Earlier this year, reports surfaced that the the NHL has expansion plans for the near future, and that the league was looking at expanding by as many as four teams. And it’s almost no surprise who three of the cities who have publicly announced their intentions are: Quebec City, Seattle, and Southern Ontario (this time disguised as a second Toronto team but it could also be Hamilton, London, Kitchener, or Oshawa. It does not matter.)
The fourth city, Las Vegas, is one of those dubious Gary Bettman-type cities that he has too often burdened the NHL with during his time as Commissioner. It has no real hockey roots, but is chosen to get a better television contract and prove to the networks and everyone else that the NHL is a “big four” sport in the United States.
Two expansion teams are all that is needed to reach a symmetrical 32. The NHL could then reshuffle its structure again to a sensible NFL-type format of two conferences with four divisions of four teams. This sensible arrangement would then allow the league to keep expanding to the next symmetrical number of 40 and perhaps even 48 teams.
So why not expand with just two teams? Quebec City and league balance are the answers.
In 2010, Bettman made a tour of the three cities who lost their teams in the 1990s, Winnipeg, Quebec, and Hartford, and stated the terms for readmission to the league: acceptable ownership and an NHL-worthy arena.
To solve his Atlanta woes, Bettman proclaimed the small 15,000 seat arena Winnipeg had built acceptable and with Canada’s richest man as owner, the Thrashers became the reborn Jets.
Now Quebec is also complying with Bettman’s terms. They are building with taxpayer’s money, a modern arena above the NHL 18,000 seat median and media giant Quebecor will certainly be an acceptable owner.
There is just one problem; the league is realigned.
Back in 2010, two NHL teams, the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets were stuck in the Western Conference, which meant declining television viewers and revenue and large travel expenses.
For years they had been demanding to be moved to the Eastern Conference and after the NHL signed the new CBA, the league complied.
Under the old structure, it would have been easy to admit Quebec back to the league because the Western Conference had more teams, but now the opposite is true and the NHL wants to balance things up.
Gary Bettman and the NHL have no choice but to expand to Quebec City. It does not look good to taxpayers/investors to spend $400 million on an arena in expectation of a future franchise and then double-cross them.
You won’t get good future investors in your league that way. It was impossible to find an investor to keep the Thrashers in Atlanta and it took years to find an owner to keep the Coyotes in Arizona. Bettman’s unofficial promise to Quebec has to be honored.
So Quebec will be part of the next expansion group, whatever number it is. Bettman and the NHL’s credibility are on the line.
And it won’t be hard to accept Quebec. If the NHL can accept smaller Winnipeg and its tiny (for the NHL) arena that has Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Northern Ontario for a market, then they can easily accept the larger Quebec City with a proper NHL-sized arena and a much bigger market which includes all of eastern Quebec and the Maritimes.
So the only intriguing question is how will the NHL expand. There are probably three choices.
- Expand only to Quebec and Seattle now, realign the league and then balance up the conferences in a future expansion.
- Expand the league by four teams with Quebec and three western teams.
- Expand the league by four teams now by choosing the best four cities regardless of where they are located, and then balance up the league with future western expansion. One of these four teams would be Quebec.
Regardless of what actually happens, it would appear that before the end of this decade, the lost Nordiques will finally be back home in the NHL.
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