(Quebec) The return of the Nordiques will not be in the electoral platform of the CAQ, specified the Minister of Finance Eric Girard, who has the mandate to bring back a professional hockey team to Quebec.
Posted at 2:26 p.m.
“The Nordiques are not a subject related to the election campaign,” said Mr. Girard in a press briefing Thursday.
Mr. Girard said that Quebec “has the capacity to have a long-term hockey team”, but that “election cycles come and go, and that has nothing to do with the return of the Nordiques”.
In mid-May, the Minister met for the second time, in New York, with National Hockey League Commissioner Garry Bettman to convince him that the National Capital could host a professional hockey team. Mr. Girard then said that the return of the Nordiques was “definitely possible” in the long term.
Legault rekindles the flame
The subject of the return of NHL hockey to Quebec was no longer on the media radar screen, but last November, Premier François Legault rekindled the flame. He then revealed that his government was involved in this project which has made nostalgics dream since the departure of the team in 1995.
“I spoke to Mr. Bettman and I told him of our interest in the return of the Nordiques,” he said in a press briefing. Mr. Legault was already thinking about the commercial agreements necessary for the return of a team. “There is an amphitheater. Currently [pour] this amphitheater, there is a kind of right of first refusal for Quebecor and [Pierre Karl] Peladeau. We have to see if Mr. Péladeau is still interested in spending 700 million or more for a hockey team. Otherwise, we have to see how we manage it with the City of Quebec to have the amphitheater, ”he explained.
But since then, progress has been slim. In January, the management of the National League let it be known that “there was currently no opportunity” to move a team to Quebec. The Legault government also tried to encourage the Ottawa Senators to play a few games at the Videotron Center in Quebec City, but the plan fell through.
Same thing for the 2023 World Junior Hockey Championship: the joint candidacy of Quebec and Trois-Rivières was finally rejected, it was instead the cities of Halifax and Moncton who won the bet.