Coming to Your Town: NHL Expansion

NHL expansion is imminent, for better or worse.  As much as all fans of any sport inherently recoil at the notion of expansion, I try to take solace in expansion as a sign that maybe one day ESPN will recognize hockey as an actual sport.  The deadline for the application was Monday and only two cities ponied up the $10 million for the initiation fees–ohhoho don’t you worry, that pretty penny is just the start of the pretty rigorous financial assessment that is to follow for fiscal viability!

To be fair, the last expansion in the NHL was fifteen years ago.  In fact, the last time Canada benefited from an expansion was 22 years ago (and no, the Thrashers moving to Winnipeg doesn’t count).  Don’t get me wrong, Gary Bettman’s money-grabbing, sponsor-pandering antics rival Roger Goodell’s and of certainly this expansion is financially motivated, but it has actually been a little while since there has been some growth in the NHL.  Even the AHL has been doing some repositioning to garner bigger market shares in the West.

Enough history.  On to the money shot.  And what two cities are exceedingly probable to be added to the already outstanding (minus the Panthers) flirty, dirty, thirty little CanAm teams?

Las Vegas & Quebec City

It would be tougher to intentionally have picked two more disparate cities on the continent.  Maybe Salt Lake City v. San Francisco to watch the LDS missionaries awkwardly respond to being offered X in the Castro District.  Maybe.  Instead we get beautiful, ever-so-French, Quebec City…

With its fellow compatriot in expansion, the perennial birthplace of bad ideas, Las Vegas….

Am I a Francophile?  Not in the slightest.  But I do object to a metropolitan area bidding for a hockey team when the city’s reservoir is already running low, meanwhile an ice rink requires 15 000 to 20 000 gallons of water.  Assuming that the applications get pushed through, the good news for Canadians is that fully 25% of NHL teams will be from the 51st state.

What is really of interest here is not the debate of league expansion politics or what cities are most deserving, but a far more spiritual dialogue.  What should these teams be named?  I propose the following:

 The Las Vegas Courtesans vs. The Quebec City Poutines

If I had to put money down, I think I know what team I would bet would have ice girls!  Yeah, I know I will never live long enough to see a team named after poutine, but one day I know this dish will be commemorated as it should be.