Canada can support several NHL teams, study says

As the puck drops on another season of hockey in the playoffs, the author of an economic study of the National Hockey League said Canadian fans have sold short.

Tony Keller, a researcher at the Centre for Innovation policy at the University of Toronto, co-écrit Mowat a report which concludes the Canada could support up to 12 franchises NHL - double the current six - including the two additional teams to join the Toronto Maple Leafs in southern Ontario.

In its report, Keller argues that, while the major part of the financial support of hockey comes from the Canada, the NHL continued to push a political failure of expansion in the South of the United States ambivalent markets play, as Phoenix, Nashville and Florida.

"It's a very strange situation where the NHL generates approximately one-third of its turnover to the Canada, but only about a fifth of its teams, to the Canada" Keller told CBC News Tuesday.

His report, says the best place to find a new team would be the Golden Horseshoe, an area that rings Toronto and account approximately nine million people. But other cities could also support the NHL teams, the report finds, including Hamilton and the other London and Kitchener, Ontario. Winnipeg and Quebec may also support teams, according to the report of.

Tony Keller has co-authored a report that examines the finances of the NHL and concludes that the Canada could support a total of 12 NHL franchises. (CBC)

"Here, the application of fan, the fan interest is so high and yet the number of teams, the provision of hockey is so restricted, said Keller." There is no question all six cities, we studied have higher incomes than any team in the U.S. sunbelt. ?

The NHL has resisted recent attempts to move the U.S. teams to cities, something that Keller suggests may violate the law on competition of the Canada.

"Under the strict legal definition, the NHL is a cartel," he said. "It is a group of companies that cooperate for the purpose of the reduction of competition." This is what they do.

But the report Mowat was not well received by the Director General of one of the teams he suggested should accept a new franchise as a neighbour: the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Brian Burke has stated that he did not read the study but is familiar with similar proposals that called for the addition of a new team to the West of Toronto.

"I think that there is a golden horse pile something else," said Burke. "It is not a question of sustainability, it is a second or third team being here without prejudice in Toronto, Buffalo and Detroit.

Jon Desouza, a hockey fan, would like a new franchise located in the greater Toronto area.

"Hamilton, they fill you stadiums larger than Carolina would never be right?" Empty small towns of Carolina in the Canada stage would fill stadiums at the time of the great city of United States, "says.

The NHL responded to a request of CBC News to discuss the content of the report.

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