Quote:
Originally Posted by Djeffery
I'm not sure Milwaukee would be a great option. Not saying it isn't either, but whenever I see such a discrepancy in seating capacity between hockey and basketball layouts, it tells me the arena isn't great for hockey. We've seen this before, most recently at Barclays, but also in Phoenix originally, and those situations didn't work well. Maybe if the Bucks ownership was the interested party in bringing the NHL there, since they operate the arena, they could make it work. I doubt an outside owner could make a go of it there as a tenant in a substandard NHL arena. Thee Jets work at that capacity because they own the place.
|
The difference between Fiserv Forum and Barclays and Footprint Center is that Fiserv was designed with hockey in mind while the others are basketball specific. You can tell by looking at the seating charts that the rink is crammed and off centre and an entire section of seating is removed in the basketball specific arenas. The discrepency in seating capacity doesn't seem to correlate with whether an arena is basketball specific or not. That said, the hockey capacity at Fiserv on Wikipedia is much lower than I remembered. I'm not sure why that is but I think it's actually higher.
As for fan support, that shouldn't be a problem as Wisconsin is full of hockey fans, and I found an article that said a NHL preseason game at Fiserv sold out in minutes.
Kelowna would be a great location for an NHL team. BC is in desperate need of professional hockey.