rumour - NHL's Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg

Well, look at it this way. If we can't get ahold of one of those "winning" teams, we should still take on of the others. If you have the richest family in Canada owning this team, they will have the $$$ to build it up into a winning team, and then we can finally win the Stanley Cup!

5 years from now there will be a group of 6 young hockey players coming out of Winnipeg that will SMASH into the NHL and take it by storm. These kids are absolutely phenominal when playing together and if any team can get them all in one basket that team would come really close to winning the cup. Their parents are insanely huge Jets fans ( or were I guess) but a couple of their houses are still decked out in Jets stuff in the entertainment rooms.

So all we need to do is somehow get them all on to the Winnipeg team at the same time.

From today's Wpg Sun. http://www.winnipegsun.com/sports/hockey/2009/10/05/11301261-sun.html
"A member of the league's board of governors confirmed the Atlanta Thrashers are one of about 10 NHL teams currently up for sale. New York Islanders owner Charles Wang, who is seeking a new arena for the team, recently said he might consider moving the franchise.
The governor, who wants to remain anonymous, told Sun Media he's heard "nothing" about the Toronto group mentioned on Hockey Night in Canada.
He said he finds it hard to believe Winnipeg could support a NHL franchise at MTS centre.
"Here's the bottom line: it's just too small," he said.
The governor added, however, that he believes Winnipeg could easily support a team with the right arena.
If the Trashers ended up moving to Winnipeg it would be the second NHL team to move from Georgia to Western Canada. The Atlanta Flames moved to Calgary following the 1979-80 season.
The Phoenix Coyotes were formerly the Winnipeg Jets before moving to Arizona after the 1995-96 season."

"He said he finds it hard to believe Winnipeg could support a NHL franchise at MTS centre.
"Here's the bottom line: it's just too small," he said. "

so filling a 15K arena to the max every night makes less sense then filling a 25k arena with 6k people?

Remember this one?
Winnipeg is on IKEA's radar, says a prominent local property developer.

Sandy Shindleman says the retail real estate industry is buzzing that the Swedish furniture giant will open a Winnipeg store in 2009 or 2010.


A company spokesman confirmed IKEA has expansion plans for Canada, but Winnipeg is not in them.


"It is just a rumour," Cass Hall said of talk of a new store here.

"For now we don't have any plans for Winnipeg we can discuss right now."

IKEA turns 30 this year and is growing as a company. Hall said among its first new moves in Canada will be to expand its Ottawa store.

Winnipeggers are some of the best and most loyal IKEA mail-order customers in Canada, yet have long felt inferior for not having a storefront outlet.

FEASIBILITY STUDY

Their hopes were raised when IKEA conducted a feasibility study a few years ago on the merits of doing business here. At the time, Winnipeg did not have the magical one-million population the company says on its website it requires.

Robert Warren, a retail professor at the University of Manitoba, doubts IKEA will open a store here. The city and its catchment area cannot support the size of big box -- about 200,000 square feet -- IKEA is building now, he said.

"That store has got to do $33 (million) or $35 million in sales," he said. "If you go to their website you will see they never go into a market of less than a million people ... unless they're coming up with some new format.

"I don't think they'd come here in a million years. It's not the first time I've heard 'reliable sources say.' "
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=124623




Nope, IKEA will never open a store in Winnipeg. It's just as likely as the NHL coming back to Winnipeg. Never going to happen

yeah I dont think IKEA will be opening a store in Winnipeg either.

Deank wrote:"He said he finds it hard to believe Winnipeg could support a NHL franchise at MTS centre.
"Here's the bottom line: it's just too small," he said. "

so filling a 15K arena to the max every night makes less sense then filling a 25k arena with 6k people?

I believe the MTS centre could be upgraded/expanded within the current footprint. they could deconstruct the 300, 200, and boxes. rebuild it outward over top of the streets on west, east, and south sides. They could add 5k seats to bring the totals seat # to 20k. with the extra room they could add a couple extra boxes too.

yeah I figure it should be pretty easy to build on top its not like Winnipeg does not have experience adding more seats to an existing arena.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2009/10/05/mb-nhl-thrashers-winnipeg.html
"This is not a torqued story. This is a good, solid business story," Strachan told CBC News on Monday.
"There is a desire on the part of these people to move Atlanta to Winnipeg, but as I stress, it is not imminent."Half the articles say it's completely false the other half say it's true.Hopefully true.

I heard somewhere that the Thompson family (Thompson Reuters) are the ones interested in buying the thrashers and relocating them to Winnipeg. Can anyone confirm?

I've heard something along that line as well. Not sure why they would want to make that investment. They would have to know this is not a profit-generating effort. At best? Break even.

grumpy old man wrote:I've heard something along that line as well. Not sure why they would want to make that investment. They would have to know this is not a profit-generating effort. At best? Break even.

IYHO, where besides southern Ontairo, in Canada would be a huge profit generating effort?

Build a new 30K seat Arena on the border of sask and MB just a little off the transcanada. Build a huge hotel attached to the arena, possibly a casino, maybe a mall.
Call the team the Saskatoban tiger dogs.

Have all of Manitoba and Most of Saskatchewan supporting the team and cheering for the team and buying merchandise and attending games.
Sell out every single game.
Make money off the hotel and retail

LivingDead wrote:I heard somewhere that the Thompson family (Thompson Reuters) are the ones interested in buying the thrashers and relocating them to Winnipeg. Can anyone confirm?

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/true-norths-billionaire-player-63584407.html

Here's what some guy said in the Freep online.

Here are some cold, hard FACTS.

The MTS CENTRE has a maximum capacity of 15,015 for hockey. And believe me folks, they shoehorned those upper bowl seats in to reach that number.

The NY Islanders currently have the smallest arena in the league with a capacity of 16,234. The Islanders average attendance for 2008-09 was 13,773. The Islanders are currently operating with a reported $30 million in the RED.

In all honesty, an NHL team here would have to have 15,015 butts in the chairs PLUS ALL corporate/luxury boxes sold for EVERY game to remain viable. Period.

If you truly believe that we Manitobans are capable of selling out every game, then bring on the NHL.

If you can see stretches of games where attendance may drop between, say, 12,000 to 14,000 then we have to ask ourselves whether we can endure upcoming seasons of financial struggle and living with team that is rumoured to be on the move again.

And we haven't even discussed what would happen if and when the Canadian dollar slips to around the 70 cent mark again.....

The NYI's average 13k on PAPER. If they get half that on most nights the owner would be thrilled...

We need to use caution when discussing attendance as a barometer. The US teams that have been experiencing attendance problems have resorted to HUGE discounts to try to get seats in the seats.

Smart pricing in Winnipeg would likely result in well attended games. Likely sell-outs for the first few seasons. There are sell-out guarantees. Those tickets would be priced accordingly. Some teams would be hard pressed to attract huge crowds. Price them accordingly.

Popular teams make a TON of money from merchandising. How popular are the Islanders that they are in such a densely populated area and they can not sell out every game? How likely is it that people are buying their merchandise?

Hell I would almost be willing to bet that for Merchandise sales the Winnipeg Jets still have more money brought in every year.

I read somewhere that the Winnipeg Jets merchandise is still hugely popular. I don't know how it ranks (or if it ranks) compared to other NHL teams. But you just have to look at all the sporting goods stores in town to see how popular that gear is.

grumpy old man wrote:I read somewhere that the Winnipeg Jets merchandise is still hugely popular. I don't know how it ranks (or if it ranks) compared to other NHL teams. But you just have to look at all the sporting goods stores in town to see how popular that gear is.

heh, you just have to attend a moose game to see how popular it is

do the sales rank up there with the Flames? Hell no, not even close. But to unpopular teams? Quite possibly.

The Lames suck big balls

They are a good team. Very entertaining to watch. As long as the Flames beat the (Vancouver) Cannots I'm a happy camper...

grumpy old man wrote:They are a good team. Very entertaining to watch. As long as the Flames beat the (Vancouver) Cannots I'm a happy camper...

Now THIS statement is hockey blasphamy! You should apologize before the hockey Gods come and take you to hockey hell where you will be forced to watch every home game that the Phoenix Coyotes have played since 1996 through this their last year before they are relocated to a city where there are actually hockey fans.

I just wish the oilers were as good as they used to be before Wayne Gretzky caved and made hockey suck forever.

Deank wrote:I just wish the oilers were as good as they used to be before Wayne Gretzky caved and made hockey suck forever.

Meh, they may not be a great team, but that doesn't stop me from supporting them and attending games. I'm just thankful I live in a city with an NHL pro hockey team

BITE IT b1tch!!!

hehehehe

If Winnipeg gets a team I will put my utmost effort into watching as many games as I can on the tv.

I swear.

Go New Jets!!!