TSN: Pierre LeBrun on TSN Overdrive talking about how there should be a second NHL team in Toronto. Financially for the league, it would make more sense than some other markets but Gary Bettman isn’t interested. Territory rights would play into it well.
LeBrun: “I will tell you, there’s one market that would get me excited, if Gary Bettman was ever willing to go down that road, and it’s the one that we live in.”
Brian Hayes: “Yes.”
LeBrun: “A second team in Toronto. For years, I’ve been pushing and others as well, of course, but you want to talk about HRR, and you don’t think the NHLPA would be in favor of that.
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You know, we have two teams in LA basically, with, you know, the Ducks and the Kings. Three teams in the New York area. Why do we not have two teams in the biggest market in the game? And not just the biggest market in the game, but a market, you know, with, you know, a population that likes to spend on big events.
I mean, it can, I think, for sure, easily, financially support two teams. And not only everyone’s gonna say, well, though everyone’s a Leafs fan here here. You guys live here. There are lots of people who have moved here from other parts of the world, and the country, who would jump on that second team bandwagon at a heartbeat.”
Jeff O’Neill: “Yes. Yes.”
LeBrun: “Just like we saw with the met in New York decades ago. Everyone thought it wouldn’t work to put a team, another team, back in New York against the Yankees. So guess what? I’m telling you, it would be unreal.
But I just I’ve asked Gary Bettman before at news conferences. In fact, I asked him, I looked this up yesterday, and I asked him two years ago, and he, you know, basically shot me down big time. But I’d love to see it. That’s the expansion to talk about.”
Hayes: “I’m with you. I agree with you there. Yeah, there’s no question it could work. It would work. I just don’t think Bettman’s the guy who will do it. I think Bettman’s got to retire and someone new has to come in and push that.
The problem is that if they’re going to get to 34 or 36 or whatever, and Toronto’s not included. Are they going to go to 38 to get Toronto a team 40?”
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LeBrun: “Well, don’t forget, that they will want to go back to Arizona one day. I guarantee you that.”
Hayes: “Sure why not”
LeBrun: “They haven’t given up on that market.”
Hayes: “Exactly.”
LeBrun: “They’re going back to Arizona.”
Hayes: “That’s what really puts it into perspective.”
O’Neill: “How that jumps ahead of Toronto, a second team. Like, how does that jump ahead? That’s insane.”
Hayes: “Atlanta for a third time. Arizona for a second time, over a second team in Toronto is just blastphlamy.”
Jamie McLennan: “But don’t you think, I mean, I hear 100% agree, but doesn’t that come to down to territorial rights? You think the Leafs want to give up any type of, or MLSE.”
LeBrun: “No”
Hayes: “Of course not.”
McLennan: “They print money there. ”
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LeBrun: “Like, that’s always been the story and the threat, you know, going back many years. You know, we’ve always heard of it, the conversation that Larry Tannebaum had Gary Bettman years ago. And you know, whether there’s a promise or not a promise, you know, whatever it is, it’s always hard to get, you know, understand exactly what went down. But there’s always been this sense that Gary Bettman, you know, to some degree, always, you know, told the Leafs that this would never be a road he would go down. But, but again, we can dream.”
Hayes: “Yeah, we can well. And buffalo is a part of that too. You know, like Buffalo, there’s a lot of people in Niagara Falls, St. Catherine’s, Hamilton that just go to Buffalo, you know or like yeah, I’ll be a Sabres fan or go there if you, if you come, if there’s second team in Toronto, maybe in a perfect world, the tickets are a bit cheaper you get in on the ground level. that, that, that would have a ripple effect on the Sabres, as well.”
