Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Habs for Sale?

So TSN is reporting that the Canadiens are for sale. This is TSN, so take any news like this with a grain of salt. Teams get bought and sold all the time, so this is nothing too earth-shattering.

What WILL be interesting to see is whether the NHL will insist on language that guarantees the team will stay in Montreal. We all fear another Canadian team moving to somewhere like Orlando or New Orleans in Gary Bettman's idiotic mission to bring hockey to the south. So that possibility, although remote, is still a semi-realistic one. No one would have thought that the Jets would move from Winnipeg to a place like Arizona back in the 80's, but it happened.

Also remember though, that Gary Bettman blocked the sale of the Nashville Predators because the buyer was interested in moving the team to a legitimate hockey market. I know Montreal does not have the same venerated history and has not ingrained itself into hockey-lore the way Nashville has, but if Bettman can block a sale because the potential owner is interested in a move, then at least there's some precedent for doing it again.

1 comment:

Capt. Sparrow said...

There is no way that team will leave Montreal. I don't care if Mark Cuban wants to buy the team and move 'em to Texas, hell would have to freeze over first before the Habs left Montreal. It's too big of a storied franchise and too much a part of the NHL's history for the team to move. That would be the equivalent of the Yankees or Red Sox moving to the Dakotas or somewhere absurd like that.