I don't think their for sale and I wouldn't recommend making an offer.
From wiki in part, "The Hartford Whalers were an American professional ice hockey team based for most of its existence in Hartford, Connecticut. . . from 1972 until 1979, and in the National Hockey League (NHL) from 1979 to 1997. . .
In 1997, the Whalers franchise relocated to North Carolina, where it became the Carolina Hurricanes."
This has to be the hair brainest crazy idea I have ever heard from a government offical. Not satified with just pouring money into failing arenas, this guy want to sink government money into a losing hockey team that is actually in a growing area.
Hartford-West Hartford, CT Combined Statistical Area is the 37th largest in the US 2016 pop estimate: 1,476,637, 2010 pop: 1,486,436 −0.66%
Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC Combined Statistical Area is the 29th largest in the US 2016 pop estimate: 2,156,253, 2010 pop: 1,912,729 +12.73%
As you can see one is growing and the other is not.
I now know why my multiple great grandfather William Kelsey who was one of the founders of Hartford, left to settle his own town nearby.
(Cavet: I hate hockey)
Some additional fuel as to why there has to be something in the water in the Connecticutt River.
NBC Connecticutt
State’s Budget Deficit Could Reach $5 Billion Over 2 Years
Income Tax receipts plummet adding more than one billion to two year budget shortfall.
New revenue state estimates show Connecticut’s budget deficit problems continue to worsen.
The current fiscal year is now projected to end June 30 with an approximate $394 million shortfall while the following two fiscal years are now predicted to have deficits of $2.3 billion and $2.7 billion respectively.
The estimates were released Monday by the budget offices for the General Assembly and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
...
Published at 4:00 PM EDT on May 1, 2017
I like hockey but otherwise agree with you. Hartford is a decaying, crime-ridden craphole run by insane democrats in a state run by insane democrats. I mean, c’mon! - when a company (GE) runs to Massachusetts, how effed up is the place?
I don't think their for sale and I wouldn't recommend making an offer.
I’ve heard variations of this idea, in other cities in which their teams have threatened to move, or actually have moved away. The proponents of this say that the community ownership of the team is the answer, that then it could never move, etc.
If I recall correctly, the Green Bay Packers ownership model was grandfathered in by the NFL; the NFL no longer permits such ownership.
I don’t know if that applies to other sports, or NHL hockey specifically, but it does seem that ownership groups headed by multi millionaires and billionaires are the norm in sports ownership today.
Do the sports leagues actually prefer to have some larger than life bombastic owners, such as Jerry Jones, Mark Cuban, and the late George Steinbrenner????
I don’t follow hockey, so don’t know the back story. Why did Hartford lose the Whalers? Poor attendance, team losing money, inadequate arena?? Would any of those same factors face the team if they were back in Hartford?
Maybe this guy, instead of committing deficit plagued governments to buy a hockey team, why doesn’t he work to put together an investment group to buy the team?
Win/win situation? The team comes back but is owned privately and will not be a drain on governments in Connecticut if they lose money????
Bookmark
Maybe they can play in the Yard Goats new over-priced stadium
(let me know if you want on or off the ping list)
Hello Houston, Texas! Why the 4th largest city in the USA, with lots of yankee transplants, doesn’t have an NHL team is beyond me. The Houston Hurricanes has a nice ring to it.
never mind the fact the NY metro area already has three hockey teams in existence...
Besides that,The population of Connecticut has changed since the Whalers left Connecticut so there would be No fan base to support a team.
This Idea should be dropped by our politicians.They have bigger things they need to do to clean up the mess they have created here.
Yeah, but the one that's growing doesn't give a damn about going to hockey games.
Hey, I just wanna hear the Whaler’s Fight Song!
I thought I had found a source of whale oil for my antique lamps after reading the headlines. I had no idea about hockey.
Go Bolts!
Next year...
5.56mm
Until the Dodgers come back, nothing will ever be right.
Do illegal immigrants on welfare go to hockey games?h
Carolina has been to only 2 playoffs in the time they have been in there, 1 of those years they won the Stanley Cup, rather amazing.
The demon craps killed that once beautiful state. Now it's just empty strip malls, gambling venues, fallow farmland, and ticks. Parasites feeding on parasites - there's a certain karmic justice in that.
The Whalers came into the NHL as part of the NHL-WHA merger agreement in 1979. They were relocated to North Carolina in the 1990s during the "NBA-ization" of the NHL. The NHL was more interested in moving into large TV markets across the country than in keeping teams in small markets with stronger hockey fan support.