teams are left to move?
Leases often have out clauses, and in any event, if an owner can't sustain a team in a city, it's in the best interests of everybody to come to some kind of settlement, rather than let the team go bankrupt. You sound like you're more up on the health of US teams than I am. San Jose was for sale recently, and sold I believe. I don't suppose they ever considered moving though. There are some teams in bizarre places down there. Nashville? Atlanta? How big is Nashville? The Islanders were in big trouble for a while, but their current owner has deep enough pockets to pay Yashin nearly $100 million, so they must be ok. New Jersey, despite all their success, has threatened to move a couple of times. I don't know what the most likely candidate would be.
That was who it was - Edmonton, not Ottawa. It was the Oilers. Duh, I should've remembered that because of the name. Sorry for the mixup.
Columbus is the largest city in Ohio. The Bluejackets do well in attendence, maybe not as well as their expansion sister, Minnesota, but they still do well in attendence.
