Bettman To Meet With Quebec City Officials Who Want An NHL Team

Quebec City is not in the running for a team.

National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman plans to meet with Quebec City and Quebec elected officials in January. Those government officials want an NHL franchise. Quebec City lost an NHL team in 1995 and struck out in 2016 in an effort to get an NHL expansion franchise. Quebec City backers got the cold shoulder in 2017 when the National Hockey League invited Seattle investors only to apply for an expansion team. Quebec was out in the cold in 2016 and in 2017 and there is no reason to think that Quebec will land a team in 2022. Bettman said that the NHL has no intention of expanding. Because the Canadian dollar is worth just 79 cents US, the actual price for Quebec City investors to get an expansion franchise or to land a team and move it to the city would likely be more than a billion dollars Canadian and that probably is far too high a figure to make sense for potential Quebec City owners. Quebec City potential owners had a difficult time getting about $650 million together during the 2016 NHL expansion process.

In 1995, when Marcel Aubut sold his Quebec Nordiques franchise to Denver business interests who moved the team to the Colorado city, Aubut didn’t have a new building. Aubut, in addition to not having a new building, had a currency problem as the Canadian dollar was slipping to a worth of 62 cents US. Quebec City has a building but remains a small, government town with few corporate loonies to chase. The league still has an Arizona problem and is playing a waiting game to see if Tempe will approve an arena-village concept in town to accommodate the team. Arizona ownership has proposed building the arena-village. Bettman said none of the 32 franchises are moving and there is no expansion plan. Yet Quebec officials still want a team.

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