I’m starting to believe Old Orchard will have an NHL team before Quebec.
For those who will write to me: “I told you, Blanchette, Quebec is too small for the NHL”, seriously, give me a break.
Give me a few days to digest the Coyotes’ likely move to Salt Lake City.
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Every possible curse word came out. I am deeply angry for my city.
It was predictable? I know, no big deal. It still makes me green all the same.
Yes, but it was important to keep the team in the West. I know all that too, but it doesn’t matter, it disgusts me what we did in Quebec.
Besides, I’m convinced that there won’t be that much fuss in Quebec. We understood that we were cuckolds. That we were there to up the ante. That we were there in case of emergency. It’s just a 435e bad surprise straight away in this case for us. We’ve been jaded since 8e.
The Coyote dump
It’s a circus. The NHL kept the Coyotes on life support for a decade while we played nice in the meantime. The team remained there despite the bankruptcies. The team plays in an arena as big as the one where my kids have their skating lessons on Saturday mornings. And there, the owner was not even able to buy an old dump to build another amphitheater. But everything was good for Gary Bettman.
And did you see that? Bettman would give the Coyotes owner a few years to bring his arena project to fruition to bring back an expansion team. A slipper with that? It’s astonishing.
That a team was established in Vegas saddened us, but we all understand that it was a good idea.
But here, Salt Lake City? The number 115 city in terms of population in the United States. That’s 208,000 people. The agglomeration has 1.3 million. There are 542,000 of us in Quebec, with an urban area of 840,000 people.
These are not two incomparable cities. I like to remind you that from 2000 to 2018, the Quebec region experienced the highest GDP per capita growth in the country. And also that the Videotron Center is busier than the arenas in Vancouver and Ottawa.
The Coyotes would play in Salt Lake City in an arena that dates from 1990, designed for basketball. It would be the worst arena in the league with a capacity of 14,000 spectators, several journalists reported Friday. It risks looking like the Islanders’ catastrophic visit to the Barclays Center. We, in Quebec, built an amphitheater with all possible microdetails so that it respected the standards and whims of Gary Bettman and his NHL. But I play it sometimes with my garage league and I don’t really need such perfect ice quality.
Roller coasters
But I tell myself that Gary Bettman would have sent the Coyotes to Old Orchard even if Quebec was his only other option. He would have told us that it is an interesting destination for the league because of the old wooden roller coasters, the many candy stores and the overpriced lobster.
Bettman and his executive committee have had to prepare this plan for the Coyotes for a long time. He was just waiting for the right moment.
Moreover, Geoff Molson is on this executive committee. In an interview broadcast Saturday evening on TVA Sports, he talks about how much he wants the Nordiques to return. It must have shaken him to say all that knowing that the league was possibly announcing a move to Salt Lake City a few days later.
I know very well that logically, it took a city in the West for the Coyotes. But Gary Bettman twisted and turns to keep the team in Arizona. But the NHL chooses its pirouettes and there is no danger of it doing any for Quebec. So, I wonder to what extent Goeff Molson and the executive committee mentioned a pirouette for Quebec in this whole issue.
Our dog is not dead. There may be two expansions within a few years. Houston risks arriving in the league in the West. It will be played between Atlanta and Quebec in the East, unless Old Orchard is added. I tell myself that this will be the only and probably last time that we will have a real chance.