SEATTLE ON HOLD?
IAIN MACINTYRE: NHL commissioner Gary Bettman says league is not currently pursuing expansion.
Well, it’s not like Gary Bettman didn’t warn us. “If you are expecting a major announcement, you will be sorely disappointed,” he said at the start of his lunchtime press conference Friday in Vancouver.
The National Hockey League commissioner then took questions for 25 minutes.
He was amiable and accommodating, complimentary toward Vancouver and the Canuck organization, and joked early on that it was far too quiet inside Rogers Arena to announce a trade — a slightly self-deprecating reference to the draft floor in New Jersey two years ago when Bettman was being drowned out by boos until he announced the Canucks were trading Cory Schneider to the Devils.
“You’re going to want to hear this,” he said then to his Jersey fans, who were actually much better behaved than the Vancouver fans who shamefully launched garbage and vitriol at Bettman as he brought the Stanley Cup onto the ice after the Bruins beat the Canucks in the 2011 final.
Still, by the end of his Friday press conference, Bettman had said about as much as Marshawn Lynch, although the Seattle Seahawk running back had the New York lawyer on “y’alls.”
This was expected but still a little disappointing, not because Bettman was lying or being evasive, but because we’d hoped there would be at least something surprisingly encouraging — like the possibility of an NHL team in Seattle, or an acknowledgment that it has been a long time since anyone lost with the conviction of the Buffalo Sabres, or he was just kidding that the 2016 World Cup format will include a Canada-U.S. development team and a squad of displaced Europeans. At least, none of the teams will be comprised of boy-girl-boygirl.
The best news Bettman offered was that the falling Canadian ruble, tanking like the Sabres but ineligible to draft Connor McDavid, shouldn’t have any catastrophic effect on the NHL salary cap next season.
The current $69-millionUS cap, tied to NHL revenues disproportionately driven by Canadian teams, could be $72.3 million next season, or $71.7 million or slightly lower.
“But on a cap that’s over $70 million, I’m not sure that anyone should take that to be a meaningful or material difference,” he said.
And as far as the tanking teams: “There’s a lottery. You can finish anywhere and it doesn’t assure you you’re getting any particular player that you want. I don’t think it’s fair — all of this. On a slow news day, I guess it’s good fodder, but I don’t buy it for one second that our clubs and our players don’t try their hardest.”
But he said this before the Sabres put their 13-game losing streak on the line Friday night against the Canucks.
Expansion has been a frontburner topic since Bettman revealed at governors meetings in December that billionaire Bill Foley had been granted permission to conduct an NHL season-ticket drive to plumb interest for hockey in Las Vegas, where a new arena is being built.
For logistical reasons, it makes more sense for the league to add two western teams than one, and Seattle has been in the expansion conversation since 2012, when hedge fund manager Chris Hansen and government officials reached a memorandum of understanding to build a new downtown arena as a home for basketball and, potentially, hockey teams.
But city and county contributions of up to $200 million are contingent on an NBA team being moved to Seattle as an anchor tenant for the arena.
Hansen, who lost a key basketball partner when former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer purchased the Los Angeles Clippers last summer, has been rebuffed in efforts to relocate teams from Milwaukee, Minnesota and Sacramento. The funding pledge expires in 2017 and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray admitted last week after travelling to New York to meet NBA commissioner Adam Silver and Bettman that there is little hope of Hansen acquiring a team before then and little prospect that elected officials will amend or extend the memorandum.
There is no “NHL-first” provision in the agreement. Without basketball, the deal and arena project die.
Only 18 months ago, when Glendale city council voted 4-3 to continue subsidizing the Arizona Coyotes, Seattle came within one councillor’s ballot of getting an NHL team, the Seattle Times reported in October.
“Most people don’t realize how close we were to actually getting an NHL team,” former Seattle mayor Mike McGinn told the Times.
According to Bettman, Seattle is a long, long way from getting one now.
“I think the building situation remains uncertain,” he said. “And based on my discussions with the mayor ... is likely to remain uncertain for some period of time.
“And just so we’re clear, we’re not currently contemplating expansion anywhere. We are simply continuing to listen to the expressions of interest that we’re getting in places like Seattle, like Quebec City, like Las Vegas.”
Asked if he feels Seattle’s proximity to Vancouver would make it an appealing candidate for the expansion the NHL is not considering, Bettman said: “Viscerally, it seems like Seattle would be an intriguing city with all sorts of possibilities, including a rivalry with the Canucks. So yes, at least at face value, there are some real positives.”
Bettman went on to defend the NHL’s crackdown on hits to the head, said the global talent pool for hockey (not that the league is considering expansion) is deeper than ever and, although corporate advertising may be on World Cup jerseys in 2016, the commissioner would have to be dragged “kicking and screaming” to allow it on NHL uniforms.
That actually could be fun to watch. At age 62, on he eve of the 22nd anniversary of his hiring as NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman has shown he can fight.
“I didn’t feel old until I started getting these questions,” he said when asked about his future.
“Let me make it as succinct as I can: I love what I do. Even a tough day is a great day. I have as much energy as I did 22 years ago. I think the best is yet even in front of us. And so I have no interest in doing anything else other than what I am doing.”
Discuss among yourselves.