Do you know what American city was the first to hoist the Stanley Cup? No, it wasn’t New York in 1928. Try Seattle back in 1917, a few years before the NHL was even established. It took 100 more years for the NHL to finally grant Seattle an expansion franchise. Why was a northern city in a giant media market constantly shunned for expansion? Well, the NHL has never really considered common sense when it comes to adding and moving teams. Remember when Winnipeg and Minneapolis, you know, places that love hockey, didn’t have teams? Well, in honor of the Flyers playing the Jets, Wild, and Kraken let’s look back on the drunk era of NHL expansion, an era that might be happening again soon.
Pax NHL
Ever hear the term Original 6 when it comes to the NHL? That would be the Blackhawks, Bruins, Canadians, Maple Leafs, Rangers, and Red Wings who were the only teams from 1942-1967. Other teams had come and gone, but that was it for those 25 years. Crazy right? The NHL doubled in size in 1967 adding for our purposes, the Flyers and the Minnesota North Stars.1 By 1972, the league was up to 16 teams including the Atlanta Flames.
In 1974, the NHL agreed to add two teams in Denver and, surprise surprise, Seattle. That makes sense, right? The Sonics had started in 1967 and by 1972 Seattle was actively courting NFL teams before being granted an expansion team also in 1974. The area was booming and looking to satisfy its sports crazed denizens. The guy leading the Seattle hockey charge though, Vince Abbey, missed his deposit payments. Neither Denver nor Seattle ended up getting their expansion team, though the Kansas City Scouts did relocate to become the Colorado Rockies.
The Winnipeg Jets joined the NHL in 1979 with the merger of the NHL with the WHA along with the Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers, and the Quebec Nordiques. Shortly thereafter, the Atlanta Flames moved to Calgary because, well, hockey is much more popular in Canada than Atlanta, GA. This is how things stayed for a long while with a few minor exceptions. The Colorado Rockies moved to NJ in 1982, the San Jose Sharks were added in 1991, and the Senators and Lightning were added in 1992. That John Denver was full of shit apparently.
The Fall of the Northern Empire
Sorry for all the preamble, but this is when things got weird. In 1993, the NHL expanded to South Florida with the Panthers and turned a movie into a franchise with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. Also, the Minnesota North Stars moved to Dallas. WHAT? Besides the good fortune of the “Stars” moving to Dallas, why the hell would you move hockey out of the great north. Turns out the team had financial problems, but keeping them in Minnesota should have been a priority over Texas.
Seattle tried again at this time, but renovations to Key Arena did not consider hockey at all and made the place untenable. Key Arena being terrible would eventually be used to move the Sonics out of town too. Someone needs to write a tell all about that place and whoever hated sports in Seattle in the 90s.
2 years later, the Nordiques left Quebec for Denver and became the Avalanche. The next year, the Jets left Winnipeg for Phoenix. Another year, another move south with the Whalers going from Hartford to basketball country in Raleigh, North Carolina. The dumbest though, was the NHL once again expanding to Atlanta with the Thrashers in 1999. The NHL was down to just a few truly northern teams, with 6 in Canada and the Detroit Red Wings.
Great Migration
Southern hockey wasn’t really working. At least Minnesota got its team back in 2000 with the expansion Wild, now under better financial circumstances. By 2011, hockey had failed in Atlanta again and Winnipeg took advantage and even secured the Jets naming rights again. Despite hockey basically always struggling in Phoenix, it took a few years in a college gym for the league to finally pull the plug on the experiment and move the team to Utah.
After Las Freaking Vegas got a team, finally Seattle was granted the league’s 32nd franchise. It only took 100 years and a brand new arena to get it done. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Sonics were the reason Seattle didn’t get a hockey team only for the Kraken to be the reason the Sonics return. We’ll see.
Next
Though it was not recently discussed in their Board of Governors meetings, apparently the NHL wants to get to 36 teams in the next few years. Why? Because expansion fees are going to be north of $650m each. That’s about $81m per owner. That seems crazy and not worth it to me, but this is the NHL. Wouldn’t you know it, their plan is to expand into Phoenix, Houston, and Atlanta. Guys, what are you doing???
What does any of this have to do with the Flyers? Oh right…ummm…thanks for reading!
- They played in East and West divisions, but because they wanted to keep the Original 6 together, the Flyers played in the West with the LA Kings. ↩︎
Philly Front Office 
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