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Gary Bettman says there's no active pursuit of expansion, but beyond Utah, the league has received at least preliminary interest from Utah, Houston, Atlanta, Cincinnati (!) and Omaha (!!).
— Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) February 2, 2024
by Imaginary_Ganache_29
19 Comments
He said no interest in expanding as of now but the league has received interest. Omaha is interesting to me.
Oh man
Adding Cincinnati with the current expansion rules would be disastrous to CBJ. This isn’t MLS. I don’t think Ohio can support two teams.
As a Cincinnatian, there is no way this happens. The NHL has 32 teams as it is and they aren’t going to expand by many more beyond that if they do at all. There are several cities that would be more appealing to them than Cincy would be.
Would be kind of weird to put an expansion team in a city that’s slowly losing population
As fun as an Ohio rivalry would be I really wish more cities out west got teams because there’s already a fuck ton of teams located in the eastern time zone
How many more professional sports team do they need? Get the fuck outta here Cincy
Fuck it
Rename them to the Ohio Blue Jackets
If Cincy does get a team, how would that impact your loyalty to the CBJ?
Personally, I think Cincy would become my second team and I’d root for them unless they played the Jackets. Unfortunately, they’d probably be good from the jump and make it out of the first round in their first 3 seasons 😳
This franchise is finished if Cincinnati gets a team.
As a Cincinnati local I am *very* intrigued by this
I will be a die hard Columbus fan till the end, but it can’t hurt to have two teams right?
Trying to pull a page out of the (fuck you) Don Garber playbook.
Saved the Crew already, we can save the Jackets if we need to
Notice it’s not that the league has expressed interest, but the “city”
Jeff Berding has been trying to get the city to cough up money to build a new arena for years since Heritage Bank Center is a dump. This is 100% just another ploy to try and drum up support. The NHL couldn’t support two teams this close together.
Cincinnati would need a brand new arena. They’re current one can barely handle the cyclones. It badly needs to be replaced.
Worst case scenario if the jackets had to be sold/relocated Cincinnati is not too bad of a move for Columbus area jackets fans. It makes hockey a little more accessible to Kentucky and southeastern Indiana.
Plus Cincinnati has some hockey history with the Stingers from back in the WHA days. When they merged with the NHL they were like the last team out before they settled on the Oilers, Whalers, Jets, and Nordiques
Make it happen, only way we get a rival.
Is this where I complain about something in Ohio not being about the Blue Jackets. Cincinnati would be better for an NBA team though
When I think of hockey, I think of Cincinnati? Yeah, I don’t see it anytime soon. I will give the Cyclones credit though, their attendance seems to go up every year. They should move up to the AHL level and see how well they draw fans before they try the leap to the NHL level in that area.
Columbus averaged 92% capacity last year when the team was a total hot mess and most of the star players were hurt. And unless something goes drastically wrong at Worthington Industries, the ownership isn’t changing. The CBJ is a very stable team so even if Cincy somehow were to get an NHL level team, the CBJ is going to be just fine.
The tweet in question also lists Omaha, Nebraska as a possibility so not sure how seriously I take it. I’d be pretty shocked if the league expanded anywhere besides Houston or Atlanta (hey, third time’s the charm, right?).
They would be like the Bangals. When they are bad no one will care. When they are good everyone including the media will jump on the bandwagon and pretend they are lifers