- Bill Daly says the NHL has not found anyone willing to pay for a Quebec City franchise
- Daly shot down the idea that the sliding Canadian dollar is the roadblock
- Read below for Daly’s full comments and where Houston sits on the expansion timeline
The Quebec Nordiques are still waiting on somebody to write the check.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly went on The Eye Test Podcast on Wednesday and spelled out what is actually missing, and it has nothing to do with the building or the fans.
“I think the biggest issue that we have faced with Quebec City is that we have not identified an owner who is either willing to pay the price tag to put a team in Quebec City or is willing to operate a franchise long-term in Quebec City,” Daly told hosts Pierre McGuire and Jimmy Murphy.
Here’s Daly walking through where the league’s expansion plans stand:
Daly said the league has been digging into Quebec City for at least ten years, going back to when it was running that process alongside Las Vegas. Vegas is nine seasons into life as a franchise now. Quebec is still on the outside.
Murphy asked whether the sliding Canadian dollar is the real roadblock. Daly wasn’t buying it.
“I don’t think that’s how we viewed it,” Daly said. “Does that present challenges? Sure it presents some challenges, no doubt about that, but I think the state of our game in Canada and each our Canadian cities, seven of them, is strong, and continues to be strong. So I don’t think that’s a gating factor.”
The rink has been sitting there for a decade. Videotron Centre opened in 2015 with 18,259 seats and still has no NHL tenant.
Nordiques hockey ran from 1979 to 1995 before ownership sold the club and moved it to Denver, where it turned into the Colorado Avalanche and won a Cup in its first year there.
Texas is the market actually moving. Daly said the league and its owners are “primarily interested” in Houston, with Austin still alive as an option, and the plan is to have definitive paperwork done with the Friedkin group by the end of this calendar year. He wants a team on the ice for 2029-30, though a new arena has to get built before any of that happens. The league opened that process in June.
Take a look at the full sit-down with Daly:
Quebec City has the arena, the fans and ten years of meetings with the league. What it doesn’t have is a buyer.
