Okay, now that you've all recovered.
There's a great moment in Joe vs the Volcano where Dan Hayeda is having one of those one sided circular phone conversations we've all heard a boss having. The refrain of the conversation is "I know he can GET the job, but can he DO the job."
It's a very important designation that I remember thinking a lot of when I was looking for work, and also when I was interviewing people for jobs. We had a lot of great candidates who looked perfect, had all the skills, but really didn't add any value and in some cases were actually detrimental to our department. I always try to ask myself that question so that I can make sure that the descision I'm going to make goes beyond simply meeting an immediate need, and that it benefits more than just one or two people.
For the second time in as many years, one of the struggling NHL franchises is up for sale, and Jim Balsillie is in talks to buy them and move them to Hamilton or Kitchener-Waterloo. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is trying to block the sale to Balsillie. And of course the people of Canada, including allegedly rational people in politics and newspapers, are all over themselves about the prospect of another team in South/Central Ontario.
And I STILL think this is a horrible, horrible idea.
Some background, which I may go into later in another post: I'm a recovering hockey fan. I used to follow it religiously, but the state of the game itself, the way it's run, and people's attitude towards it have led me to completely divorce myself from it. I follow my beloved baseball, and then basketball, and then Premier League Football.
Canada, however, is hockey mad. In a way, the country never stopped being 12 years old. If the nation could be wallpapered, it would be in NHL approved logos. The mere mention of the sport sends many people into a kind of fugue that is at once impressive and scary.
This is a hotbed of hockey. It would be like saying there shouldn't be a football team in Green Bay, or baseball in New York. The people are mad for the sport and would support the team. So why do I think moving a team here would be a bad move?
Putting a team in Hamilton, or Kitchener-Waterloo would net you exactly this many new fans: Zero. And I'm rounding up.
Sure, moving a team here would GET the job. It would be a hit. They'd sell out every game, and the merch would sell. But the ratings of Hockey Night in Canada, or any games on Vs or NBC would be the same, if not less in the last two cases. I don't think that the people aren't watching hockey in Hamilton are not watching it because there's no team there.
For good or for ill, Gary Bettman had one mandate: increase hockey's visibility in the US the way he did when he was with the NBA, which was another sport that was seen as regional. The way to do this was not to put another team in New York, but to put teams in places like Orlando, Miami, underrepresented areas where the sport could grow. Baseball and football expansion worked the same way also. Yes, basketball had the ultimate outlier in MJ, but hockey has its own stars in Crosby and Ovetchkin, who have pretty much failed to catch on in any non-hockey market.
People say that the problem is that Bettman ignored Canada and put teams into new areas that were not hockey friendly. Of course he did. That was his job. And if it meant that a few teams had to be moved from Canada to increase that visibility, so that a place like Colorado or Phoenix could get a team that was ready to compete and didn't have years of having to build up a reputation, than so be it. Everyone cried when Winnipeg lost its team and wants it to come back, but I don't see many stories about Hartford. "Oh, but they have Boston," people will say, and I'll say "Thank you for proving my point".
As well, there are still untapped markets in the States where hockey might still thrive:
- Kansas City
- Cincinnati
- San Antonio
- Cleveland
- Milwaukee
The game is struggling in places like Phoenix and Nashville, but the league doesn't want to give up. Moving a team from a new region to an established one is giving up, and the story won't be "Canada gets a new team" but "Hockey continues to fail in the US, will always be a minor league". Bettman knows this. That's why he's blocking Balsillie's move. It's not because he hates Canada, but because he can't win playing that way.
A new team in Canada can GET the job, but it can't DO the job.
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