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The 5 worst drawing teams in the NHL are: NY Islanders, Atlanta (Expansion), Phoenix (move from Winnipeg), Nashville (expansion) and Colorado (move from Quebec
by omnivore 17y ago
The 5 worst drawing teams in the NHL are: NY Islanders, Atlanta (Expansion), Phoenix (move from Winnipeg), Nashville (expansion) and Colorado (move from Quebec City).
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/attendance http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/attendance
Denver is a saturated 4-team market and a weak link team. None of these teams made the playoffs this year and each has their own endemic problems, but I'd argue that the Islanders probably need a new building, but that's not going to happen most likely. The others suffer from playing non-traditional markets and Colorado is fickle about anything other than Broncos, though they'll support a team like crazy so long as they're winning.
Florida and Columbus are 6th and 7th worst in attendance and both are expansion teams that have had limited success (Florida made the Cup Finals some years ago..but haven't been good since and Columbus get swept from the playoffs this year)
Contraction shouldn't happen, but...moving some teams around to better markets ought to and I think this Coyotes move will open that door.
- ojbyrne 17y agoIf they moved them back to Winnipeg the city would go insane. It seems to me that's a potential alternative strategy.
- chollida1 17y agoThe problem with Winnipeg is that they built a new hockey arena a few years ago and it's too small for NHL attendance standards( it's around 15,000), as well as having problems with it's luxury boxes( not enough and the existing ones have been sold for a price way to low for having a profesional team there). They did a study to look into expanding the arena but it came out to almost as much as the original stadium. By almost all accounts NHL hockey will never return to Winnipeg, the facilities and money just aren't there.