DBWI NHL expands southward

In the early 1990s, the National Hockey League almost created the office of the Commissioner, joining MLB, the NFL, and the NBA as leagues with commissioners. I even read that their first choice was disgraced NBA executive Gary Bettman, whom the NHL hoped would be their answer to labor issues, never mind that league president Gil Stein did a fine job of taking the first steps to creating labor peace in hockey.

The other thing that they were considering was expansion into southern markets. There are a few teams farther south, like the LA Kings and the Dallas Stars, but even the Whalers picked Columbus instead of Raleigh. I wonder what the league would look like if the NHL had gone full-hog into places like Miami and Atlanta. I wonder if an Atlanta team would try to get the Flames name back.
 
The Canadian dollar's shrinkage couldn't stop Mark Chipman from buying the Winnipeg Jets from Barry Shenkarow in the mid 90's, but I'd still worry about Quebec and its struggles to replace Le Colisee. Denver will get a team eventually, as it is too big a market to not have hockey. Seattle and Portland could easily substitute for the southern markets for expansion or relocation.
 
Yeah, expansion was pretty calculated this time around - after the Sharks, the NHL added the Ottawa Senators and Seattle Sounds and then cooled their collective jets until the Nordiques moved to Denver, an inevitable move.

But then again, if they didn't sit tight for so long at 24, they never could have replaced the Nordiques or the Whalers.
 
The Whalers picking Columbus is not a surprise. I went to Ohio State so I lived there for four years. No city in the western hemisphere was more desperate for a major league professional sports franchise. Note I say major league because Columbus either has or has tried just about every minor league sport known to humanity.

However, because Columbus is sandwiched between Cleveland and Cincinnati and because Ohio State's football and basketball teams are such a dominating presence, the city's only hope for a franchise was an NHL team so you know the city and Franklin County were going to do whatever it took to make it happen.
 
The Whalers picking Columbus is not a surprise. I went to Ohio State so I lived there for four years. No city in the western hemisphere was more desperate for a major league professional sports franchise. Note I say major league because Columbus either has or has tried just about every minor league sport known to humanity.

However, because Columbus is sandwiched between Cleveland and Cincinnati and because Ohio State's football and basketball teams are such a dominating presence, the city's only hope for a franchise was an NHL team so you know the city and Franklin County were going to do whatever it took to make it happen.

I'm from Columbus, though, and you would barely know they ever had an NHL team here, the way the fans ignored them after a few years. I, for one, blame Ohio State for that.
 
Had the NHL expanded southward, I doubt there would have been the impetus for the city of Baltimore to demolish that museum piece of an arena originally called the Baltimore Civic Center and replace it with the Theodore McKeldin Arena on the same property (i.e., the southeast corner of West Baltimore and Howard Streets). In turn, the southward expansion would mean a team in...I don't know, perhaps someplace really irrational like Tampa Bay...instead of the Baltimore Skipjacks.

The Skipjacks have turned the NHL's Metropolitan Division (a/k/a the Rust Belt Division) into one of the most fiercely and hotly contested in any sport, not just hockey. Some of those games in the '90s with Eric Lindros for the Skipjacks and Peter Forsberg on the Flyers were epic. Same goes for the rivalry when Wayne Gretzky came east to play his last season or two with the Jacks, and Mark Messier joined the Flyers. That was all part of that halcyon stretch when the Stanley Cup essentially commuted between Baltimore and Philadelphia…
 
Last edited:
Top