killlerbabies
This is news to me! I thought the Islanders had the worst attendance. The Coyotes worry me. They are only about 20 minutes away from Phoenix, which has a population of around 1.5 million, yet I looked and saw their attendance for last season averaged around 12k. You'd think people would want to get away from the hot weather and watch some hockey in a nice chilly rink, but... I don't know what their deal is. I expect they'll be relocated in the next decade. ALTHOUGH, with the way they've been performing lately, maybe more locals will gain an interest. Only time will tell!
I digress, haha.
Yeah, Phoenix is struggling... Their attendance was dead last in the 2011-12 season no matter how you look at it. To look at attendance in percentage, the bottom five teams are Carolina, the Islanders, Columbus, Dallas, and dead last is Phoenix. Now, the Islanders were dead last in the 2010-11 season, but they gained on attendance last season, where as the Coyotes basically were close to the same.
The major problem is that non-traditional hockey markets struggle to gain attendance when the team is struggling... But a team like Toronto can fill their building every game despite not making the playoffs since the 2003-04 season. That's the reason Atlanta has twice now lost a team to Canada. (the Calgary Flames were originally the Atlanta Flames)
But despite the Coyotes struggle, they don't want to give up on the market. Now, personally I would prefer if they'd move Phoenix to a market they'd thrive instead of struggle, but if they can gain enough of a fan base to start making money and they get the ongoing saga of the ownership settled... Good for them.
Kosai Avonej
Over a 5% difference. It's a whole ********' joke. The previous CBA was suffice, it still should have been. Whats more stupid is they can't just sit down and say "1%? No, okay 2%? alright, 3.5 Final offer" all in the span of under 10 seconds like normal people would, no need to rewrite the whole thing in between. I finally move to Edmonton, a city of which has the cheapest NHL tickets in Canada and they lockout. This is totally stupid. Furthermore, I say legislate them back to work through the government since they are a vital part of Canadian and American economy. Alternatively, call up the farm league boys and suit em up in their pro-team uniform and sign them to million dollar contracts, lets have us some scab hockey.
The percentage is only part of the situation. The NHL owners want to change the core economics and make changes to contracts and that sort of thing, where-as the players are happy with how that works under the current agreement. They also have to discuss how they might change revenue sharing to help struggling teams like Phoenix. There are a lot of elements beyond the percentage, yet the only thing either side is budging on at the this time is percentage.
Many of the AHL players who are signed to 2-Way contract are essentially locked out of the NHL, and many of them were sent down to the AHL affiliates before the lockout so they could play during the lockout. Scab hockey would be plain cruel to the players... It's one thing to use replacement players in a strike situation, an entirely different thing to use replacement players when the
LEAGUE LOCKED THE PLAYERS OUT.