This is difficult to write, so bear with me. If there are grammatical errors, or typographical mistakes, please be kind, understand, and keep your criticisms short and sweet. Or better yet, find forgiveness in your souls, and don’t criticize at all. Anyways, here goes (inhale); the idea of a second NHL team in Toronto, is a trial balloon that the NHL should fully explore and try to implement (exhale). More than that, it is the best idea the NHL has had in years.
Toronto is, for better or worse, the centre of the hockey universe. It’s the Canadian headquarters for NHL operations. It’s the headquarters for TSN, and CBC, the only networks that broadcast hockey that really, truly matter (sorry to be so harsh, Sportsnet & Versus). It’s the headquarters for the team that receives the most attention on a national basis, even when that team is going to be so abysmal, it’s comical. Most importantly, it’s a city crying out for another team so that true hockey fans would actually be able to attend.
We all know the jokes that you are as likely to hear a conversation about hockey at a Leafs game, as you are to see racial diversity at a McCain-Palin rally, but what about all the real hockey fans currently shut out in the Toronto market, relegated to shouting at their televisions and/or crying when they realize how bad the team is they are supporting? You don’t think there are enough fans and potential corporate support in the Toronto market to support a second (and this is key) more affordable team?
Currently, the New York market supports three teams (I am allowing myself some geographical license by including New Jersey in the New York market). I see no reason, and no legitimate argument why the Toronto market can’t support another team (hello Nashville!) Additionally, I think that Toronto could add another team, and there still be room to put a team in the Southwestern Ontario market (hello Atlanta!). Put another team back in Winnipeg (hello Florida!), and you now have the makings of a league that has actual fan support in the majority of its markets. (The fact I even had to write that sentence about fan support goes to show how dumb the NHL under Gary Bettman has been.)
The only caveat I put on this Toronto plan is that the new team in Toronto HAS to come there via relocation of a current franchise. The idea of putting a brand new expansion team in Toronto is simply, asinine. The NHL needs to contract teams if it wants to return to the exciting brand of hockey that some of us once knew, as opposed to the slow languid pace to which we are currently subjected (Note: if the only reason hockey is now fast paced is because they have had to change the rules to ensure power-plays and thus speed, the game is slow). If the NHL was to move the teams to the markets I have suggested, plus explore the possibility of somehow folding/contracting one or two more franchises, than the NHL would truly, magically, miraculously, be on the right track for once. Unfortunately, as has characterized the Bettman era, I remain less than optimistic that this will happen.
For Illegal Curve, I am Drew Mindell.
Join the discussion in the comments section, and listen to the weekly Illegal Curve Pod-cast for more hockey news, notes, and opinions.
