Fifteen years after the departure of the Jets, the city of Winnipeg has arrived at a triumphant moment that many thought would never come.
NHL hockey is returning to the Manitoba capital.
The True North Sports and Entertainment group announced on Tuesday that they have completed a deal to purchase the Atlanta Thrashers and move them to Winnipeg in time for the 2011-12 season.
The whole mythology that's grown up in Canada about NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is laughable, and it should really be properly documented for posterity. There seems to be a huge bunch of people who genuinely believe that he's evil, and that he hates Canada and hockey. In this lunatic view, the reason that, say, the Jets moved to Phoenix is because Bettman hates Canada. In their view, this relocation is a victory for Canada, because Bettman's evil plans have been foiled and another franchise is moving to Canada, where hockey "belongs".
What few people seem to want to remember is that the Winnipeg Jets became the Phoenix Coyotes because they couldn't make the franchise work in Winnipeg. Here's a snippet from the TSN article:
The team will play out of the MTS Centre, which opened in 2004 and has a capacity of just over 15,000 seats.
With a population of 762,600, Winnipeg will be the smallest market among the 30 NHL cities.
It's also the smallest arena. It remains to be seen if the new Winnipeg franchise is going to be any more successful than the previous one. There doesn't really seem to be any reason why it would be.
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Another thing that gets lost in the conversation is the overall reason why hockey franchises have been established in the southern parts of the US in the first place: only by bringing hockey to new markets will the sport expand. Hockey in California has been a success, with Anaheim bringing the Cup home and the Sharks strong contenders. On the other seaboard, Tampa made a great run for the Cup this year and already have one under their belt. Dallas's ownership situation is currently in flux, but when it's all worked out, there's another strong "southern" team with a Cup win.
By being in new markets and succeeding there, these teams are doing what no franchise in Canada ever can: bringing hockey to a whole new audience and broadening the game's markets. There's value in that for the whole hockey community, which the league recognizes in its franchise location policy that Bettman implements. That Canadian fans won't recognize this just speaks to the ridiculous parochialism that is Canadian hockey culture. The whole notion that hockey "belongs" somewhere is moronic in itself, but placing this kind of jingoism over a sensible market strategy is just madness.
Let me make clear that I'm not against relocating teams to Canada. However, I'm also not against relocating teams to the US either, or even Mexico if someone wants to give it a shot. It's a free market, so anyone who wants to put their money on the line, goes through the proper motions and has some kind of sensible plan is, in my opinion, more than welcome to buy an existing franchise and move it somewhere else.
A few years back the Islanders' owner was teasing the idea that the Isles would move to Kansas City, which has long been in contention for a new franchise. As it was, the move was likely just a PR strategy designed to get the city of Long Island to invest in a new arena. Given the Isles' abysmally low attendance record, though, I'm not sure it wouldn't actually be a really good idea to move. If I'm not wrong, that would be the first time a Cup-winning team in the modern era relocated after the win; the Montréal Maroons tried to relocate after their win but it didn't work out. The Maroons, by the way, are also the only Cup-winning modern team to become defunct.
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As a final point, there's a push to have the Thrashers renamed the Jets when they land in Winnipeg. I have to say that I strongly dislike the idea, because the Jets franchise is still around; it's just called the Coyotes now. Sure, we've had two separate franchises both called the Ottawa Senators, but they were separated by over half a century. As the Thrashers were named after the state bird of Georgia, a name change seems reasonable enough, but really, in my opinion they should come up with their own name.
At the very least, it's going to be weird if there's a Winnipeg Jets franchise in Winnipeg, but the old Winnipeg Jets' retired numbers are in Phoenix. It's not the same franchise, so it shouldn't have the same name. It's that simple!
This isn't the first time Atlanta has lost an NHL team; in 1980, the Atlanta Flames relocated to Calgary, where they remain today. Incidentally, that team apparently took its name from when Sherman burned Atlanta; I'm not sure what was burned in Calgary. Calgary was a much smaller market than Atlanta, but the Flames' financial situation in Atlanta had been very poor and their lack of a TV contract had made it very hard for them to compete with the other teams in town.
Relocation isn't always a great success, though, even when it's a move north: the Kansas City Scouts only spent six seasons as the Colorado Rockies until relocating a second time to New Jersey. As I said, I don't see any compelling reasons why the new Winnipeg franchise would be any more successful than the old one, so even though the deal is for 15 years, we'll wait and see.
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