(7:50pm): Hurricanes team president Don Waddell called an in-game press conference tonight to deny the rumors of relocation, tweets Luke DeCock of The Raleigh News & Observer. In a second tweet, DeCock reports that Waddell also indicated that there had been nothing on the sales front in “four to five months.”
(6:45pm): Rumors of a potential sale of the Carolina Hurricanes franchise have been percolating for a while now. Attendance is one problem as the team has finished 30th and 29th respectively over each of the last two full campaigns and currently reside in last place again averaging just 11,189 fans per home game.
A second issue complicating the situation is a lawsuit filed against team owner Peter Karmanos by his three sons. Details of the suit can be found here. The suit has evidently been settled though it’s unknown whether that might mean a sale of the club is more or less likely.
Now, according to 98.5 Sports in Montreal (link in French), Karmanos is still actively pursuing a sale of the team and is willing to sell to a buyer looking to move the ’Canes out of North Carolina. Naturally, with an NHL-caliber arena and no tenant, Quebec City immediately comes to mind as a potential landing spot should relocation become an option.
Earlier this year when talking about a sale and potential relocation, Karmanos flat out said the team would not be moving from North Carolina.
“I promise, this team isn’t going to Quebec. I’m not saying that cause I have something against Quebec, but because we have ties to this market. We have an excellent lease, I love this arena and I’m really attached to this market.”
Perhaps Carolina’s current ownership has softened on its stance but even so the league would need to approve such a move and in the past they’ve been resistant to relocating franchises.
Of course relocating the Hurricanes to Quebec would not solve the league’s geographical imbalance but it also doesn’t hurt the situation either. However, a possible future expansion to Seattle, as has often been rumored as well, would bring that desired balance. That would allow the league to use Quebec as a fall back in the event relocation of an Eastern Conference franchise, like Carolina, becomes necessary.
The NHL will be expanding no matter what within 2-3 years in order to balance the conferences. As it stands, once Vegas enters the West next season, we’ll be at 15 Western Teams and 16 Eastern Teams. The question that remains is whether the league is better off relocating to Quebec City and expanding to Seattle OR relocating to Seattle and expanding to Quebec.
I believe the NHL is better off with the latter by moving the Hurricanes to Seattle and expanding to Quebec City in 2018 or 2019. Quebec has already proven that they will support a team no matter what after showing complete support of the old Nordiques when they were lucky to win 15 games a season.
If they don’t become the whalers again… I’m going to cry.
I’d love to see that just to see those amazing Whaler jerseys again.
Seattle Whalers sounds good
We already have a brand new arena being constructed here in Milwaukee, would even out the divisions out west and leave the east coast open for a GTA team, or Quebec City in expansion. Otherwise who moves to the central if another team is added in the pacific? Edmonton? Calgary and Vancouver wouldn’t have it. Milwaukee makes the most sense for a move
I’m going to go out on a limb and say Arizona would move to the Central if/when Seattle gets a team. With Colorado already in the Central and Arizona’s relative proximity to Denver(roughly hour and a half flight from Tempe to Denver), it makes it feasible. Moving Arizona to the Central also allows the NHL to keep the Alberta-BC rivalries to remain intact.
lol Canes aren’t going anywhere