NHL Realignment Project – Week 48: Markham and Quebec City

Once again this week, expansion entered the realignment talk. Despite some hiccups in Markham, it is not hard to imagine the NHL expanding into the Greater Toronto Area and back into Quebec City in the near future and collecting some mega-huge expansion fees.

Quebec City was much further along in the process, as evidenced by the recently released arena plans, but the author did not doubt that an NHL team would soon enough land in Markham too.

The case for Markham

Three factors were expected to combine to get the deal done: the GTA's hockey-mad population, a win-win situation for the majority owners of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, the media companies Rogers Communications and Bell Canada, and, most importantly, the plethora of corporate sponsorship opportunities.

Getting inside Bettman's brain

Believe it or not, Gary Bettman is a human being, and humans care about the mark they leave on this world. Gary probably enjoys the positive vibe he gets from Winnipeg, born from the happiness of having an NHL team again. So it should be no surprise if his next few major moves after an unbelievably negative one, lockout number three, end up being lay-ups of positivity.

His job is to do what is best for the owners he represents, so of course he is interested in the windfall two new expansion teams represent. But the goodwill comes from choosing cities with hockey history, and Quebec City and the GTA are no-brainers on that count.

Phoenix to Seattle

The same logic covers the team in limbo. Moving the Coyotes to Seattle, where a new arena is on the way and there is an actual history of hockey, writes another positive chapter in Gary's book. Just don't talk to the fans in Phoenix or Atlanta about it.

The four-conference assumption

One more assumption completed the mind-reading. The short-lived realignment the Board of Governors proposed the previous year showed the commissioner is interested in four conferences, which in turn reflects and reinforces the idea of a 32-team league with eight teams in each conference.

The schedule

The playoff shape

The top four teams from each conference qualify for a final four style tournament, and all series are best of seven. Round one is the conference semifinals, with the first seed against the fourth and the second against the third based on overall record. Round two is the conference final, and round three is the Stanley Cup semifinal, where the remaining team with the best overall record picks its opponent.

There will be a lot of pissed off folks at first, especially if the proposed playoff format happens. The bet is that a profitable league in mostly receptive cities, with tons of rivalry goodness, eventually produces a mostly satisfied fan base.