I don’t even know if all the NHL teams will be fine. There is some teams really struggling at the gate as is is, and some teams like Arizona, have a lot of debt.

The NHL is a TV-driven league. You know why "struggling" teams like Florida and Arizona didn't move ten years ago? Because local TV ratings are great (and also because it's unfair to judge the viability of a market when the team hasn't been good in a long time.

No NHL franchise that recently got it's hands on two consecutive franchise fees is going anywhere.

Found on the Avenir Centre web site:

Might want to check your facts there. NHL is a gate driven League not tv driven. Very simple research could of confirmed that for you

Yeah it’s very gate driven. Almost entirely gate driven.

The reasoning doesn’t hold up when you look at Atlanta being moved. The only reason that Arizona didn’t move is because the NHL got invested in the team and wouldn’t let it move. Also the Coyotes did have a period of success not that long ago, so again the logic doesn’t ad up.

STATS - NHL vs. NFL
 

NHL signed with Rogers, $436M/yr. for 12 years

NFL to collect $54.6 billion from TV contracts with FOX (runs from 2014-2022), CBS (2014-2022), NBC (2014-2022), ESPN (2014-2021) and DirecTV (2015-2022).

IIRC, one of the main reasons Arizona didn't move was because it was the focus of a hostile offer from the RIM owner, who didn't hide he fully intended to pull the team into Southern Ontario (either as a second Toronto team or a KWC team). So Bateman and the NHL owners dug in hard against it to fight it every means they had and then some; and basically quadruple downed on keeping the team in Arizona no matter how little sense it made.

Moving the Thrashers to Winnipeg was a lot easier since it was a friendlier offer and didn't really ruffle any feathers.

The Thrashers didn't have any owners when they were sold to Winnipeg. It was either Winnipeg or the team folded.

The NHL doesn't relocate teams often because it affects their speculative value. Buyers are more willing to pay a higher price if teams aren't moving around every two or three years. Show a commitment to a market with a plan and people will pony up money for franchises.

The NHL did not move Arizona because they're committed to the market (like they are with every market) and moving shows a sign of weakness in the product. Phoenix is one of the fastest growing, largest metro areas in the US, with a vast ethnic community; the NHL isn't walking away from that.

You're incorrect. As two examples, the NYRangers had $270M in revenues in the last season and only $103M of that derived from gate receipts, and Calgary had revenue of $138M with only $62M of it derived from gate receipts. Teams can survive on short-term without fans in stands because a lot of their revenue is derived from commercial sponsorships and media agreements.

https://www.forbes.com/nhl-valuations/list/#tab:overall

Leagues like the CFL and CHL are vastly gate-driven and thus might not come out of COVID unscathed.

Arizona has been an absolute shit-shit for decades now. They were losing upwards for $35-40 million a year with the leagues lowest salary. The NHL was forced to buy them out of bankruptcy for $140M. Their continued existence was predicated on the city of Glendale paying the NHL $25M a year. The year Atlanta left, the NHL played chicken with the city. They were 15 minutes away from selling the team to True North, the current Jets owners. When the small city of Glendale ponied up the money, the NHL didn’t want to own 2 teams at the same time, so they sold the Thrashers to TrueNorth. After looking at the business numbers, no one wanted to touch the franchise with a 10 foot pole. Enter Anthony LeBlanc who “bought” the team from the NHL (with the original idea of playing up to 10 games a year in Saskatchewan). Anthony came in and demanded a new arena be built up the road, closer to the denser population. Glendale rebuffed as they were still paying off their 15 year old arena. They then agreed to pay him $15M/ year for 15years for the privilege of having him as “owner”. He then came back to the city and decided $15M wasn’t enough and lobbied to have an entertainment tax zone created around he area so he could collect more money. Yadda yadda yadda, he’s doing the same thing in Halifax now with the Schooners. No money down, have the city and the tax payers build him a stadium and pay for his ownership.

Key word here is 'were'. They were doing pretty well on most economic indicators prior to COVID relative to their previous history.

Yes and no. As I previously posted the Thrashers owners almost literally left the team with the NHL with nowhere to play and nothing really to do. TrueNorth had been floating around for a few years and we able to snatch up the Thrashers immediately.

Well, he was working on the Schooners project, until he decided to move to an NHL team that'll probably fire him in five months time, which should say a lot about the Schooners project as it stands today.

Good to know. I was following the "Phoenix Coyotes Saga" on a daily basis, on the Hockey Futures forum for a decade. I stopped following 3 years ago and haven't really paid any attention to the NHL since.

Yes, the Thrashers owners basically "threw the keys on the desk" but Mark Chipman later admitted he was "15 minutes away" from buying the Coyotes from the NHL had Glendale not ponied up the money. The NHL would have had to move the Thrashers to the next best location, but as you said, that would have looked horrible on the league.

Good news for Halifax. If the CFL survives, hopefully they can find a better ownership and finally get a team.

I'm not sure what they're doing, but there's some City of Moncton trucks at the plaza, and an excavator digging up the area just south of the oval. There's fencing and pylons and quite a few workers there. Maybe some sub-grade repairs to the ice making system?

The big "R" from the signage on the top crown of the Avenir Centre is missing. It looks like it was ripped off, presumably in the big windstorm last week. For the time being, it is now the AVENI CENTRE

When a project is completed, is it not supposed to be removed from the forum? Just wondering. The Avenir Centre is not the only thing that is completed, there are the projects that are finished as well.

No, not really. There is a repository for dead threads, and while old threads used to be removed from the forum in the past, that doesn't seem to occur any more.

Usually when a thread disappears, it just drops off the bottom of the page and is easy to find again if you adjust your search parameters. On the other hand, with the dead thread repository, you really have to know what you're doing to find the former thread and view it again.

It is not uncommon to see a thread resurrected, even after years, especially in the Canada section. You also see this all the time in the Halifax subforum too, where a thread in which nobody has posted anything on since 2017 suddenly comes to life again.

Thanks for the information :).

The Aveni, Avidi, Avici Centre! :)

et tu Brute?

Welcome to the forums! :)

I noticed something interesting as I drove through Canada street this past Saturday around 8pm. One, there was hardly any side street parking spots available on Canada st, Main st, and part of Highfield st. I thought, is there a hockey game on inside the Avenir C? Of course there was none. It was the shear amount of people at the outside skate park.

Two, the Hyatt / Carraba's back private parking lot seemed full, plus there was at least 4-5 vehicles within the front door Hyatt entrance with some cars idling.
There was even a few lights on in the Hyatt hotel rooms.

After picking up a bottle of Italian vino from NB Liquor, I decided to head back to this area via Main. As I approached the beehive corner (Highfield/Main), I turned left to go up Highfield st. I said this once and I'll say it again, the Hilton Garden Hill needs more lighting to brighten the front of this hotel. It's so dark and seems so unnoticeable. There zero activity going on there. I really hope they do something.

According to MLA Greg Turner, the Avenir Centre holds the record in Canada this year (so far) with the largest audience attending a live sporting event. The most recent Wildcats game had 2278 fans in attendance (25% capacity). I wasn't there personally, and haven't gone to any games since we re-entered yellow phase, but maybe I'll go to the next game at the centre. :)