Local NHL Advocates Not Letting It Go

People calling themselves Seattleites fell primarily into two camps when finding alternatives for a Sonics replacement: the Sounders crowd and the folks who think our professional basketball void could be filled with hockey.

Seattlest grew up playing soccer here so we don’t think it's gay or foreign, yet we can’t ignore the ugly truth that American soccer, no matter how "professional," is a joke outside of our borders. It’s like talking yourself into believing that taking your kid to a Rainiers game in Tacoma is just as great a gift as driving all the way up to Seattle and spending real money to watch multi-millionaires disgrace themselves in a quarter-billion-dollar facility. It’s the major leagues! These guys get paid big bucks to let us down. When nobodies get paid relatively little bucks to let us down, it isn’t as big of a deal. We don’t care about the random David Beckham signing--the Rainiers ain’t the Mariners and the Sounders ain’t Arsenal. It’s like swapping Ritalin for cocaine, they don’t even out.

But at least it makes sense that people here would be excited about soccer, seeing how many of us played the game as kids. The contingent of constant NHL dreamers who think the Sonics void can be filled by an already over-extended and lackluster sport in dire financial straits are another matter. This isn’t a hockey town--we had the T-birds forever and nobody cared. We apparently won a Stanley Cup three hundred years ago, but that doesn’t change anything. Bringing pro hockey back will be a remedy for maybe 800 people. Joining the NHL would put Seattle in a not-so-elite club with other cities that have no business in the NHL like Phoenix, Tampa Bay, Anaheim, Nashville, and Raleigh. Seattle should be running from that crowd, not striving to lower itself to their "standards."

Enough already! Forcing Seattle into an allegiance with a damaged brand would just take up valuable local TV news time (as if two minutes for sports was adequate in the first place), while shaming us into pretending to care for the brief honeymoon period before turning our backs and opening ourselves to being called "bad fans" when none of us ever wanted to get into bed with that skank in the first place.

Yet these same 800 people attack Seattle sports message boards with a consistency and passion that demands attention. NHL pipe dreamers may be loud, they may misguidedly think North America’s weakest professional league is the answer to 41 years of a sport this area recognizes in its own schools, but their voice has not gone ignored. Your passion is inspiring, whoever you are. Surely you aren’t from here, but if somehow we could find a way to productively channel your misdirected energy into something useful and necessary, like actually replacing the Viaduct or reducing shootings in touristy areas, well then, the sky would be the limit. There's value in the hockey crowd's energy, it's just a matter of finding somewhere to focus it.

Photo courtesy of Seattle Municipal Archives via the Seattlest Flickr Pool

Contact the author of this article or email tips@seattlest.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John in Miscellaneous on December 12, 2008 2:00 PM

Comments [rss]

jlb

There is a serious buzz about an NHL team in Seattle. We live in a northern state with an appreciable sports market. The town could most assuredly support a hockey team. It would create a great rivalry with the Canucks. Also, the Seattle/Tacoma Metro area boasts the 12th largest sports market in the US, and continues to grow larger. Hockey is a perfect fit for Seattle!

http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/18316-The-Straight-Edge-Thoughts-from-the-Pacific-Northwest.htm

ToasterDan

I don't know that the NHL would work in Seattle (though I'd love it to be here), however your article is so off base and dismissive that I had to respond.

First of all, as I'm sure you know, Seattle is home to a large number of people not from Seattle. Hockey is huge on the east coast, and in Canada, and throughout a lot of Europe. Guess where a lot of people that immigrate to Seattle are from: all those places.

Second, Seattle has several hockey leagues, the biggest of which is the GSHL with over 100 teams and therefore probably around 1500 players. The number of people that like a sport is always greater than the number that actually play it, so it's clear your 800 (which I understand was just used as an example) was a rather insultingly low example.

Third, clearly you didn't do any research on the stability and viability of the league. Over the past two years, the average NHL team has increased in value by 23%, and the average team is now worth $200 million, which is good on the one hand, and on the other is not so expensive that one in a struggling market couldn't be bought and moved (and make no mistake, as evidenced recently in Seattle teams are bought and moved in all leagues). Even teams in not the greatest hockey markets are doing well from an economic point of view, like Tampa Bay (though you indicated they weren't by linking to a page containing city sizes?).

Moreover, the more profitable NHL teams actually make more profit than many NFL teams. The Toronto Maple Leafs for instance made more profit than every NFL team other than the Dallas Cowboys and the New England Patriots last year, and the Dallas Stars (not your typical hockey market) made more profit than the Philadelphia Eagles or the NY Jets.

My point is, your article is all hype and no substance. Even the links you provided went to irrelevant pages. Yes, there are teams in the NHL that are losing money, but the same goes for the NBA, etc.

Like I said at the beginning of this now very long reply, I'm not sure an NHL team would work in Seattle, but not for any of the reasons you mentioned in your article.

Troy Morris

I like hockey.

So do the people who live in B.C.

Just saying, I still think it'd work and be fun.

Shit, the Las Vegas Wranglers draw a HUGE crowd... albeit they have only college football.

MrBaker

I see Runnerboy has exposed the flaw in the logic of the argument, thankfully the author provided the self-defeating comparison in the story.

The hyperbolic "800" only serves to express the author's opinion that he likes the MLS over the NHL.

And Brad swings the mighty hammer to hit the nail on the head "Bottom line, there's strength in numbers and if the NBA, WNBA, NHL and whatever else crowds can get together (a coalition of the swilling?) then the new arena might just pencil out."

Qwest was sold, in part, as a potential home for the MLS. It was built for the NFL, not the other way around. The popularity of the NFL carried the weight of the speculative appearance of the MLS, and got soccer fans that do not like the NFL on board.

The NBA is not as popular so it is not going to carry the speculation that the NHL will just show up. The probability of an NHL team showing up here would have to be far more evident.

Knocking the NHL as a means to prop up your personal identity with soccer through the existence of the MLS benefits neither the MLS or diminishes the NHL. It is destructive to sport in Seattle at the very least.

Just as nick Licata could not find social evidence of the desire for sports in Seattle while sitting in a wine bar listening to soft jazz, surrounded by like minded wine sipping soft jazz listeners, I'll argue that the author's life-long exposure to soccer, and other people that like soccer has not produced an opinion in the author that is formulated with a hockey component.

But, this is just my opinion.

Enjoy your sport as others enjoy theirs, in that, there is commonality that overcomes the Nick Licatas of the world.

RunnerBoy

You can't have it both ways. You can't complain that Rainiers baseball isn't the major leagues, or MLS doesn't compare the EPL, then argue that because the Thunderbirds don't draw, the NHL wouldn't work in Seattle. Bottom line, your argument is flawed.

That said, I'm not sure the NHL would work in Seattle, either. Still, David Stern is such a jackass, at this point, I'd rather give my tax money to the NHL than the NBA.

Brad

The 'ultimate cafe fighting hipsters' league might be fun.

Put me down for a 15-game pack.

SeattleSarah

Gonna miss the Tbirds. I did love going to see them play, especially playoff games and there is no way I'm driving to Kent unless I'm playing on the ice!

As for an NHL team, I sadly think Seattle would fail. I would totally go to games and support them but there are too many that wouldn't. Seattle has such strong roots in hockey it's sad to neglect that. The same way it has strong roots in adult entertainment but doesn't want to embrace it. Be proud Seattle!

Maybe Seattle could start an ultimate cafe fighting hipsters sport. That might take.

bigyaz

The notion that because MLS players aren't the best the world has to offer and thus the league is a "joke" is both tiresome and annoying.

By that reasoning we really shouldn't give a damn about college football. Or high school basketball. Rabid Japanese baseball fans should give it up, since their baseball is decidedly inferior to MLB and therefore must be a "joke."

Sports can be thrilling and worthy of our passion no matter what level it's played at. Yes, we all know the MLS isn't the Premier League (though we certainly appreciate you know-it-alls repeating it ad nauseum). We just don't think that's important.

jwhieger

The Onion Link is money in the bank.

ChrisB

803 here.

I still want a Hockey Night in Canada jersey, dammit!

roach

To say "nobody cares" about the Thunderbirds is more than a little innaccurate, AND is in itself another example of your "Sounders ain't Arsenal" argument. Very few of those kids will actually go on to the NHL, and as such, the on ice product is not exactly NHL quality. However, all one has to do is go north a few miles to Everett to see a Silvertips game in an arena packed with enthusiastic, knowledgable fans to see that yes, the NHL would totally work here in Seattle.

John, if we took you to a game, I promise you'd become one of the 800.

Brad

Makes me #802, I guess.

I run into a lot of transplants who 'know' hockey, gave the T-Birds a shot, and then never returned after seeing what a joke the Key Arena set-up was. ("Wait, did they just skate off into the locker room? Where's the puck?")

I'd buy season tickets if an NHL team was downtown, but I'd never support a Renton-based team, etc.

Bottom line, there's strength in numbers and if the NBA, WNBA, NHL and whatever else crowds can get together (a coalition of the swilling?) then the new arena might just pencil out.

In the last 18 months, the NHL has actually done a damned fine job in marketing the product and

However, if any plan includes the phrase 'renovate Key Arena', I let me be the first in line to cross-check that fucker into the glass.

(The NHL is actually doing a nice job in the past 18 months. Innovative marketing- outdoor games, etc, and the game was made for HDTV.)

Go Wings!

nickinc

Eight hundred and ONE baby. Bring the ICE!!! Whoo HOO!

Hockey is a sport worth watching, I've missed it ever since moving from Buffalo then Michigan. Stupid basketball.

Simonian

And speaking of soccer, The Onion had an article about that, and the state of Seattle sports in general: http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/seattles_disastrous_sports