More NHL Teams Rumoured for Canada After Lockout Ends

On Tuesday, the National Hockey League put forward an offer to the players’ association containing a 50/50 split in revenues. What’s even more intriguing was a report on speculation that the league could be ready to announce two expansion teams for Canada when the two sides finally shake hands on a collective bargaining agreement.

No, it’s not a new subject: Quebec getting a second team in the province been mooted for years, and another franchise in the southern Ontario market has been actively pursued since Jim Balsillie’s salad days when the former co-head of Blackberry maker Research In Motion tried several times to buy an existing club and move it to Hamilton. But after months of lockout dreariness hanging over pro hockey like a rain-filled cloud ready to burst, this story is a like a sunny Saturday morning.

Now fans in the country’s biggest hockey markets may have more to cheer about, if they can ignore for the time being that the league has denied the story as posted in a tweet by Jason Kay, editor-in-chief of the Hockey News. But so what? It’s better to dream about more Canadian teams coming into existence — or shipped from less-supportive markets. Hey, it worked well in Winnipeg, with the city embracing the former Atlanta Thrashers wholeheartedly.

Ground had been broken during the Labour Day weekend for a new facility in Quebec’s capital, which is expected to be ready in the fall of 2015. Former premier Jean Charest was among some 20,000 people wielding blue plastic shovels in hand to help turn the sod for what is being called the Amphitheatre; many in attendance were wearing Nordiques sweaters. There’s even a professional-looking video for the project on Youtube — which is in French (but don’t let that stop you from watching it).

The other team would likely have to pay off both the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Buffalo Sabres for “interloping” in the southern Ontario/northern New York State market, but it’s seen as an acceptable risk. The Leafs are the most profitable team in the league according to Forbes magazine, and $325 million in public funding is already available to finance a new rink somewhere in Markham, just north of the T.Dot. The timetable there is even more ambitious than Quebec’s building: developers hope to open the as-yet-unnamed rink in time for the 2014-15 season.

All that’s needed now is for the lockout to be lifted. Hopefully the two sides can work out a similar deal to Major League Baseball, which has had no interruptions since 1994. In fact, the ownership groups should have a clause in their own agreements that both the league and the players’ association must be able to work out their differences without the use of work stoppages by either side.

For now, though, instead of thinking about how this season continues to slowly slip away even as a new proposal is being considered, it’s just easier — and more exciting — to think about a stronger Canadian presence at the game’s top level.