Who will win the hockey lottery?
Not that I really care too much, but the fever to own a personal hockey franchise is growing among the idle rich. Right now, one of the teams that was sent to wander in the desert wants relief from its creditors, and by extension, a new mailing address. Just down the highway, the Montreal franchise is in no danger of needing a moving van, but new owners are one announcement away. Locally, even the regional television station has been showing (over and over again) a documentary about the rise and fall of the Nordiques: there is a fringe segment of the population that would love to have another team to criticize as long as they were local.
The catch is simple. Owning a professional sporting team is expensive. Really expensive. In return, the winning ego gets to boast to his poker buddies about how well (or unwell) the team has been. Performance, lived vicariously. Oddly enough, none want to take the whole responsibility (financially). If the city would build me a new arena, and grant me a couple of decades of tax holiday, and… somehow, I sense a desire to have ME pay the laundry bills.
I wish the Blackberry guy all the best. If he can get a team to come to Hamilton or London then that’s good for somebody. It won’t help the Leafs to win the cup, and the number of jobs created is really quite minimal (we no longer scrape the ice surface by hand, like in the good old days. Zamboni oblige). As for the loonies that believe Quebec needs another team, think of the phoenix from mythology. And then, join the bidding war.
