For the life of me, I’m trying to figure out why the NHL insists on pursuing this losing strategy of putting teams in cities that have no fan support for an NHL team.
You mean like Ottowa? Some places have trouble because they made bad decisions about things like their arena. Phoenix, Florida and Ottowa seem to fall into that category. These teams play in arenas that make it hard to be a fan.
Las Vegas won’t have that problem. They’ll live or die if Vegas can rally around them as a real community. So far it looks good with sold out season tickets and a waiting list.
I agree with Bettman’s push into the sun belt. That’s where the young(er) people are. The entire north (and that includes Europe) aren’t having enough children to keep their countries going much less a sport.