Gary Bettman has received a formal offer to bring a hockey team back to Quebec City
The chatter around Quebec City getting an NHL team never seems to truly go away, and we have just learned that Gary Bettman received a concrete offer once again.
A new era in hockey may be about to get underway, with an announcement Wednesday that the NHL has received a serious proposal to revive the Quebec Nordiques. The possible return of their much-loved team to the rink in Quebec City had already captured fans' imaginations, and now Commissioner Gary Bettman and Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly are taking a formal look at the offer. This new bid opens a new frontier that offers the league an excellent avenue back into the fervent fan base in Quebec, where hockey is rivaled by few others, and where the Nordiques brand still holds a dear place.
Right at the heart of this bid is the well-esteemed Quebec businessman Luc Poirier, who made the most audacious jump of faith into the void to pursue the return of the Nordiques. Poirier has just made his ambitions public, and he's dead set on bringing NHL hockey back to Quebec City. With business savvy and pride for locals, Poirier brings a level of excitement and credibility to the bid. Publicly acknowledging the proposal cements for the fans that this is indeed not some pie-in-the-sky dream, but a real attempt with resources behind it.
Interestingly, this is not Poirier's first foray into attempting to return NHL hockey to Quebec. He mentioned on Montreal's 98.5 FM that he previously tried to purchase the unstable ownership, and location-troubled Arizona Coyotes a few years ago. The powers that were within the NHL at the time preferred to pursue an owner who would be willing to stay in Arizona with the Coyotes, thus squashing Poirier's hopes of moving the team north. His persistence, however, shows a true dream for the rebirth of the Nordiques.
Maxime Truman, a well-known insider from the Stanley25 podcast and the blog DansLesCoulisses, corroborated Poirier's past attempt to purchase the Coyotes and relocate the team to Quebec. With partners and financing in place, sources close to Truman give significant weight to this new attempt by Poirier. The timing seems to work out a lot more now, considering recent expansions and relocations are showing the NHL might consider such a venture.
Although this doesn't in any way guarantee that the Nordiques will return anytime soon, the increased effort from someone resourceful enough like Luc Poirier gives a little to be optimistic about for the hockey fans of Quebec. With support and experience now, perhaps this may be the proposal to get the Nordiques up and running once again. The next few years will decide whether it will be a successful bid, but as things stand now, there is a new hope that a Quebec City team will once more take to the ice in the NHL.
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