Coyotes to Southern Ontario?

[JohnnyMapleLeaf]

Newest rumour....Toronto gets the bankrupt Desert Dogs...They might move north of Toronto....Aurora area....huge market up there.

A second team would work bigtime in Southern Ontario....absolutely no question...especcially up there. The Greater Toronto Area has 4-5 million people...filled with hockey fans. I mean, NY area has THREE teams. They would sell out every game, with the amount of fans in the GTA. I actually think the area could have 3 teams....Toronto, North Toronto and Hamilton (half way between Toronto and Buffalo, and the original theory for a new team). It's the same guy whos looking at the team for Hamilton (tried to buy the Preds).....RIM/Blackberry's owner, who are based here.

Hamilton would probably work, but not as well as North Toronto. When I first heard this idea a few weeks ago, I thought, brilliant. And now they had a big story on in tonight on Hockey Night in Canada.

The thing is....90% of the 5 million GTA NHL fans (including me) RARELY have the opportunity to go to games because of MLSE's ticket gouging and the corporate angle. I can gurantee a new team would be the "anti-leafs", and play to the real hockey fan....garnering a huge fan base. Leafs will still rule beacuse of history, but there are too many people dying to go to games and support it bigtime, and spend huge money (leading to a successful franchise). It will be easy IMO. And this is from a die-hard 30 year LEafs fan. lol.

You have to compensate teams withing 150 miles I have heard, but Compensation would not be too bad in this case....Ottawa doesnt apply, too far away, and if you go north, you wouldnt compensate Buffalo to the West (like you would with Hamilton). It would only be the LEafs you compensate. That North Toronto franchise would be a top 10 franchise within 10 years....easy...and that would be better for all teams, having a prosperous franchise taking over for a floundering one....

[V3r1f13d]

What about London? I know they have the Knights out there.
OK sized town with a bunch of tiny towns around it...but I don't think they have the architecture for something like that.


Kansas City was looking for a team a couple years ago, maybe this would be a good time to step in...

[JohnnyMapleLeaf]

Not as big a general area, v3....has some other cities near it, but I'm talking in the North Toronto area for this team, it's really solid city for hours of driving....millions compared to 100s of thousands with the london area...and London is probably in the Buffalo compensation area...

Great hockey city though...go Knights...

[PhillyFan3]

bring em back to Winnipeg.....I wanna see the JETS again....

[BoilerBacker]

Kind of surprised Houston never gets mentioned for NHL moves. Giganto population plus lots of relocated northerners including myself. Plus, there is lots of money down here and the economy may be the best in the world right now....not exaggerating.

Biggest risk with moving back to Canada is the relative weakness of the Canadian dollar. That was one of the big reasons why they had to leave Winnipeg. It was doing ok for a while but has now drifted back to 1.20 or so. Not sure how many Buffalo fans per game come from Canada but I am guessing they scream louder than Toronto if they want to relocate to Hamilton. Personally I would like to see a team in Cleveland but the economy there sucks ass.