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DALSeattle Captures The NHL’s Coveted 32nd Franchise
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, center left, with officials from the new Seattle hockey group. (Stephen B. Morton/AP)
The NHL will now join the NFL, NBA and MLB with an even number of teams in after officially announcing the addition of a franchise in Seattle, Washington on December 4th. The hockey league is currently operating with 31 clubs since the Vegas Golden Knights faced off for the first time in 2017/18. The NBA and MLB presently have 30 squads each while the NFL also goes with 32. The as-yet-to-be-named Seattle side will see face off for the first time the 2021/22 season.
It originally looked like Seattle would enter the league back in 1976 and then again in 1990, but funding and other factors derailed the ’76 plan and the NHL rejected the 1990 bid. However, the league seemed to become interested in the city once again in 2012 and Seattle made an official application to the NHL in February of this year.
The league then asked the Seattle group to hold an experimental season-ticket drive in March and it was reported that 25,000 fans laid down a deposit in the first 60 minutes. When Vegas held their season-ticket drive it took two days to reach 5,000 and we all know how that franchise has taken off in the past year.
The price for a new NHL franchise isn’t exactly cheap these days as league boss Gary Bettman is charging the city $650 million to compete in the world’s best hockey league. They’ve paid just a $10 million deposit so far, so need to start saving their money. There’s also the matter of fixing up the city’s Key Arena as the team’s home rink to the tune of about $800 million. In addition, timing is everything as Seattle is also paying $150 million more than it cost Vegas to land their franchise just a couple of years ago.
Perhaps money is the least of Seattle’s worries though since the franchise’s 30-member ownership group consists of people such as David Bonderman, an investment banker, and Hollywood film maker Jerry Bruckheimer.
It’s already been decided the Seattle squad will play in the Pacific Division and the Arizona Coyotes will head over to the Central Division. But while the Seattle ownership group, fronted by Tod Leiweke as CEO, wanted to start playing in 2020/21, Bettman wasn’t sure their rink would be fully operational and ready to go by then.
The announcement may have surprised a few people since Seattle is just ranked the 18th-biggest city in America when it comes to population. They lost their NBA team the Seattle Supersonics in 2008 as it relocated in Oklahoma City, but the town is still home to the Seattle Mariners Major League Baseball team as well as the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Sounders of Major League Soccer. The women’s WNBA basketball team, The Seattle Storm, also play there and use the KeyArena, but they’ll need to find a new home for the next year or two while the rink undergoes a face lift.
This won’t be the first elite hockey team to skate in the city as the Seattle Metropolitans were members of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association over a century ago and actually captured the Stanley Cup way back in 1917 before going under seven years later.
The roster will be put together via an expansion draft the same way Vegas was. This means the other 30 clubs in the league, other than Vegas, will be able to protect a specific number of players in their organization and Seattle will choose from their list of unprotected players. Each team can lose only one player, but trades can also be made. Vegas is exempt from the draft as a part of their deal when they entered the league. But on the flip side, the Golden Knights don’t get a cut of Seattle’s $650 million expansion fee.
As for the team name, that will come later. Some fans are hoping the club will revert to the Metropolitans while other names that have been tossed around include the Totems, Thunderbirds, Eagles, Cougars, Firebirds, Evergreens, Kraken, Emeralds, Rainiers Sea Lions, Renegades, Sockeyes, Whales and Seals. Personally, I’d go with the Seattle Grunge since the city is known as the home of grunge rock music and it has a nice ring to it.
Not everybody is thrilled with Seattle as the newest NHL team though as other cities had hoped to land a franchise, most notably Houston, Texas and Quebec City in Canada. Actually, it’s a bit odd to no longer hear about expansion teams in other Canadian cities anymore. There was once a push for a franchise in Hamilton, Ontario, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and another one just down the road in the Greater Toronto Area. Of course, the Toronto Maple Leafs were dead against a team so close to them in Hamilton and the GTA, and it seems Quebec is the only realistic option right now in the Great White North.
In fact, Quebec was so confident it would be awarded a franchise sooner or later and a brand new rink currently named the Videotron Centre was built. The arena holds over 18,000 fans and has basically just been used for junior hockey, concerts and boxing events since opening in 2015. Quebec is known as a hockey hotbed in Canada with the former Quebec Nordiques’ WHA and NHL franchise being based there. However, they ended up moving to Colorado in 1995 and were re-christened as the Avalanche.
As for other American locations; well, some legitimate argument could also be made for Cincinnati, San Diego, Kansas City, Atlanta, Portland, Baltimore and Indianapolis. They’re all relatively-big cities, but Cleveland, Atlanta and Kansas City hosted an NHL team in the past and all of them ended up relocating elsewhere. It seems Houston would be next in line and the 18,000-capacity Toyota Center is already in place and used by the NBA’s Houston Rockets. The city was also home to the Houston Aeros’ WHA and AHL franchises in the past.
It doesn’t look like Bettman and the NHL will be in any hurry to expand once again however. That doesn’t mean Houston, Quebec City and other hopefuls will be left out in the cold though. There’s always the chance a current franchise relocates due to poor attendance and/or lack of funds. So perhaps the Florida Panthers, Ottawa Senators, Arizona Coyotes, Carolina Hurricanes, Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Islanders and even St. Louis Blues‘ fans should begin to worry….or start buying tickets to games.
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