Hockey Fight

The attendance for an NHL hockey game in Miami, with the Florida Panthers, was 7,311.  This wasn't a game played in late March when the team is woefully out of contention.  This was their 2nd home game of the season.

The NHL needs to realize their dabbling in southern franchises is, outside of two teams, a failure.  The two teams which have succeeded are the LA Kings (an older franchise with a loyal fan base in the country's 2nd largest city) and Tampa Bay (an anomaly).  Teams in Florida, Carolina, Dallas, Phoenix and even teams in Anaheim and San Jose should be moved to a town where there is at least an understanding of the sport.  The Mason Dixon line is your cutoff.

The Canadian dollar isn't as weak as it used to be, so some of these franchises could move there, but hockey is a sport where any cold weather city, even one with a relatively small metro area, would outdraw multi-million populations where ice is something used for drinks and watching the game is more akin to watching Cirque du Soleil.

Where would I move teams?  There are three obvious choices:  Seattle, Kansas City and Quebec.  Seattle is a great town, with big businesses to help maintain the franchise, Kansas City has an NHL ready ice arena in town just waiting for a franchise and Quebec is as hockey crazy as ever.  The Nordiques franchise was doomed by the bad exchange rate of the time, not the loyalty of the fans.  If you then moved San Jose to San Francisco ( I am not saying this is a great option as they have had franchises fail in that town too, but it's better than San Jose), that would leave two more teams to move to a cold weather metro.

Let me float a really radical idea.  Go with Anchorage, Alaska and Halifax, Nova Scotia.  I know some people would say I'm crazy, but hear me out.  Both Anchorage and Halifax are extremely smart hockey towns where the locals know the sport.  These would be the only pro teams in each city, creating instant fan loyalty, they both have thriving local industry (in Halifax - natural gas, fisheries and agriculture.  Anchorage - drill baby drill!), and putting the franchises in those two towns would strengthen the league over time, as opposed to embarrassing headlines about empty arenas when fan interest is supposed to be at its highest.

I would agree the time zone issue would be difficult, but manageable.  Alaska weeknight home games verses the Mountain and Central time zones could not start later than 6 PM, and weeknight home games verses the Eastern and Atlantic time zones start no later than 5 PM.  Nova Scotia weeknight home games must start 8 PM or later and the Pacific and Alaskan time zone teams could be managed into the weekends (6PM Halifax start time on a Saturday verses 1 PM start time in Alaska).

I am not saying definitively this plan would work, but it's better than your current situation.  It's either move these teams or fold five or six of them.  It's hard to make a league sound successful when a fifth of their franchises could disappear overnight.