Even with the bad weather that's pretty embarrassing. Re-location of Tampa Bay, Florida, Phoenix and the Islanders would help this league out. Having Stamkos, Lecavalier and St. Louis playing for Quebec City, and Phoenix going back to Winnipeg would only help this league. More teams closer to the northern border would be beneficial and make sense. New York/New Jersey already has enough teams...time to re-locate and move some teams around.
While that is true what else is there in Columbus compared to Tampa Bay? I agree with Atlanta and Dallas. All of those southern states don't seem to have the interest or passion when it comes to hockey(compared to Canadians) yet Gary Bettman won't man up to it.
and guess what?? out of the 3136 fans, i heard 2,700 of them were from montreal. yes, that's right, 40 buses left montreal on friday aft to attend this game. and they all were there despite the horrendous blizzard. that's what mtl fans are all about. we don't care about the weather, we still have 21,000 fans here every game, even in 35 inch snowstorms. Mtl is the greatest hockey town in the world...so imagine if there were no mtl fans at tonights game, there would have been only 436 fans.. the whole place was filled with habs jerseys tonight..
It will take years for hockey to fully catch on in the south. It has to start with the youth first, growing up as a kid in the south it's baseball, basketball, football and soccer. There is no youth hockey leagues to get kids interested in the game. So when the kids grow up and are now the consumer they are going to go to the sports they know and like. I have friends from Buffalo that grew up playing hockey and love that sport more than anything.
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NY Islanders 3136 in attendance tonight.
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