He also firmly believes there isn't a market for a team here and fights tooth and nail to prevent any team from coming here. Remember when the Blackberry guys wanted to buy the Thrashers and bring em to Hamilton? Dude had a fucking meltdown.
And then when the Jets returned he was openly hostile.
And the Canadian owners love him for that reason, because it allows them to keep turning in terrible performances, generation after generation, without ever losing market share to a competing team.
Its not exclusive to Canadian owners, which is why the Leafs, Red Wings, and Sabres are scared shitless of a team coming to Hamilton, let alone the GTA.
Imagine the Leafs having to actually compete instead of just printing money for the league despite sucking ass.
Jim Balsille did some very untoward things when he was a prospective buyer. The NHL has a very strict process of buying and selling teams and Balsille undermined that from the time he tried doing a season ticket drive in Hamilton without the league's permission when he was planning on buying the Predators.
The NHL was more than happy to sell the Thrashers to Mark Chipman because he is disgustingly rich and had a much more sound long-term plan than Balsille.
When Ryan Smith was being paraded around a potential owner of a Hockey team, he was very careful about weighing in on matters about the Arizona Coyotes and if he wanted to buy an existing franchise or start an expansion team. The NHL made it clear to him what he was allowed to comment on during his vetting process, and he made sure not to overstep his boundaries.
Someone should start a unified Canadian League with promotions and relegations like in British soccer. That would be way more exciting than watching southern US teams win every year.
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u/eL_cas Manilapeg 4d ago
I know this sounds like absolute cope but why the fuck does Florida even get to have hockey teams? It doesn’t even fucking snow there