You can watch here:

http://www.nhl.com/

I will never attend a hockey game again....fuck bettman, fuck goodnow, the game has been ruined.

The game was ruined when they decided to play hockey in such hotbeds as Tampa, Miami, Nashville, Carolina, San Jose, Anaheim, Phoenix and Columbus and teams moved out of Quebec, Winnipeg, Minnesota (the first time), etc.

yeah how could you relocate the Hartford Whalers?

To the extent you're being sarcastic, the NHL could have simply retracted instead of relocated . . .

not so simple. the players union likely wouldn't have looked to fondly on contraction.

Considering its harsh stance against a salary cap and the constant complaint that expansion to markets that wouldn't necessarily otherwise support a team is what's lead to the horrible financial state of the game, I would find it interesting how it would reconcile the two points.

because less teams means less players, which means some union members will be out of a job. and lets face it, most teams who relocated did so for financial reasons so lets not act like this was a hugely successful league financially before the expansion and relocation days set in.

I understand the argument . . . but it still doesn't mesh with the union's reasonings for opposing a salary cap based on needless expansion. You can't reconcile the two.

the players stance against the cap was based on a number of reasons. "needless expansion" by the owners probably ranked low on the list.

but thats my point, if all these teams were doing so well financially why did they relocate? my point is that the nhl has never had the TV contracts that the nfl or nba has, the league doesnt get the exposure as the other leagues, this is a financially inferior league to the other leagues and has been for a while, the argument that expansion and relocation is what caused this mess has some truth, but you can also argue the lack of financial success is what lead to the expansion and relocation, there is no guarantee that if the hurricanes were still in hartford and the nashville and atlanta teams didnt exist that the league would be better off financially.

Where else can you get great quotes like this:

Barry Melrose - "It's been like a toilet seat all season long, up and down."

That's taken from page 9 in the mullet handbook

The argument from the league isn't that only a few teams are in the red, it's that the whole league is in the red based on the debt that it had to absorb. The union argues that by relocating and starting new franchises, the league only exacerbated the problem. Hence, any arguments against contraction would have been tough to rationalize.



Of course there's no guarantee, however you have to concede that expansion has had a negative financial effect on the game (in addition to the other reasons you mentioned).

What do you think he's been doing all off-season?

Taking "Bathroom Metaphors 101"

Funny, I haven't seen him in the General Discussion forum . . .

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

honestly im not positive on this so this is more a question than an argument, but where are you getting the expansion has had a negative financial effect on the league? i believe on here a few days ago someone said atlanta sells 85% of their tickets, nashville does pretty well attendence wise, not sure about columbus, i would say minnesota does quite well, and the teams that relocated werent doing well to begin with so you cant really blame them for this mess if they still arent doing well. the problem is the tv contracts arent as big as they are in the other major sports, the merchandise doesnt sell as well as in other majore sports, etc etc, yet the owners gave alot of contracts to players like they were playing in one of the other leagues, and the players feel they should be payed like they are in a more financially stable league.