What’s Going On Orthographically Boos Gary Bettman

By Kevin Schroeder
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Updated: June 28, 2016

What happens in Vegas is probably a bad idea

It’s official. Las Vegas is getting an NHL team. Why? I don’t know, but they are. They will be named the Black Knights. Why? I don’t know, but they are. Also, Vegas is the only expansion team right now, so the league is going to have 31 teams in it. Why? I don’t know, but it will. I mean, not like Quebec City could use a team or anything. (Really, guys, bring back the Nordiques. The Whalers, too. Seriously, what’s the holdup? I mean, the XL Center’s not perfect, but the MTS Centre is far from it and they brought the Jets back.)

I have zero faith in Las Vegas as a hockey market. This has all the potential to be another Arizona or Florida. Or Carolina. Seriously, give the Whalers back. The only redeeming quality here could be people already planning to visit Las Vegas changing their trip to coincide with their favorite team playing there, a.k.a. time switching. So, this should go without saying, but the Black Knights should under no circumstances pull a Nashville and bar fans outside the viewing area from purchasing tickets to games. With all the markets out there that would have been better for the league (Quebec City, Hartford, Seattle, Portland, Hamilton to name a few), it seems pretty ridiculous that the league picked Vegas. Then again, they were considering a second team for Toronto, which, considering he popularity of the Leafs in Toronto, would be a pretty bad idea. As far as the idea of adding a second team to a major market is concerned, that’s probably the worst one, edging out a second football team in Chicago only because the NHL’s conferences are geographic meaning the Toronto teams would be in direct competition with one another quite often, whereas the NFL’s conferences aren’t geographic, so you could see some people root for both Chicago football teams, as you do with the Cubs and White Sox in baseball.

Can a Capexit (we’ll work on the name) be next, please?

The Canadian dollar took a hit after Britain voted to leave the EU, so thanks for that, Britain. As hockey fans know by now, what’s not good for the Canadian dollar is not good for the NHL, as the reason the salary cap hasn’t gone up as much as was once expected is largely due to the decline of the Canadian dollar as oil prices have fallen. On behalf of Blackhawks fans everywhere, let me just say that I am willing to pay a few cents more for gas if it means fewer cap casualties for the Hawks. I get the point of the cap, but the NHL has the worst system of any major sport. Teams essentially get punished for drafting and developing well. A system like that makes no sense. Sure, parity is a good thing, but the NHL probably has too much parity and certainly goes about ensuring parity in a ridiculous manner. At this point, it’s really hard to not hate the cap, especially when it’s being used to prop up teams like the Arizona Coyotes, who just traded for the contract of Pavel Datsyuk, who will be nothing but a cap hit for them as he’s going to play in the KHL. Arizona has a team that isn’t even trying to win that nobody’s coming to see and there are markets that would truly love a team that don’t have one. Boo, Gary. Boo.

Twitter: @KSchroeder_312

E-mail: schroeder.giig@gmail.com