Please get rid of this team..CONTRACTION..CONTRACTION..CONTRACTION!!!! What is the NHL looking for…TV ratings or Ticket sales…..? Columbus does neither for the league…plus the hockey is terrible. Expansion was just a way for sleaze bag owners to line their pockets with expansion fees. The sooner this league gets to 26 teams the better. Hopefully, the economic collapse will bring this on as soon as possible.

Posted by kevin from boston on 10/30/08 at 07:45 AM ET

kevin -
Let’s start with Boston first though, since their owner isn’t even trying and their market doesn’t care about them because they’re not the Sox, Pats, or Celts.

CBS isn’t doing well because (*fake shock*) the defensemen they brought in aren’t any good.  I mean, who could have POSSIBLY new that Commodore, Backman, and Tyutin were chumps?!  Oh yeah that’s right, most anyone paying any attention…

Posted by Primis on 10/30/08 at 08:02 AM ET

Contraction is anything but likely. Columbus may not sell out their arena, but they bring 41 games to the other teams in the League. For all the crying about what some see as the less deserving franchises, do you really think Toronto would have a $60 million profit if you started to chop games out of their schedule? Yes they have other means, but it’s still a big deal. Lose games, and you lose exposure too; imagine going a week without a game. Not only that, but in a 26 team League, where 16 teams make the playoffs and only 10 don’t, where’s the competition? No, they will not chop a round out of the playoffs, that’s as ludicrous to expect as a doubling of the size of the nets.

It’s like big chain stores. The stores in downtown Toronto, in New York City, they are the flagship enterprises, they bring in the biggest profits, and are excellent at drawing people in. But they still need the widespread reach into middle America and Canada, the smaller stores that make little or no profit, to get the exposure. Take out the franchises that don’t rake in profits, and your conglomerate chain gets reduced to boutique status. As much as fans call for contraction, there are very many reasons why you never hear the suggestion come up at League-wide meetings, not from any faction. Relocation is the closest you’d ever get, and that will only ever happen if a team loses almost all fans, racks up huge losses every year, gets piled under huge amounts of debt, and no owner can be found to revive it in its current location. That’s a lot of dominoes to fall, not to say they can’t or won’t ever start to tumble.

Posted by SENShobo from Waterloo, ON on 10/30/08 at 08:11 AM ET

Sorry to ruin your argument but…...Boston used to play Montreal 8-10 times per year. That’s 8-10 sellouts. Now when the Columbus’s of the world come to town they are lucky to get 12,000….which is about the Blue Jackets average home attendance. There is no way expansion to minor league cities helps the NHL.

Posted by kevin from boston on 10/30/08 at 08:45 AM ET

As someone who likes a certain team who gets no love from anyone, especially in the NHL, I say that Columbus is a fine market, it is not a minor league city and neither is Nashviile, the Jackets are very important to the league, and they have a good coach . . . for whatever reason, they just can’t get over the hump of success on the ice. It’s too bad we all can’t live in the Northeast where everything happens and everything is great and every team in every league should be located.

Posted by PredNeck from Hicktown on 10/30/08 at 10:10 AM ET

Personally…..as someone from the Northeast I am tired of hearing what people from places like Ohio think…..then they go out and vote for George Bush every four years. After the last eight years I don’t give a rat’s you know what about Ohio….and Tenn is not too far behind…..In my NHL world Ohio and Tenn were never included and I never lost any sleep worrying about it…although I guess Cleveland was in the NHL for about three months back in the day..

Posted by kevin from boston on 10/30/08 at 11:25 AM ET