I'm Canadian. Love hockey. Most if not all of us do. But I get tired of hearing things from Canadians like, when Jim Balsillie is going for an NHL team, along the lines of "why does New York City get 3 teams and Toronto and area just one?"
Chances are, Toronto and area could indeed support another NHL team. But let's look at some facts. Toronto's Census Metropolitan Area population is 5.1 million. When you add the 1.9 million CMA of Kitchener-Waterloo, Hamilton, London, Ontario and St. Catharines combined (the areas from which a new team would draw), you have 7 million.
New York's CMA? 18 million humans, folks, 22 million if you count commuters from Connecticut, for instance. That's why New York (the Rangers, the Islanders, the New Jersey Devils) has 3 teams. Only the Rangers regularly fill their rink (and by the way, have as much history as the Toronto Maple Leafs), true. But with 18 to 22 million people to potentially draw from, whether these are rabid hockey fans is essentially irrelevant. With those kinds of numbers, your margin for error is greater.
Same thing with Los Angeles, which has a CMA of 13 million and is supporting 2 teams, the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks.
And by the way, the LA Kings have been in the NHL since 1967 and when have you heard of them being in trouble? And this despite the team not having made the playoffs in years. This notion of NHL teams in southern climes not or never working simply doesn't hold up. It depends, as proven by the Kings, San Jose Sharks and the Ducks. And please don't credit Wayne Gretzky; the Kings were OK before he arrived and continue to be since he left -- Gretzky gets the credit when things go well in the south, for allegedly planting the seed, yet it's NHL commissioner Gary Bettman who gets the vitriol when things don't go so well. It's nonsense.
If you really must cite Gretzky, how about talking about how easily he gets off in all this? He's Teflon in Canada, but let's face facts. Great hockey player, lousy coach and manager. He's never made the playoffs in 4 years behind the Phoenix bench in his first-ever coaching job at any level. At a reported $7M to $8M annually, no less, when the average NHL head coaching salary is $1M.
If he were wise he'd never have put himself behind the bench in the first place -- what were his coaching qualifications?. Perhaps he should have built up some coaching/managerial credentials first. And he would long since have resigned to save face and ease pressure on majority ownership; I mean, who's got the guts to fire Wayne Gretzky?).
And as part-owner, isn't Gretzky at least partly responsible for the team's financial situation? If he were more efficient as a hockey man (remember, this is the guy who hired former Edmonton Oiler buddies like Grant Fuhr as parasites when he took over in Phoenix; people suggested it was the Phoenix FOG, i.e. Friends Of Gretzky) might not the Coyotes have been more competitive, filled their rink more often, and not met with their financial woes?
Nobody, of course, ever mentions this. Oh, yes, Gretzky "led" Canada to Olympic gold as GM in 2002. C'mon, anyone could have managed that team and besides, he was a figurehead and let's not forget he was the one, in the same role, who added the disgraced Todd Bertuzzi to Olympic Team Canada 2006 over more deserving talents, with poor results. It is not being anti-Gretzky to suggest that just because he was a great player does not mean he's a great hockey builder, as has been proven by results.
Back to Balsillie, the Coyotes, and Hamilton, and alleged NHL-Bettman bias against Canada --
while some sources indicate the NHL has been aiming at southern Ontario behind the scenes, if you're the NHL and trying to "grow" your game, your footprint, logic suggests you keep trying in non-traditional U.S. markets (crazy as that may sometimes seem to those of us north of the great undefended border) rather than placing more teams in a cornered market in Canada where you are not going to create any new fans.