Portland is the correct answer here. Thecity has an arena, they have thrown their support behind the Winterhawks sinceownership turned the team around, Bettman has wanted a team in Portland sincethe 90s, and they only have 2 major league sports teams (blazers, timbers). I'dsay it's still 2-3 years off, but if support for the Winterhawks continues tobe strong, I wouldn't be surprised if the Coyotes or Panthers move to the NWsell NHL Jerseys.
Just look at the intense rivalry andpassion between the Sounders, Whitecaps, and Timber supporters. I think Seattleand Portland would translate well into hockey cities. In fact, during theinitial expansion era of the NHL circa 1967, Portland and Seattle were supposedto get franchises. It was messed up politics of the league at the time thatkept hockey out of the Pacific Northwest and the same bs is what took the NewYork/Brooklyn Americans away from the NHL in the 40s. Once the money comestogether for a new arena, the Wholesale Jerseys and (thankfully) the NBAshould make an overdue return to Seattle.
Personally, I've always thought theVancouver Canucks were 5 bad seasons away from moving to Seattle or Portland.Though these days, its possible to have a team in both cities. If the NFL Jerseys move to Winnipeg doesn't panout, they could just as easily move the Metro Seattle and play in the TacomaDome. It seats something like 15,000 for hockey, and could be used to house ateam for a couple seasons while a more permanent rink is built. As for a teamname, I do believe they would keep with something along the lines ofMetropolitans, Totems, Breakers, or Sasquatch.
That being said, I'dthink Portland to be the more likely West Coast candidate for a team. TheFlames threatened to move there back in 2000 when season ticket sales were low,and they do have the 18,000 seat Rose Garden for a team to play in. The Canuckshad 16 bad seasons in a row and some of the most inept owners in the MLB Jerseys. They did not move. In factthey flourished as soon as they had a couple decent years in the early 90's andwent to the Stanley Cup Final. There were a couple years in the late 90's thatwerent great in terms of attendance, but they had a bit of an image problemthen.
Can the NHL Jerseys support an expansion? In myopinion, absolutely. But, can the NHL support an expansion with Gary Bettmanleading the way; no. The original Southern expansion had great merit andpromise, but the distracted research led to disproportionate decisions andfaulty accomodations. Take South Florida, home of the Panthers, an area of thecountry where Football reigns supreme and other sports (including baseball)struggle. Is there room for a hockey team here, yes, but not an NHL franchise.The Panthers would have been better suited for maybe Birmingham, Alabama or Richmond,VA before bunking up in Sunrise, FL.
The biggest problem the Wholesale Jerseys has withexpansion/relocation is regulations regarding arena capacity, accomodations,and population trends. Phoenix would have worked...if the team was in Phoenixand not suburban Glendale. Atlanta has never been a hockey city, the Flamesstruggled here in the 70's/80's and a second chance was unnecessary. Atlanta'sdemographic supports football and baseball much better than a hockey team. In aperfect NBA Jerseys, with perfectfacilities/arenas, the correct area demographics, and commissioner to ownercommunication we could be looking at this:
Eastern Conference: Boston Bruins, HartfordWhalers, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Buffalo Sabres, Ottawa Senators,Toronto Maple Leafs, Quebec Nordiques, Washington Capitals, NFL Jerseys Richmond, Carolina Hurricanes,Tampa Bay Lightning, NHL Hamilton (Ontario), New Jersey Devils, PittsburghPenguins, Philadelphia Flyers, Nashville Predators -- 18, Western Conference:NHL Seattle, Calgary Flames, Vancouver Canucks, Winnepeg Jets, San Jose Sharks,Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks, NHL Kansas City, Dallas Stars, NHL Oklahoma,Colorado Avalanche, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Blackhawks, St. Louis Blues,Minnesota Wild, NHL Wisconsin, NHL Cleveland, NHL Portland -- 18, I think we'lleventually see a team in Seattle; the fan base is incredible here and they willsupport the team no matter what. Keeping the Sounders/Seahawks colors wouldgive the city additional identity in their sports franchises and a new arenamay open up the doors for a return of a MLBJerseys team.
The only reason why Seattle doesn't have ateam is because the original owner of the Sonics did everything to sabotage theMLB Jerseys from setting up there.The NHL WANTED to get into Seattle during the late 60s but the owner at thattime pulled his expansion bid so that no other group could bid and to stymiethe league. He later made the city renovate Key arena in such a way that itwould not work for hockey. Search this info out on the net sometime. I thinkseattlehockey.net had a story about it. It's clear that the Sonics' owner didpretty much everything in his power to keep the Wholesale Jerseys from competing with hisbasketball club.
Historically, Seattle was always a verystrong market from the arrival of the Mets in the 1910's up until the heyday ofthe pro WHL league. Sadly I dont think that would be the case now if the NHLwere to set up shop. Hockey is just too foreign of a sport these days tojustify the high cost of NHL tickets in that town. It's too bad though. I haveno doubt that if Seattle had a team from 1970 on they would have carried thefan momentum and been a good hockey town. Now it's a niche sport at best. So myquestion is this: lets say the impossible happens and the Florida Panthersrelocate to seattle. Does Chris support the hometown team?Oh BTW, the onlycolour scheme for a Seattle NBAJerseys is green and white and the team should be called the Totems.
It is so hard to believe that a big citylike Seattle and its politicians are not into the new millenium when it comesto having a proper state-of-art indoor for professional sports, consideringSeattle's rich sports history. Without a shadow of a doubt, Seattle would be ahuge success story in American hockey. A Vancouver-Seattle NFL Jerseys rivalry would be as big as thehistoric Whitecaps-Sounders soccer rivalry.
To answer Bryand'squestions regarding colour scheme and team name, I could see Seattle going backto the old Totems name from the old Western Hockey League. As for the colours,the Canucks use royal blue as their primary dark colour. Seattle would probablyuse the old 80s Whalers kelly green or a deep Northwest green as their primarydark colour with blue or teal accents. In the old NASL, the Whitecaps woreroyal blue and sky blue and the Sounders wore teal and Northwest green NHL Jerseys. Blue and green can be havedifferent variations.
Here's the deal. Seattle seems to be agreat place for NHL Jerseys but, thefinancial reality doesn't really add up. The Business sector is definitelythere in Seattle, but are the fans really going to spend 200 bucks a seat towatch a loser for 10 years (Expansion situation)?
In a relocation situation I firmly believethe Wholesale Jerseys will NOT takea team from say, Atlanta and then move them to a question mark city. Atlanta,Phoenix, Florida, and Nashville will be in Winnipeg/Quebec City/Toronto area(possibly Hamilton)/ and the last city will be a crazy location like Houston orMexico or Vegas. If the 10x more popular NBA left the city, It can't really becounted on from the NHL's point of view. Also with Everett, Portland, Seattle, Spokane, and Kennewick all amazingWHL cities, I doubt the NBA Jerseyswants to upset a great situation in the feeder system. I think the NHL inSeattle is a very cool choice, I always have, Vancouver has always lacked atrue rival, but it won't happen for at least 25 years.
I will admit, I never thought of putting ateam in Seattle, but now that i read this I have to say it could work well.Let's get the NBA Jerseys into someof the Northern United States where hockey is bigger because you can actuallyplay it outside. Also opens up the possibility of the SuperSonics returning toSeattle (I'm not a basketball fan but I know the Sonics are important forSeattle) but would a basketball team returning only hurt the new hockey team?
I believe hockey is not doing so well isAtlanta and Phoenix is two-fold 1) None traditional hockey markets and 2) haveto compete with NFL, MLB Jerseys andNBA teams for people to come see, Seattle could get the same problem (savingthe money in hockey season for baseball tickets is what i mean by competingwith the MLB franchises), Vancouver fan here. I'd love to see a team inSeattle, and I can't think the Canucks ownership would have much objection;we're not really quite close enough for the markets to overlap, and I certainlydon't think any substantial portion of Canuck revenue comes from Seattle fansmaking the trip north.
An MLBJerseys franchise in Seattle is way way way long overdue IMO, and Ifor one would certainly love to see it happen one day, the Canucks owners mightdisagree however. With a metro population of 3.4 million, Settle could easilysupport a franchise, and so could Portland Oregon with a metro population of2.226 million. Why the NHL felt the need to explore non traditional sunbeltmarkets instead of places with good hockey history like Seattle and Portland,is beyond me. Just think of the potentially great rivalry between Vancouver andSeattle, with only a 4 and a half hour drive seperating the two markets, fanswould be drawn from either side during road games for their team. It would reallybe nice to actually be able to go see my team play live on the road more often.Make it happen, Wholesale Jerseysmake it happen.
Wednesday brought another day ofspeculation with regard to the possible future of the NHL Jerseys in Seattle — this time, badnews. Just a day after Bill Daly said publicly that the league has been incontact with a group interested in bringing a team to the city, comes a newwrinkle. KING 5 reporter Chris Daniels learned that a deal to buy a piece ofland in nearby Bellevue to build a new arena had fallen through. This isunfortunate news but is by no means the end of the Seattle hockey story, I'msure.
If you haven't watched the package above,you should. Chris tracked down former NBAJerseys defenseman Jamie Huscroft — a member of my Tampa BayLightning for parts of two seasons (the Vancouver Canucks too, by the way). Heruns two hockey rinks in the area. He likes the idea of a Seattle-Vancouverrivalry just like many commenters on this post. (Though he's apparentlymisjudging the distance between the two cities.) I'll keep you updated on thisas more details trickle out. It's definitely not happening next season andyou'd have to be extremely optimistic to think 2012-13 — and heck, the worldmight end by then, right? But if it doesn't, I'm eyeing the 100th anniversaryof the formation of the old Seattle Metropolitans in 2015. One more thing. Acouple of you have asked about my team allegiance if, say, the Stinkin'Panthers were to relocate to Seattle. Would I still root for them? As long asthey're not the Stinkin' Panthers, sure. But only because they'd be closestgeographically and would bring the Lightning to town at least once a year.Nothing will change the fact that the Bolts are my team. I've said it before:You don't pick your team, it picks you. And lastly, as far as naming ideas go,I think Metropolitans and Totems are equally terrible. In the comments, Erikbrought up the Seattle Breakers — the Thunderbirds' old name for NFL Jerseys.
There is no chance this team will be calledthe Winnipeg Jets. Just about every 'pegger has a jets NHL Jerseys they either still wear or inthe back of their closet. This team has the smallest rink in the NHL and alimited number of boxes so every revenue stream is critical. Hence they cantrisk the lost merchandising revenue by bringing out the old name and logo. Myprediction. This team will roll out a new name and logo but also introduce andalternate Wholesale Jerseys thatpays homage to the original Jets.
Also something of note, all of the Pantherhead logos from the third NBAJerseys are gone and there's no longer an ad to purchase the thirdJerseys on the site. The only place left you can find the old panther head onthe site is the message board, which they still haven't updated from the babyblue and navy style. I think this pretty much confirms that the leaping pantheris going to be on the next NFLJerseys.
I'm so glad to seethe Cats going back to the red. A few other things of note: The Panthers' logobeing used on the site is now the classic Panther, not the simplifiedalternate-jersey-style cat. Also, the alternate MLBJerseys has completely disappeared from the team home page, except in1 picture of an event the Panthers did where a cardboard cutout of a playershows him wearing the alternate. All great things.