[Hockey Question] Why does Florida need a hockey team?

I mean, they don't usually get snow or even ice really at all. Georgia doesn't really get snow much, but we do ghet ice.

Florida is all hot and warm and sunny. Why the heck do they need a hockey team? It makes little sense besides fans wanting it, but really? A team that plays on ice from a state that doesn't get it.

 

I frequently ask the same question about South Carolina, then get yelled at by a couple friends who are big hockey fans

 

Florida has TWO hockey teams.

And I think Raleigh has responded well to the Hurricanes: the fanbase acquits itself pretty well. But that said, the NHL does NOT need teams in Atlanta, Tampa and Sunrise -not Miami, freakin' Sunrise, FL.

 

It makes little sense besides fans wanting it
You just answered your own question.

Of course that actually doesn't answer the question for most of these NHL expansion franchises. Nashville? Phoenix? Come on.

 

You're asking the wrong question. You should be asking "Why does the NHL (and its owners) need a franchise in Florida (or Arizona)?

The answer: Because Bettman ran the league like a pyramid scheme -- with no other real source of income (like a national TV deal), the NHL added one new franchise after another so the existing owners would get nice juicy chinks of the franchise fees to help keep them in the black.

 

But there was no clamor from those cities. The only people who wanted teams down there were owners who wanted to collect expansion fees.

 

Hell, we've got two hockey teams within twenty minutes of each other in Southern California, and we get as little ice as any of those other states, but nobodies complaining.

But honestly, isn't this question kind of like asking, "Why does Seattle have a basketball team? Seattle is not known for its basket industry."

 

Yeah, but in California, you had the added draw of Wayne Gretzky, who had just come off of four back-to-back championship seasons with the Edmonton Oilers, coupled with the fact that the LA Kings won the Stanley Cup in Gretzky's first season with the team and went to the Stanley Cup finals again the following season.

 

Yeah, except they didn't. The Kings have never won the Stanley Cup, with Gretzky or without.

Thanks anyway.

The Panthers should be moved somewhere in Canada where they might actually sell over 10,000 seats a game.

 

Wrong, the Kings never won a Stanley Cup. In 1993, Gretzky led them to the Stanley cup finals, but they lost to the Canadiens in the finals. It wasn't Gretzky and the Kings that won a cup a year after Gretzky was traded to the Kings, it was Mark Messier leading a Gretzky-less Oilers team to a Stanley cup championship one year after the Gretzky trade. Gretzky never won another cup after winning his 4 cups with the Oilers in the 80s (of course us Flyers fan know it should have been 3, because if Hextall would have maintained his head and not speared the Oilers player in game 7, the Flyers would have won the cup).

Hockey works in Southern California because there is a lot of northeastern and midwestern transplants out here that like to watch hockey. Both the Kings and Ducks have done a great job of developing a fan base in their respective cities.

 

Wisconsin has produced so many good NHL players. I wish Wisconsin had a NHL team.

 

If Jamaica can have a bobsled team, why shouldn't Florida have a hockey team?

 

Because professional sport is a business. The NHL is like any other business: it opened too many franchises in poor markets and is now bleeding money.

 

Only cities that get cold enough for the ponds, lakes and streams to freeze should be allowed to have hockey teams. The teams in Florida, Carolina, Arizona, Texas and Califorina should be moved to Alaska, and cities in Canada that lost their teams for one reason or another(usually the greed of ownership).

 

NUFF PEOPLE SAY YOU KNOW WE CANT BELIEVE

JAMACIA WE HAVE A BOBSLED TEAM

 

[image=http://www.maniacworld.com/why-did-all-the-dinosaurs-die-out.jpg]

 

It snowed in Florida this year didn't it?

 

Believe it or not, in this day and age of scientific wizardry we can actually create ice artificially.

 

Yeah, but why should we be encouraging the occult?

 

This is by far my favorite answer.

 

Why? It's not like games are played on frozen ponds.

 

This thread reminds me of a story I heard on a local radio (podcast) today that they're going to have to truck in snow to Vancouver/Whistler for the upcoming Winter Olympics (due to a lack of snowfall).

2008-2009 L.A. Lakers: World Champions!

 

It originally was and from what I understand, many people still play it on frozen ponds way up north.

 

I think what she was saying that NHL games are not played on frozen ponds.