Just a quick note on some of remarks around NHL I caught on KJR yesterday when Chris Hansen called in to their show. You can listen to it here: http://www.sportsradiokjr.com/player/?station=KJR-AM&program_name=podcast&program_id=softy.xml&mid=22279286 I enjoyed the entire piece but if you want to just listen to the hockey comments, it starts roughly at the 21:45 remark.
Here are the main comments:
“There are several people interested in bringing hockey to Seattle.”
“We want to find a great ownership group that is passionate about hockey as we are about basketball.”
“There are good people that are focused on keeping Seattle for the long-term and are not just out of town owners looking for the best market without a long term commitment.”
“Optimal solution for them would be to probably come a little later, maybe like a year or two”
“Key Arena is a tough place to play. It is only 10,000 Seats”
“Hockey is more dependent on Arena revenue.”
“Really tough for them (a hockey team) to play in KeyArena for 3 years”
I’ve assumed that the Hansen groups has some dialogue with potential or existing NHL owners and it is great to hear it validated. For the out of towners that might not hear all the comments and remarks that Hansen & even public officials are making but the NHL is very much part of the conversation and mentioned all the time. The Sonics, for good reason, are driving the bus and dominate conversations but the NHL is much more than an afterthought.
