Posted June 24, 201510 yr comment_127947 gary lawless ✔ @garylawless Two more NHL teams, every fringe player in the league can now comfortably buy that new boat. Water in summer, watered down in winter. randy turner ✔ @randyturner15 LRT: Only two weeks after Gary Bettman HNIC interview saying expansion not on NHL "radar", Bettman will announce plans for NHL expansion.
June 24, 201510 yr Author comment_127957 Business is business. Ill embrace it for that reason. Nothing you can do about it. Watered down? Ofcourse but thats the way it is. I like Bettman but this is why people dont take him seriously - he lies and lies and lies. He flat out lied to HNIC two weeks ago. Interesting aspect is where they expand. With the Coyotes in disarray, they might want to keep a soft landing spot open for them. So on one hand, Vegas is the easiest place to move the Coyotes. But Quebec could be seen as the softest landing spot...a city they dont *want* to return to but know it will succeed. The difference between Quebec and Winnipeg is that Quebec is likely seen as a city that would pay a massive expansion fee whereas Winnipeg wasnt. So in essence, Bettman helped Winnipeg out by painting the Jets as doing the NHL a favour and getting the Thrashers for a relative song. if I had to guess, I'd say expansion to Vegas and Seattle. With Arizona relocating to Quebec. But it could just as easily be expansion to Quebec and Vegas with Seattle as the back up plan. But Seattle is the furthest from ready and if the Yotes go t!ts up over night, they need a quicky relocation. Quebec is the easiest and Vegas is pretty easy too once the arena is complete.
June 24, 201510 yr comment_127958 Bettman is such a typical lawyer...greasy piece of ****. **** that guy. Anything to make money for the Governors, even at the cost of the quality of games.
June 24, 201510 yr Author comment_127961 Bettman is such a typical lawyer...greasy piece of ****. **** that guy. Anything to make money for the Governors, even at the cost of the quality of games. Its been said before but deserves repeating: Bettman doesnt run the NHL, the owners do. Bettman serves at their pleasure. They want more teams, more money and a wider TV deal. Its Bettman's job to go out and do it. He does a very, very good job. Just no reason for him to lie.
June 24, 201510 yr comment_127967 Lawless is right the fringe players can rest easy.. Welcome back Antropov, wellwood and Galiardi lol
June 24, 201510 yr comment_127975 as long as one of those teams is going to be Quebec City, I won't protest, but the problem is they already have a reserve spot for Las Vegas.
June 24, 201510 yr comment_127988 Quebec will be an option for relocation. Think Florida or Arizona even. Seattle Portland OR Las Vegas all make way more sense
June 24, 201510 yr comment_127997 most likely Florida, because of well, the east has more teams than the west, if anything they should get the panthers
June 24, 201510 yr Author comment_128000 The thing I hate most about expansion is we will lose players in the expansion draft. Lets hope its not weighted to heavily in the expansion teams' favour
June 24, 201510 yr comment_128003 not to mention the jets chances in the playoffs will lessen a bit as a result.
June 24, 201510 yr comment_128005 Bettman is such a typical lawyer...greasy piece of ****. **** that guy. Anything to make money for the Governors, even at the cost of the quality of games. Its been said before but deserves repeating: Bettman doesnt run the NHL, the owners do. Bettman serves at their pleasure. They want more teams, more money and a wider TV deal. Its Bettman's job to go out and do it. He does a very, very good job. Just no reason for him to lie. It's not the point of him lying or not and who he serves. He's not just some robot who serves his masters. He holds his own opinions articulated by his own style that may or may not influence what his bosses want. Regardless, his approach to dealing with professional issues while reporting to his bosses can and continues to rub some people the wrong way. It happens to all of us, some more than others.
June 24, 201510 yr Author comment_128009 Bettman is such a typical lawyer...greasy piece of ****. **** that guy. Anything to make money for the Governors, even at the cost of the quality of games. Its been said before but deserves repeating: Bettman doesnt run the NHL, the owners do. Bettman serves at their pleasure. They want more teams, more money and a wider TV deal. Its Bettman's job to go out and do it. He does a very, very good job. Just no reason for him to lie. It's not the point of him lying or not and who he serves. He's not just some robot who serves his masters. He holds his own opinions articulated by his own style that may or may not influence what his bosses want. Regardless, his approach to dealing with professional issues while reporting to his bosses can and continues to rub some people the wrong way. It happens to all of us, some more than others. I get that he rubs people the wrong way with his style. Personally I think he can be rather witty and a good interview. He's done a lot of good for the NHL. I also understand why he lies when it comes to things like the Thrashers moving, Coyotes etc. But to say just two weeks ago "Expansion is not on our radar" when that was a lie is rather silly. It pushes the media away from you because they cant trust you. And any corporation or league wants and needs a certain amount of media trust. he could have said "We are very happy with the overall health of the league and franchises and there have been many unofficial expressions of interest that we will consider at an appropriate time". Done. And while his opinion and expertise influences the owners (to a degree I think Bettman might have been Winnipeg's best friend at the NHL in the lead up to the return of the Jets), he serves his masters. They want the league to grow and increase revenues. When you have people willing to pay upwards of $500 million expansion fees, you formulate a plan to expand. Period.
June 24, 201510 yr Author comment_128012 No Bettman = No Jets. Maybe. Maybe not. But Bettman seems awfully close with Mark Chipman, in fact seems close with Winnipeg. I believe Lawless was the only interview Bettman did during the lock out.
June 24, 201510 yr comment_128019 I wonder if part of the reluctance to move a team to Quebec is due to not wanting a separatist politician to own the team?
June 24, 201510 yr comment_128025 yes I know Bettman has become awful chummy with Winnipeg since the team came back (and I bet he's probably thinking why can't Vegas be like Winnipeg? cold as hell, but then again isn't that how the fans in Vegas would treat hockey?)
June 24, 201510 yr comment_128027 Sigh.... The game we love is once again being threatened by greed. Expansion? Yuck. More games, more fringe players, more, more, more. I wish we could take our game and our trophy back. Go home Yankees, go home.
June 24, 201510 yr comment_128040 I still have a hard time imagining how the NHL would/could compete for entertainment $ in Vegas. If it was the NFL, NBA or to lesser extent MLB i could see there being larger interest but the NHL in vegas? have they had any exhibition games there or anything to even gauge the market?
June 24, 201510 yr comment_128045 maybe they should call the team the las vegas Celine Dions or the White Lions or the Bouncers!
June 24, 201510 yr comment_128050 Sigh.... The game we love is once again being threatened by greed. Expansion? Yuck. More games, more fringe players, more, more, more. I wish we could take our game and our trophy back. Go home Yankees, go home. Love...
June 24, 201510 yr comment_128058 The main problem in this league is lack of interest in the south (Primarily Arizona and Florida). What needs to happen is for those two teams to relocate to different spots. Instead, not only is Bettman avoiding the problem by adding MORE teams rather than moving them, but he also wants to get a team in Las Vegas which is yet another desert location that probably doesn't care enough about hockey. Arizona and Florida should be moving to Seattle and Quebec and no team goes to Vegas. The league stays at 30 teams so that the talent doesn't get watered down.
June 24, 201510 yr comment_128060 When you have people willing to pay upwards of $500 million expansion fees, you formulate a plan to expand. Period. This. The league spends a few million vetting candidates and cashes a cool $1B check for their trouble. That's a hard proposition to turn down. Local news in Seattle is actually starting to pay attention to the idea of the NHL now too. I know I've said all along that I doubt we'd get a team here but hey maybe it'll happen. There's miles to go on a new arena though; Bettman himself has said that the current arena is completely inadequate.
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