trwi7 wrote:Yeah, they're definitely Spurs and Mavs crazy in Houston.
He may be wrong about that. But you can't deny the point he's trying to get across, in the southern states hockey is at best a 4th tier sport behind the NFL, NBA and MLB. Moving a team there basically means your going to have to try and force feed a new market another sport and hope enough people show up to make to profitable.
In markets like Saskatoon, Hamilton and Quebec City hockeys going to automatically be the hot ticket, they're not going to have to fight with other sports for fans and they're not going to have to spend the buttloads on marketing that teams in Houston, Omaha, Kansas City and Seattle would have to spend.
Sure places like Houston, Omaha, Kansas City and Seattle have the population but that doesn't mean anything if no one cares about the game. As far as i'm concerned the sun belt expansion has been a failure, if the league wants to relocate teams they should go to more traditional hockey markets.