Salt Lake City is a smidge bigger than Aurora. Why are they moving there? So they can move again in another few years?

_________________

The owner of the Jazz just out of nowhere got a bee in his bonnet about owning an NHL team, probably so that the business-friendly Utah legislature would give him more taxpayer money to build a new arena for the Jazz.

If you count the entire media market, the whole Wasatch Front population corridor from stem to stern, it's roughly equivalent to Pittsburgh and Charlotte. However, like Miami, it's all along one axis running about 120 miles, and who knows how many people from Provo or Logan would bother driving in for games in a league that still relies on gameday revenue. Then again, the Delta Center only fits like 12,000 for hockey, so it might not matter right now.

_________________

Concubines

You know, there are only like two or three Mormons, if that, in the entire NHL. They're all over baseball and basketball (well, at least up through college), and football has both Utah Mormons and the big Polynesian boys named Hinckley Fa'patupui or whatever. But hockey, I think there's like one active player and a guy who does color for the Preds. It's like how the only Jews are Mathieu Schneider and shakes.

_________________

I don't know if Salt Lake City is the best answer for the Coyotes (or another NHL team), but IMO it's a better option than Phoenix / AZ.

_________________

where can i find Fels' opinion on this?

_________________
'Your AT&T Universal Card has arrived'? Oh God, Kick-fucking-ass, I got a Master Card! I don't believe it, man. Life is kinda cool sometimes.

There's none worse. The new defense is "but they have great youth hockey programs!," which I'm sure you could say about Saskatoon, but no one's putting a team there. Everyone who has owned the Phoenix team has lost money, lied about having money, or in the case of the last guy, not paid bills and taxes. Real billionaires line up to buy marginal NBA teams like the Magic and Grizzlies, but every prospective Coyotes owner is just Lyle Lanley from the monorail episode. No one with actual money wants to run an NHL team in Phoenix. The last guy only did it because it was a way to get a sportsbook license.

_________________

I was debating this and the other NHL cities that really don't deserve an NHL club. Both Columbus and Raleigh are strange markets for a pro team. He's still in love with the Vegas Golden Knights....I still hate them. I hate their chosen team name and I resent an expansion team starting out hot like they had an advantage. I'll be curious how the Vegas experiment goes when the team turns south and has a bad stretch.

_________________

The Whalers were originally supposed to move to Auburn Hills (Karmanos and Ilitch had some Detroit patron blood feud) but the Red Wings stomped that out in a hurry. NC State wanted a big arena for basketball and lured the NHL to help get taxpayer subsidies for it, hence Raleigh.

Staying in Hartford would have slashed travel costs for five or six teams. That's a bus trip.

_________________