Why the NHL Doesn't Dare Play an Exhibition Game in Hamilton

Scanning the NHL's exhibition schedule of games played in non-NHL cities to get clues about the future development of the league, one notices several interesting things.

First, there is the commitment to Europe, with the New York Rangers playing several European league teams. Perhaps this is a portent of a future European NHL Conference.

There is the game in the city-in-waiting, Quebec, likely to be the next Winnipeg or part of an NHL expansion package.  Montreal, of course, will be playing out of goodwill towards its downfallen Quebec rival, though, interestingly, they are not the home team.

There are games in "neutral" cities, those unlikely to get an NHL franchise in the foreseeable future, but are played there anyway out of goodwill; cities like Halifax, Saskatoon, St John's, London, Bridgeport and Albany.

There the cities that the NHL would like to be in if it could; cities like those of the Gary Bettman expansion era; cities that don't have much familiarity with hockey, but would be useful to have a franchise in order to get a lucrative American television contract; cities like Baltimore, Kansas City, Las Vegas or Orlando.

But it is what is missing that is most instructive.  The four best American cities where an NHL franchise would be successful long term—Milwaukee, Seattle, Portland and Hartford—won't have an exhibition game.

And in Canada, the city which has successfully hosted major international hockey events like the Canada/World Cup; the city that has a small-size NHL arena much bigger than Winnipeg's and has an open commitment from its city council to upgrade it further; the city that has the most lucrative surrounding hockey area; the city that has been estimated to be the third-most valuable in the NHL, should it get a franchise—Hamilton, Ontario—will again get the cold shoulder from the NHL.

A few years ago, the NHL played an exhibition game in Kansas City, featuring the New York Islanders in hopes to provide them with a potential blackmailing site to force the Long Island area to invest in a new area.

That game drew an embarrassingly less than half-full house, setting back Kansas City's chances of getting an expansion or relocated team.

Yet the NHL is back in Kansas City once again this year, undaunted by the past embarrassment.

But it is the absurdity of the NHL that an instant sellout in Hamilton would be more a colossal embarrassment than a poor turnout in an American city.  In fact, the NHL could probably play a full suite of exhibition games in Hamilton and get a full house for each one of them.

But sellouts would just highlight the NHL's shoddy treatment of Hamilton.

Hamilton was a better relocation choice for the Atlanta Thrashers.  They have a much bigger arena and a surrounding hockey market that makes Winnipeg's external area look like peanuts.

And while the only thing Hamilton couldn't match Winnipeg with, owners as rich as Mark Chipman and Dave Thomson, an owner with the assets of Jim Balsillie is a step up above many of the current owners who sit on the Board of Governors.

The NHL wants to preserve the Southern Ontario market as a monopoly for Toronto and Buffalo, so it conveniently ignores all the assets a Hamilton franchise could bring to the table.

In the 1990s, Hamilton lost its chance at getting an NHL franchise when the team's bidder, Tim Doughnut, made the mistake of questioning the NHL's expansion terms.

Thus, the leading Canadian candidate for an NHL team saw its dreams slip away to Ottawa, which didn't even have an arena built.  Since then, Hamilton has been completely shunned.

One of Gary Bettman's unwritten terms when he was first hired was probably to preserve the Toronto/Buffalo monopoly. 

So when he made his grand Canadian tour last term, and visited Quebec and Winnipeg and expressed deep regret that they had lost their teams, and wished somehow to right the wrong, he still made it clear that Hamilton was on the back-burner.

In a recent kiss-and-make-up with Jim Balsillie (in order to get Blackberry money to sponsor TSN and CBC playoff hockey telecasts), he counseled him to be patient, just like he has done with the mayors of Quebec and Hartford, and Thomson and Chipman.

But for this year at least, there is no thaw in the NHL frost towards Hamilton.

The NHL doesn't want to be embarrassed by success.