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

The Winter Classic is played outdoors.

But seriously, football and NASCAR are the sports of the south. Not hockey. I mean, there was a brief period when the american tv stations that were carrying the games had to put that "streak" on the puck so y'all could see it.

Because a black puck on white ice is sooo freakin' hard to see.

Rumour has it that those 10,000 seats at the Florida games are filled with Canadian Snowbirds cause none of us can afford seasons tickets to our home teams!!

 

For that matter why is Cleveland allowed a football team? Green grass is rare in those parts during winter time.

 

Alaska and Hawaii don't have football teams or hockey teams. We should take some states' spare teams and gift them.

 

Not on a frozen pond!

 

If I want to see a hockey match in person I can drive down to Atlanta and catch a Thrasher game. Do you think I should have to drive to Duluth,Minnesota to go see hockey?

 

Problem is people in Atlanta don't attend professional sporting events.

 

Sorry, at this point Wisconsin has all the pro sports teams it can handle, in that we have The Packers.

...

Hmmm? What's that you say? The Brew Masters? The Dollars? Are these exhibition teams of some sort?

 

FOX was the only station that did that, and it sucked.

 

To add onto SoCal Hockey, Disney totally didn't help by making a movie series about The Mighty Ducks and then naming a hockey team a mile down the freeway from Disneyland The Ducks.

 

"Why does Florida need a hockey team?"


You're silly.

 

Wrong, Bettman wasn't in charge when the expansions to those areas were planned. The addition of Ottawa, San Jose, Tampa Bay and Anaheim was planned under John Ziegler. It's the last round of expansion, which brought Nashville, Atlanta, Columbus and Minnesota, which fell under Bettman's time at the head of the league.

As for the tv-deal, the league didn't have a national tv deal, it got one when Bettman came in. Teams made a boatload of money on a deal that was much higher than it should have been. The ratings were never high enough to warrant such a deal.


Overall, expansion worked perfectly fine. Minnesota is a huge success, Columbus did very well as well. Nashville had some trouble, but they are back on track, attendance grows quite a bit once the football season is over, they have made money the last two seasons. It's not a tremendous success, but it could be worse. Atlanta never really had a good team, and it's kind of hard to attract fans when you lose all the time.

Some people like to look at attendance figures as proof, it simply isn't. Every team can run into trouble. Colorado had the longest sellout streak in the league, then they fell off. Now they have a young and talented team, but the attendance isn't nearly the same as it was back in the days.
As long as the teams are somehwat healthy, that's all what matters. Attendance may not be high all the time, but you should look at how much larger hockey has become in Nashville, Atlanta or Florida. The number of people playing hockey, the number of teams and leagues has increased tremendously in those areas.

 

I assume you must have a job at 6th Avenue in Midtown. Total league office Kool-Aid there.

 

I attended a Hawks game in which the beat the Bulls.