By Garth McLennan

HL hockey has returned

to Manitoba, and since the

announcement became official last week, the vast majority of Canadian fans have been ecstatic with the news that the Atlanta Thrashers are moving north.

However, lost in the elation are the very real questions about just whether or not an NHL outfit can work long-term and be financially viable in Winnipeg. Let’s not forget that Winnipeg has had the NHL there before, and there were a lot of strikes naturally against the franchise that eventually proved too difficult to overcome. Right off the bat, the new Winnipeg organization plays out of the smallest market in the NHL and out of the smallest arena in the NHL. Major corporate support isn’t exactly a hallmark in Manitoba and with the salary cap rising once again for next season; it will be a challenge for Winnipeg to keep up with the bigger markets, no matter how passionate their fans are.

The new Winnipeg franchise will play out of the MTS Centre, the current home of the AHL’s Manitoba Moose and a building with a maximum capacity of just 15,015. As Gary Bettman noted when he announced the sale of the Thrashers, the new Winnipeg team will have to sell out virtually all of their home games to turn a profit.

Now, a return to Winnipeg isn’t all bad. Certainly, the fortunes of the franchise look much brighter in any Canadian city then they do in Atlanta. The NHL gave Georgia multiple shots to make professional hockey work, but it was never able to gain a significant foothold in

the city. Not all of that should be attributed to Atlanta. After all, it’s very difficult to make the NHL work in a non-traditional hockey market when the franchise is riddled with chronic incompetence from the front office, relentlessly unstable ownership and ceaseless poor play on the ice which saw the Thrashers play just four playoff games in 11 years. With that consistent level of awful performances, making hockey work in any market would be difficult. But even if you count the fact that the Thrashers never really gave hockey much of a real shot in Atlanta, the city just never seemed to care about the team, even when superstars like Dany Heatley and Ilya Kovalchuk were the faces of the franchise. Atlanta has proven to be a fickle sports town for every

* professional league. The NBA’s

Hawks, NFL’s Falcons and MLB’s Braves have all had their own challenges in engaging the city in what they have to offer.

Regardless of the suitability of Atlanta as a major league sports market though, the Thrashers will certainly go down as a stain on the NHL’s American Sunbelt expansion initiative. At Bettman’s directive, the NHL has repeatedly sailed off on exotic voyages into southern American cities that have shown little interest in the game, while at the same time passing over a number of smaller Canadian and northern American cities that have a proven passion for hockey.

Upon reflection, the Atlanta Thrashers’ demise is a sad reflection of Bettman’s leadership and just how little he has accomplished during his time at the top of the NHL.

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