Head Tale

The NHL season started this week and the big news so far is that one of the billionaire co-founders of Research in Motion which makes the Blackberry and is based in Kitchener-Waterloo bought the Pittsburgh Penguins from $175 million dollars. 

I'd been following the story through the mainstream media but decided to check out TMLFans.com, a Leafs fan site, to see what they were saying, since a lot of the speculation is that the new owner plans to eventually move the team to Canada – possibly to  Hamilton or as a second team in Toronto and, as a long shot, right to Kitchener-Waterloo. 

There's a couple huge problems with Hamilton in that the new owners would have to pay huge encroachment fees (I think I read $50 or $75 million somewhere) to both Toronto and Buffalo because there's a 75 mile protected zone for all existing franchises to dissuade new teams from moving into their territories.  Hamilton's arena is also very outdated and they'd likely need a new one built. 

The problem with Toronto is that most people think the Leafs wouldn't want the competition for sponsorship dollars, skyboxes, etc. in their home market and so would do everything they could to keep out the new team – even though it's pretty obvious that Toronto could support a second team (Alberta supporters two teams with a population of three million people so a city of three million should be able to as well.  Plus Toronto can draw on a lot more nearby population – what, another 2-3 million within an hour of Toronto?) 

The issue with Kitchener-Waterloo is that it isn't seen as having a large enough population base plus it would still have to pay the encroachment fee to Toronto plus it doesn't have an NHL-level arena. 

So is there another option?  I didn't think so but check out this speculation from the TMLFans board:

As for the population base – London is less than an hour from
KW/Guelph/Hamilton/Windsor/Sarnia in all directions.  Lots of
population combined, with easy driving to get there. 
Mississauga/Burlington/Whitby/Richmond Hill all might be close to the
ACC, but good luck getting to a game in less than an hour at the ACC
with downtown traffic and parking.

I'm not saying London is
perfect, but I'm stating that it's a better option than most might
consider.  And without the $75 million compensation that would be
needed to be paid to Buffalo and Toronto.

London's arena isn't NHL quality either but we did play host to an NHL pre-season game this fall (coincidentally, featuring the Penguins) which is one way the league gauges interest in non-existing markets.  The John Labatt Centre can only seat 9100 for hockey which is very low by NHL Standards (most arenas hold 15 000-25 000 I think) and I'm not sure how many skyboxes the JBL has but probably not enough as this is where the real money is made today.

Anyhow, interesting speculation.  (Now, if you're asking whether the CFL should expand, I'm a huge fan of London and Halifax both getting teams.)