Comments on: Don Cherry: Saskatoon’s a viable NHL destination

By: brucewaynewins

brucewaynewins — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 12:31:37 +0000

NHL will not contract. Craig on hardballtalk.com explained the reasons why MLB will never do it. The same reasons apply for NHL as well. It’d cost the NHL several hundred millions per team they contracted to pay out and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

By: nothanksimdriving123

nothanksimdriving123 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 07:06:27 +0000

No, Canadians plural did not invent basketball, one Canadian from Ontario named James Naismith invented it, while teaching in Springfield, Mass., in 1891.

By: apitheous

apitheous — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 03:46:30 +0000

Well you can’t have the Blues! although at the rate the purchase is progressing who knows.

By: rupertslander

rupertslander — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 23:21:07 +0000

The only way the U.S. dollar will ever buy anything like C$1.60 ever again is if the Americans find a way to retrofit their car fleet so they don’t run on gasoline refined from oil sourced largely from Alberta and, ah yes, Saskatchewan.

Which reminds me that there was a time when nobody thought Texas would ever have major sports teams. It was oil money that changed that thinking. As they say, history doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes.

By: quizguy66

quizguy66 — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 19:11:29 +0000

It’s a specious argument to use though. Both dollars fluctuate. You made it sound like it was current.

Believe me, I’ve serenaded Maple Leafs fans with “your dollar’s worth a quarter” chants back in the day. But that’s not the case now.

-QG

By: rainyday56

rainyday56 — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 05:46:23 +0000

And I’d like to point out that Super Dave is being secured by genuine SASS-ketchawan sealskin bindings. (Gawd, that never gets old!

By: rupertslander

rupertslander — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 05:20:08 +0000

Money per person is indeed very important, and Saskatchewan just happens to have more of it than every province except Alberta and every state except Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware and Wyoming.

Saskatchewanians are ready and willing to pay for NHL hockey. Once an NHL-caliber facility is built in Regina (which a domed Roughrider stadium could easily be designed to double as) a team could split home games between the two major cities and there is no question that venture would be viable.

By: rupertslander

rupertslander — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 03:16:24 +0000

Unless and unti you Americans find retrofit your fleet of cars so they run on something other than gasoline then the days of the sixty-odd cent exchange rate are gone – forever. The oilpatch in Alberta and – gasp! – Saskatchewan will see to that.

By: lostpuppysyndrome

lostpuppysyndrome — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 02:35:28 +0000

Bettman would rather die than even consider contraction. Still, could you imagine the glut of talent that would be spread around the league that’s currently being wasted on most towns south of the ol’ Masie-Dixie line? I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

By: lostpuppysyndrome

lostpuppysyndrome — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 02:30:18 +0000

PLEASE!! We’d be happy if you took Toronto! They’ve been practically begging to be annexed to the US for years now!

By: rupertslander

rupertslander — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 01:03:55 +0000

First things first, the reason Dadoun conveniently doesn’t touch TV ratings is that would expose the fact that as a television market Saskatchewan is just as big as Manitoba, indeed Saskatchewan’s economy surpassed Manitoba’s over a decade ago and the gap is growing rapidly. Cherry was technically wrong to call Saskatchewan the richest province in Canada as it’s actually second to Alberta. But nevertheless Saskatchewan is indeed richer than 46 out of 50 states, including all states with major sports teams.

Those points noted, what ought to go without saying in these discussions is that any NHL team in Saskatchewan would (at least eventually) play games in both Saskatoon and Regina. Given the strength of Saskatchewan’s economy, those cities together would easily punch at or above Winnipeg’s weight.

While Regina doesn’t have an NHL-size arena yet, it will once it builds a new domed stadium for the Roughriders. You read that right, now think it through: given that there is just five feet difference between a CFL field’s width (195′) and an NHL rink’s length (200′) you don’t need a doctorate in architecture to figure out how to convert a modern, domed CFL stadium into an NHL-caliber arena during the CFL’s off-season.

By: emperorzero

emperorzero — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:53:56 +0000

Hockey does quite well in Carolina. I still find it interesting it’s always the south teams that need to go, yet Tampa Bay and Carolina have won more Stanley Cups lately than any team from Canada. The financial state of the game works for Canada right now because the U.S. dollar isn’t worth a squirt of urine. But what happens if the disparity between currencies comes back like it did in the mid-90′s?

I can see the arguement for relocating the Coyotes to Quebec City, but there is no way the NHL is abandoning the South for a bunch of rinky-dink cities in Canada.

By: rainyday56

rainyday56 — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 22:40:33 +0000

Look up $ fluctuations over the last 15 years and tell me there was never a 65 cent C$, or that dramatic changes never happened over a period of months.

By: kitshky

kitshky — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:58:54 +0000

I havent’ seen such completely ignorant posts on here …ever. Saskatoon is not getting a team, we can all agree on that. It would be awesome for a team to be in SK, but it’s not gonna happen in this lifetime.

$0.65 Canadian dollar … Softball the national past time … lacking knowledge of this so called “Southern Hockey”? Did I miss PHT handing out crazy pills this morning?

By: mattryannolan

mattryannolan — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:15:33 +0000

Also forgot about that totally crappy team in STL. Gosh those Blues certainly need to go back up north for sure…………

By: mattryannolan

mattryannolan — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:57:36 +0000

Let’s give Canada another team sure. Lord knows they need another team so it can outside the playoffs like half the teams do. They want the Coyotes because they are their best chance to have a decent team outside of Vancouver and MAYBE Ottawa. as for teams doing well in the South I believe PHT has done a story on the success of teams in the south such as Dallas and even Carolina. I guess Americans in the south need to be more like Montreal and Toronto fans. Supports crappy teams year after year then whine all day and all night about how they aren’t better. So stop winning a Stanley Cup Dallas, Carolina, Tampa, even Colorado and Anaheim for that matter (Considering you guys consider Carolina south those two teams should be as well.) and start being more like canadian teams. Hockey has a growing passion in the south. Hockey in the south is still a relatively new idea in comparison to the teams in the north. So before we ship EVERY team that isn’t Chicago, Detroit, Boston, or the NY Rangers. Lets take a breather and let hockey grow in the south.

By: mattryannolan

mattryannolan — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:52:37 +0000

Canadians invented basketball cool… So should we take Toronto from you guys then? Because by your logic you guys don’t deserve it.

By: jefftberg

jefftberg — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:51:02 +0000

Saskatoon was big enough to be the home city of the Blues in 1983. In the past 30 years did Saskatoon get SMALLER? I think not.

By: Buffalo Grumblings

Buffalo Grumblings — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:11:18 +0000

And softball is the national pastime in Canada. Look it up

By: Buffalo Grumblings

Buffalo Grumblings — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:09:00 +0000

Quebec yes. Hamilton no. They are smack in the middle of Toronto and Buffalo territory. They can’t afford the indemnity money and Copps Colesium is now longer up to NHL standards.

By: quizguy66

quizguy66 — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 17:13:55 +0000

When’s the last time you’ve looked up the currency exchange b/w the US and Canada?

1 Canadian Dollars gets you $1.01 in US Currency.

Have made that correction above, I still think that Saskatoon is way too small. Once Anchorage, Alaska gets a team we’ll talk.

-QG

By: desertfan

desertfan — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:45:55 +0000

Other than the fact that moving teams to Canada is going backwards from a revenue perspective for the NHL- TV etc.-money per person is important.

I just received my 2013 renewal and playoff pkg.

Total $20,000.

Winnipeg will get a wake-up call if/when they ever make the playoffs.

How many in Saskatoon could write that cheque 1,2 or 3 years in a row???

By: whistler1217

whistler1217 — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:45:06 +0000

Minnesota guy here…I don’t understand the US/Canada hate on here sometimes. I love the US and Canada. BC is great, and i’m sure many other Canadian provinces/cities are as well. I would love to see a team or two head back north, and I think it will happen, just a matter of how soon. As for Saskatoon, i’m no expert but it doesn’t seem viable to me. That’d be about the equivalent of Duluth/Superior area in Minnesota/Wisconsin getting a team and that sounds kinda crazy to me.

By: rainyday56

rainyday56 — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 16:17:43 +0000

Five words: SIXTY-FIVE CENT CANADIAN DOLLAR.

No way Saskatoon gets a team while the C$ exists.

By: rz84

rz84 — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 15:15:21 +0000

Here you go again Americans talking about hockey again. Atlanta had what maybe 6000 fans at there games last year? Look at the size of Atlanta and only 6000 fans a game? Pathetic. Move them back up north and there selling out 16000 every night. March madness and spring training are right around the corner, should give you idiots something to talk about in where you won’t sound like arrogant-know everything about everything Americans. Also basketball was invented by a Canadian. Just saying

By: buffalomafia

buffalomafia — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 14:56:04 +0000

With the right(real) ownership hockey belongs in Atlanta?

By: banshee950

banshee950 — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 13:27:06 +0000

The south and fox tv are the two worst things that have happend to hockey in my lifetime. You simply cannot market it to people that haven’t played it. The sad result is a over marketing of fighting and the violence of the game without an understanding of the skill. I caught a game in AZ and no one paid a bit of attention to the ice unless there was a fight or tee shirts being shot over the glass. The only southern teams drawing worth a damn are the transplant cites that have large northern and Canadian wintner and full time populations.
I don’t know Canadian cities well enough to say where, but the teams should head back north ASAP.

By: acieu

acieu — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 09:47:22 +0000

Feckin whining Canadians how about A second team in Montreal and or Toronto you hoser losers.

By: blomfeld

blomfeld — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 07:01:48 +0000

I’m sorry friend, but what in the hell does the following have to do with ice hockey ?

By: howiehandles

howiehandles — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 06:22:11 +0000

Southern hockey knowledge? Care to explain what that is?

Doubt equate Cup wins with Southern hockey knowledge. For the most parts, the teams in the South don’t draw, minus their Cup years. Rather sad too, as they’ve had some pretty solid teams the past few years.