I’ve read that about Ottawa. Also that they recently rescinded the ability of government officials to use taxpayer money for hockey games. It sounds like this may be a team on the move if they don’t make the situation more fan friendly.
As far as Las Vegas, I’m going to give it time. It seems like a Columbus style situation to me. I was reading the Vegas web sites when the team was announced and most remarks were about the team being for the people of the city. Most outside fans were saying this was a tourist attraction hence unstable. I think the season ticket holder base suggests the reality is the former not the latter.
Most American cities will support teams on a fickle basis. Win and they will come. Lose and they don’t. I live in the Pittsburgh area, we just had 650,000 people at the parade. The moment the team looks shaky you won’t be able to give tickets away. Yet, at the moment it’s one of the most stable US franchises. It’s just the way sports fans are.
There are a few things coming into play here that have wreaked havoc on NHL franchises:
1. With its strong push for national television revenue that began in the 1990s, the NHL made a decision that effectively put a higher value on large cities with few hockey fans over small cities with many hockey fans. The relocation of the original Winnipeg Jets to Phoenix was a perfect example of this. Winnipeg had about 400,000 hardcore hockey fans among about 600,000 people at the time -- but Phoenix was considered a better NHL market because it had about 4 million people, even if hardly any of them were hockey fans.
2. There are many smaller cities that might be great hockey markets, but the NHL has simply priced many fans out of the game. This is why teams from large cities with a lot of corporate support have the most traction in the NHL, because that type of support doesn't get priced out as easily.
3. As strange as this may sound, some metro areas have enormous fan bases but aren't very strong NHL markets. This is because these places simply have too many other less expensive options for hockey fans. The Twin Cities of Minnesota is a perfect case in point. That may be the best hockey market in the world, but they lost the North Stars to Dallas back in the 1990s because they didn't have the support of fans who didn't want to pay NHL prices when they could attend NCAA games, high school games, and even children's games for a lot less money. The Minnesota state high school hockey tournament will often attract 18,000 fans to the Exel Center in St. Paul for days at a time every March, but when the North Stars were there they didn't have a strong fan base at all.