NHL: Time To Call Bettman's Bluff in Quebec City

Sports and politics are usually a bad mix, and the deal to build a new $400 million arena in Quebec City certainly points to that.

The only winner in this deal is the Canadian Federal Government, which refused to open a can of worms and allot money to the project and whose representatives were significantly absent from the press conference announcing the deal.

The new arena is to be jointly funded by the Quebec Provincial Government and the Quebec City municipal government at $200 million each.

Originally there was to be a three way split between all three levels of government with the municipal government only contributing $50 million and the senior levels each investing $175 million.

Now the municipal government will acquire a long-term debt of $125 million.

This deal is typical of Quebec, where major sports deals are usually funded by taxpayers.

All the arenas of the current Canadian NHL teams were built by private enterprise, and significantly there were no private investors at the recent press conference.  That's an ominous way to be viewed by the private sector.

The Federal Government didn't dare make a contribution because of the outrage across Canada it would have provoked. Also, this would have set a bad precedent, and would have opened the door to countless suitors for Federal money for various sports and cultural events.

Quebec Mayor, Regis Labeaume, is safe for now, having just won a municipal election.

But two other people aren't so safe:  Quebec premier, Jean Charest, and NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman.

Charest is banking everything on this deal.  His government is unpopular because of several scandals and funding a new Quebec arena is probably being seen as his one chance of being re-elected.

But if Quebec voters are not impressed with this and vote him out of office, a new provincial government could interpret the election results as a mandate to repudiate the deal and scuttle the whole project.

But if the project goes forward, Gary Bettman and the NHL's image in Canada will go on trial.

The NHL is already unpopular in Canada and a sizable number of Canadian taxpayers are opposed to donating any money to a sports project that benefits private enterprise.

Quebec already tried to counter this type of opposition by disguising the arena as part of an attempt to get the Winter Olympics.  It didn't fool the rest of Canada or those Quebec taxpayers who oppose this project.

The NHL has a long history of keeping Canadian NHL franchises to a minimum.

Vancouver was kept out of the first NHL expansion in 1967.  Then there was opposition to the merger with the WHA in the 1970's.  Finally, three Canadian franchises and Hartford were allowed to join the NHL in 1980.

The two most notorious incidents occurred in the 1990's.

First, Hamilton built an NHL-size arena in hopes of getting a franchise, only to lose it, though in fairness, the expansion team did go to Ottawa.  To this day, Hamilton's NHL-size arena is still without a franchise.

Then Quebec and Winnipeg lost their teams and many Canadians blamed Bettman and the NHL for making little attempt to save them.  Contrast that now with the situation in Phoenix.

The root of the opposition is television money on both sides of the border.

In Canada, the six Canadian franchise owners don't want to share their television revenue with new owners.  But because of the politics involved in this Quebec deal, opposition may be watered down.

In the United States, Bettman was specifically hired to get a large American television contract and his policies reflect that.

He expanded the NHL into American markets that have little connection with hockey and he has strongly opposed any shift of American franchises to Canada because he believes such moves will undermine his efforts to get a rich television deal.

So if Quebec is to get a team, most likely it will be an expansion franchise, probably paired with another city to bring the NHL to a symmetrical number of 32 like the NFL.

Before embarking on this scheme to get the Nordiques back, both Charest and Labeaume had talks with Bettman.

No accurate accounts of what was said have been revealed, but it is strongly suspected that Bettman promised a team in return for a proper NHL size arena in Quebec.  That is probably the image most Canadians have.

Bettman has also gone on record of saying that he wants to right the wrong of removing Quebec and Winnipeg from the NHL.

So Canadians to whom NHL expansion matters, will be watching very closely what will happen.  Such people will now expect a team in Quebec City either before or to coincide with the opening of the new arena, projected to open in 2015.

Bettman's only public announcement has been to divorce any connection between the NHL and the project.  That won't win the NHL any popularity in Canada.

But most Canadian hockey fans will now expect the NHL to pay up.  Many already believe that the NHL is anti-Canadian and if the NHL slights Quebec like it slighted Hamilton, it will only add weight to their arguments.

It will also open the door to any investors who have dreams of forming a second, more successful WHA.

It can be argued that Winnipeg's 15,000 seat arena is too small for the NHL.  But a proper NHL size arena in Quebec will offer no such excuse.

It is time for Bettman's bluff to called.  If he proves false, his credibility, and whatever credibility the NHL still has in Canada will be gone.