Mayor: City has a case for an NHL team
With one single emoji, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin unofficially threw the city’s hat into the ring to host an NHL team.
The city of Glendale, Ariz., terminated the Arizona Coyotes’ lease for the city-owned Gila River Arena, which will leave the franchise homeless following the 202122 NHL season. In a statement, the NHL team said it is committed to remaining in Arizona, though the termination did spark relocation conversations.
Enter hockey-hungry Hartford. Bronin quote tweeted a Sportsnet story regarding the lease termination on Thursday with an emoji of a waiving hand, reinvigorating a Connecticut sports fan base which has clamored for an NHL team since the Hartford Whalers relocated to North Carolina in 1997. Sportsnet wrote that Quebec, which applied for an expansion franchise in 2015, could be a primary option.
“I think any time there’s a professional sports team looking for a home, there are a lot of cities that are interested in obtaining them,” Bronin told The Courant on Friday. “Given Hartford’s hockey history, and the fact that Hartford is one of the top-10 media markets without a pro team, there’s a compelling case to be made that Hartford is, and should be, in the discussion for an NHL team.”
Bronin’s tweet is reminiscent of a post from last summer in which he wrote, “Hey Blue Jays, Hartford’s ready,” as the Toronto Blue Jays were in search of a Major League Baseball home for the 2020 season after the Canadian government denied the team’s request to play its home games in Toronto due to COVID-19 restrictions. Discussions extended beyond the tweet, as Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont and the Hartford Yard Goats front office were in talks with the Blue Jays brass. Toronto eventually chose to play its home games in Buffalo, home of its Triple-a team, instead of Dunkin’ Donuts Park.
“It was a very real possibility that they might have ended up here,” Bronin said. “Hartford was under serious consideration.”
Bronin noted that for Hartford to be under consideration for any NHL franchise, considerable upgrades would need to be made to the XL Center, though he added that renovations are necessary “no matter what.”
The recent success of the Yard
Goats and Hartford Athletic, a USL team which plays in the renovated Dillon Stadium, is a sign to Bronin that professional teams can flourish in the city and state.
“It indicates that there’s a hunger for sports, there’s a hunger for local teams to rally around,” Bronin said. “There’s no question that having a pro team, particularly when they’re hosted in a facility that’s hosted in the core of a downtown, can be an important economic driver. I also think it has a powerful psychological effect, not just for the city, but for the state as a whole.”