The NHL held a recent meeting with a group interested in acquiring an expansion team for the New Orleans market at the league’s offices in New York, deputy commissioner Bill Daly told Kevin Weekes of ESPN on Wednesday.
In terms of expansion interest and likelihood, this is about as preliminary as it can get. League commissioner Gary Bettman has remained as noncommittal as possible about when the league will increase past 32 teams after incorporating Vegas and Seattle in the last decade. The league’s preference for team No. 33 will be a return to the Phoenix area after facilitating the Coyotes’ sale to Utah and, through a complicated process, retaining the club’s intellectual and branding rights. A local group comprised of government and business officials met with Bettman last month, but the area still needs a new arena to house an NHL franchise – which there’s been no tangible progress toward completing since the Coyotes’ departure.
New Orleans joins a long list of cities interested in an NHL club. Houston and Atlanta either already have or are in the process of constructing an NHL-ready arena and have had multiple groups express interest in acquiring a franchise within the last two years. Cincinnati, Hamilton, Kansas City, Omaha, Quebec City, and Saskatoon continue as speculative destinations for a further round of expansion – it’s difficult to imagine some combination of Atlanta, Houston, and Phoenix comprising teams 33 and 34.
The only professional team to carry a New Orleans moniker was the ECHL’s New Orleans Brass, who were briefly affiliated with the Sharks and spent five years in the league from 1997-98 to 2001-02. They were the first tenant of what’s now called the Smoothie King Center, home to the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans, but were forced to fold when the city demanded them to shoulder the costs of converting the arena to a basketball configuration. The building held a capacity of 16,900 when configured for hockey.
The Baton Rouge Zydeco of the FPHL, two levels of play below the ECHL, is the only professional hockey team currently operational in Louisiana. They’re in just their second season of play.
Gary wanted a free dinner.
New Orleans has as much of a chance of getting a team as Quebec. Might as well put a team in Hartford again.
New Orleans is a fine expansion destination, just like QC, Atlanta, Phoenix, etc. It’s not the city that’s the issue, it’s ownership.
Market size and corporate sponsors are all they care about.
The only exceptions to the rule are when a team gets in sudden trouble then your Winnipegs and Utahs can sneak in, but there is a reason that building in Quebec is still sitting empty. Kansas City, too.
Houston, Phoenix, Atlanta, yes. Hockey history be damned.
Oh please, no more expansion teams for the rest of the decade. It’s not needed right now.
Gary Bettman needs to move on from Phoenix. The market isn’t there. Atlanta is another one that’s had ample opportunities & has failed.
New Orleans is an interesting destination for a team but hard to say if a market is there for it.
Houston is probably the one destination that could have a team since hockey in Texas has seen a boom in popularity over the recent years. In addition, Texas has more youth hockey development facilities then any other state in the country which shows how much growth has occurred in Texas with the sport.
It all depends on what Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta wants to do. He controls the venue at the Toyota Center and believes bringing an NHL franchise to Houston is too expensive. So what’s he done? Applied for a WNBA franchise instead. Too bad some oil fat cat can’t bulldoze down Greenspoint (aka Gunspoint) Mall in the north end of the city and build a 10,000 seat all-purpose arena for an AHL team. Attendance-wise the Dallas Stars AHL team in Cedar Point is doing quite well.
Yeah I heard about the situation in Houston as Fertitta apparently also has a deal with Houston that no other arena can be built within 20 miles or something like that of the Toyota Center. Which limits Houston’s capabilities from having another ownership come in for an NHL team to build in downtown Houston.
WNBA team is worthless as that league is barely surviving. Furthermore, Houston did have a WNBA team (Houston Comets) & the franchise folded.
That goes back to when the Comets were owned by a mattress store owner. Today the WNBA is a hot commodity with Caitlan Clark generating as much fan interest as Michael Jordan did 40 years ago.
Why waste time in the south, put a team in Wisconsin or Hartford Quebec City and Portland
Pull the USA Hockey membership data…find the market voids.
Please, we have enough teams, stop watering down the talent pool any further (though this is all about expansion fee $$$).
Some teams are living off that expansion money !!!!! It’s how G.B. sold the move of AZ to SLC.
New Orleans is a small market with an NBA team. When the NHL has gone South, it’s been to either a bigger market (Dallas, Miami, Phoenix) or a city without NBA (Raleigh, Nashville).
New Orleans is probably last on the list, behind Omaha, Hartford and my dream expansion city Quebec
Has the idea of Saskatoon really been tossed around? It has less than half the metro population of QC. The league could expand to 50 teams and there’d be viable candidates before Sask.
GTHA needs a second team and it should be a priority, as well as US expansion.
Atlanta and Houston make the most sense. I wouldn’t rule out a team in Virginia somewhere either, like a second DC team. They’re going to go where the local money is for expansion, SLC proved it.
Contraction > expansion
no.
LOL.
Houston and Quebec City are the only right answers.