The National Hockey League Players' Association is annoyed by the NHL's indifference toward putting a second team in Toronto.
With a handful of Sun Belt teams struggling to sell hockey, NHLPA director of player affairs Glenn Healy believes the timing could not be better for the NHL to seriously look at transferring a second team to the Toronto area.
He also stated that, in addition to Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie and a group that wants to bring a team to Vaughan, Ont., there are at least two other factions interested in landing another NHL team for Southwestern Ontario.
"They have been trying to fit a square peg into a round hole for a lot of years," Healy said yesterday, in reference to the failure of the Sun Belt teams in the NHL. "They have tried everything in the world to sell the game, market the game, put fans in the seats and it doesn't work for a lot of reasons.
"You can go down a laundry list of why it hasn't worked — it doesn't have the corporate backing, management has been ineffective in putting a winning team on the ice, and so on."
Healy's remarks were in concert with the view expressed by his boss, NHLPA executive director Paul Kelly, who along with NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly, assembled the Vaughan group.
"The viability of a second team in Toronto or Southern Ontario should be explored, so, in the event that relocation needs to be considered for franchises that are struggling where they are currently located, a well-informed decision can be made," Kelly said in a statement.
But NHL commissioner Gary Bettman continued in his stand that the league does not want to relocate any of its franchises and there are no immediate expansion plans.
"I didn't know who he was sitting down with," Bettman said of Daly on his weekly radio show. "I couldn't care less. He had the meeting, he reported back that there was another group interested in a team in Southern Ontario, which doesn't come as a shock or a news bulletin to me."
Even if Bettman changes his tune on the expansion front, Toronto or Southwestern Ontario would not be considered a front-runner.
"If at some point we're in the business of relocating or expanding, we're going to open it up because the number of people and the number of places that want franchises is a fairly lengthy list," he said. "Nobody has the corner on the market."
This has NHLPA executives such as Healy scratching their heads. The Florida Panthers came close to advancing to the playoffs for the first time since the 1999-2000 season. The average ticket price for a Panthers game is about $35 (U.S.) and they have plenty of ticket giveaways at nearby shopping malls and bars, yet they finished 24th in attendance this season.
The average ticket price for a Toronto Maple Leafs game is more than $100 (Canadian). That alone, Healy said, is an indication that Toronto or Southwestern Ontario could support another team.
"The players' responsibility is to put the best product on the ice," Healy said. "I think we've done that this year; whistle to whistle it has been excellent. I think the league has the responsibility to put teams in viable markets that you know are going to succeed. If the product is lousy then we have to revamp the game. But that's not the case."
Although Maple Leafs Sport and Entertainment, which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs, refuses to comment on the possibility of a second franchise in its backyard until it becomes closer to reality, there is a belief MLSE would rather cash in on a lucrative territorial-rights fee than cut cheques to financially strapped competitors in need of revenue-sharing.
The NHLPA obviously has little influence with the NHL on franchise relocations, and it's unlikely that Bettman and the 30 governors would concede a say in the next collective agreement.
"We can't do anything, but we do question why franchises are in certain places," Healy said. "We care because they are tied to us with the [salary-cap] system we're in and the cost certainty. Some of these franchises are like an anchor, or even the Titanic, and we're going down with them."
