NHL Expansion - Part 5 Other Canadian Options

Bettman denied that the NHL is considering relocating any of its current 31 teams, but there are also a number of franchises with uncertain arena situations, including the Coyotes, Islanders, Flames, and Senators. The league could also add a 32nd club to rebalance after expanding to Las Vegas this year. The Golden Knights paid out a $500 million expansion fee to enter the league.

Other Options

Canada

The potential of adding additional franchises in Canada had been an on going source of controversy for the NHL in recent years as numerous groups proposed expanding the league into a new Canadian city, or purchasing a struggling American franchise and relocating it north; to a certain extent, these issues continue even after the Atlanta Thrashers relocated to Winnipeg, becoming the country's seventh active team. Quebec City and the Golden Horseshoe area of Southern Ontario are most frequently proposed as locations for new Canadian teams, as was Winnipeg prior to the announced relocation of the Thrashers. However there have even been mentions of teams in Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia.

Hamilton

Hamilton mayor Jack MacDonald attempted to lure the Colorado Rockies to Hamilton in 1980, an effort that ended when he lost his re-election bid. Hamilton was also a candidate for expansion in 1990, being one of the favorites, but it lost out to the Ottawa Senators and Tampa Bay Lightning. Hamilton's bid group attempted to negotiate the $50 million expansion fee; a condition the NHL rejected. While it was speculated that the Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres did not want an NHL team in Hamilton due to territorial competition, former league president Gil Stein has denied that was the case. In 1985, the Copps Coliseum was built to try to make that happen.
BlackBerry founder and former co-CEO Jim Balsillie has made several attempts to purchase an existing NHL team with the purpose of bringing it to Southern Ontario. He signed an agreement in principle to purchase the Pittsburgh Penguins for US$175 million on October 5, 2006.  Penguins' majority owner Mario Lemieux agreed to the sale after struggling to gain support from local governments to build a new arena. Balsillie's purchase agreement offered to help finance a new arena, but also contained a stated intention to relocate the team to Hamilton or Kitchener-Waterloo if no deal on a new arena could be reached. Balsillie later retracted his bid, claiming that the NHL had placed conditions on the sale that he was not comfortable with, including a commitment to keep the team in Pittsburgh under any circumstances.
Balsillie then reached an agreement to purchase the Nashville Predators for $238 million on May 24, 2007, and began a season ticket campaign in Hamilton a week later intending to prove that the city was capable of hosting an NHL team. Thousands of fans purchased tickets, however the sale again fell through a month later when Predators owner Craig Leipold terminated the agreement. The Predators were later sold to a group of ten investors, led by Nashville businessman David Freeman, who promised to keep the team in Nashville. Leipold accepted $40 million less from Freeman's group than Balsillie offered, and later ended up as the majority owner of the Minnesota Wild.
During the 2008–2009 NHL season, the future of the Phoenix Coyotes was on shaky ground as the team expected to lose as much as $45 million, and the league had to step in to assist with paying the team's bills. Coyotes' managing partner Jerry Moyes filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in early May 2009. Immediately afterwards, an offer by Balsillie to purchase the team was made public. The NHL challenged the Coyotes' ability to file for bankruptcy, claiming that as a result of the financial support the league had been offering the franchise, the league itself is in control of the team, and that Moyes did not have authority to act as he did. Balsillie launched a public relations campaign aiming at igniting Canadian nationalistic feelings and the perception that Bettman had an anti-Canadian agenda, including a website. His bid to purchase the Coyotes failed as the bankruptcy judge ruled his offer did not meet the NHL's rules on relocation.
The Hamilton Spectator reported in May 2009, that a Vancouver-based group led by Tom Gaglardi was planning to make a bid to purchase the Atlanta Thrashers and relocate the team to Hamilton in time for the 2010–11 NHL season. This never materialized, and the idea was eventually rendered moot by the Thrashers' sale and relocation to Winnipeg. Gaglardi later purchased the Dallas Stars and kept the team in Dallas.
Under NHL rules, an expansion or relocation of a team to Hamilton could potentially be blocked by the Buffalo Sabres or the Toronto Maple Leafs, because FirstOntario Centre, the likely venue for a Hamilton NHL team, is located less than 50 miles from the Sabres' and the Leafs' home arenas. Roughly 15% of the Sabres' business comes from residents of the area of Ontario between Hamilton and Buffalo, and the Sabres or the Leafs could require "an enormous indemnification payment" to allow an additional team to be established within a 50-mile radius. An unnamed bidder made a bid for the Sabres in February 2011, offering $259 million for the team to move it out of Buffalo, which would either mean the team would relocate to Hamilton or it would clear the way for another team to make such a move. The bid was rejected in favor of an offer from Terry Pegula, who planned to keep the team in Buffalo.

Greater Toronto Area - Although Toronto is already home to the Toronto Maple Leafs and that team's AHL development team, the Toronto Marlies, its suburbs have been mentioned as potential sites for an NHL franchise, under the premise that the Greater Toronto Area, or GTA, is the most-populous metropolitan area in Canada and therefore could support two NHL teams. Unlike other potential expansion markets, a new arena would need to be constructed, and most of the proposals for a new Toronto area team include a new arena along with them.
In April 2009, a group of businesspeople met with NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly to discuss the possibility of bringing a second NHL franchise into the Toronto area, most likely in Vaughan, Ontario. Despite the talks, Daly reportedly stated the NHL is "not currently considering expansion nor do we have any intention or desire to relocate an existing franchise." In June 2009, a group headed by Andrew Lopez and Herbert Carnegie proposed a $1 billion plan for a second Toronto team, called the Legacy, to begin play no earlier than 2012. The group announced a plan for a 30,000-seat arena, half of which would be priced at C$50 or less. The arena would be situated in Downsview Park in the north of the city. Twenty-five percent of net profits would be given to charity.
In 2011, a proposal surfaced to build a multi-purpose 19,500-seat arena in Markham, Ontario, northeast of Toronto, that could be used for an NHL team. The C$300 million arena is part of a proposed entertainment complex. The company behind the proposal, GTA Sports and Entertainment, is headed by W. Graeme Roustan. Roustan, a Montreal-raised private equity investor whose firm Roustan Capital, partnered with Kohlberg & Company and purchased Bauer from Nike, was also the chairman of Bauer. The proposed location for the arena is near the Unionville commuter train station on land owned by Rudy Bratty, chairman and CEO of Remington Group, an organization that is charged with the development of Markham's downtown. However, the GTA Sports and Entertainment Group did not file an application for expansion prior to the July 20, 2015 deadline.

Saskatoon - Bill Hunter, the founder of the Edmonton Oilers, had an agreement to purchase the St. Louis Blues and move the team to Saskatoon as the Saskatoon Blues in the 1983–84 NHL season; however, the NHL (which did not want to leave the St. Louis market) vetoed the sale. Faced with the prospects of either having to allow the sale or contract the franchise, the league found an owner (Harry Ornest) willing to keep the team in Missouri and, in an eleventh-hour deal, preserved the Blues in St. Louis, where they remain. Saskatoon again bid for a franchise during the league's early 1990s expansion, but the bid was considered a long-shot and was withdrawn before the league made its final decision.
A proposal from Ice Edge Holdings to purchase the Phoenix Coyotes would have moved a portion of the team's home games to Saskatoon in an effort to maintain the team's viability in its main home in Phoenix, similar to the former Bills Toronto Series arrangement in the National Football League; the group, had it bought the team, was ready to go forward and had leased Saskatoon's SaskTel Centre for five home games in the 2009–10 season. The group was believed to lack the funds to buy the team outright, but remained in contention as potential minority owner until May 2011, when it pulled out of negotiations. Some members of the Ice Edge group later joined the ownership group led by Canadian businessman George Gosbee who ultimately purchased the Coyotes and kept them in Arizona.
On Ice Management, an ownership group backed by auto racer, former Moncton Wildcats owner, and former professional hockey player John Graham, is backing a long-shot bid to bring the NHL to Saskatoon.  The Calgary Flames were scheduled to host the Ottawa Senators in Saskatoon, for a preseason game (sponsored by Graham) in September 2013; that game led to speculation that the city may host the Flames if the team's regular arena, Scotiabank Saddledome, which had been damaged in the 2013 Alberta floods, did not complete its repairs in time for the 2013–14 season. In the end, repairs were completed on a compressed schedule, and the Saddledome reopened in September 2013. Although neither Graham nor any other bidder representing Saskatoon placed a bid in the expansion window, the city will again host a neutral-site preseason game in 2015.