Finance Minister Eric Girard will virtually meet with National Hockey League (NHL) Commissioner Gary Bettman on Thursday to discuss a possible Nordiques return to Quebec.
A spokesperson for Mr. Girard, Fanny Beaudry-Campeau, said that due to the wave of COVID-19 caused by Omicron, the minister will not travel to New York to meet with Mr. Bettman.
“We thought it would be wiser to meet remotely,” she explained by email earlier this week.
At that time, Mr. Girard’s office did not want to specify when the meeting would take place. But the NHL then indicated that it is scheduled for Thursday with Mr. Bettman.
“They plan to meet virtually tomorrow,” NHL Senior Executive Vice President, Communications Gary Meagher said on Wednesday.
He said he could not presume topics on the meeting’s agenda.
“For the agenda, I will let the province make its comments since they are the ones who requested the meeting,” said Meagher.
The finance minister’s office then confirmed that Mr. Girard and his deputy minister Pierre Côté will meet with Mr. Bettman and his assistant Bill Daly on Thursday.
Last fall, Prime Minister François Legault caused surprise by revealing that his government was interested in the issue of the return of the Nordics, which has disappeared from radar screens for a few years.
Mr. Legault then announced that his Minister of Finance was in charge of the file and that he would meet with representatives of the NHL in January. No date had so far been given precisely.
Economic arguments
Depending on what The duty was able to learn, the government intends to put forward the robustness of the economy of Quebec and the capital region to revive Thursday the interest of the NHL in the eventuality of a return of the professional hockey.
Beyond the disruptions caused by the pandemic, the objective is to demonstrate that the economic context has improved since the Nordics left for Colorado in 1995.
“The” small market “then may not be such a small market,” slipped a source familiar with the matter who preferred not to be identified publicly.
No information has filtered out on the intentions or possible demands of the NHL in this matter, which led the Liberal government of Jean Charest to participate more than ten years ago in financing half of the construction costs of an amphitheater, inaugurated in 2015.
Thursday’s meeting will allow Minister Girard to concretely demonstrate to the NHL that his government, in power since 2018, really has an interest in supporting the return of the Nordics. Quebec is aware that the file will not be resolved with a single meeting, but the objective is to clarify what the role of the government could be in facilitating a favorable decision by the NHL and Mr. Bettman.
“We feel that there is something to try,” we were told.
In 2018, the NHL announced the creation of a professional team in Seattle, thereby rejecting the candidacy of the conglomerate Quebecor, which manages the amphitheater in Quebec.
At the end of November, Mr. Girard affirmed that he had been mandated last summer in this file, thus rejecting the accusations of the opposition, for whom the government is relaunching this affair to hide its difficulties in the management of the pandemic.
“The government is in favor of the return of the Nordics,” the minister said.