SportsHockeyCanada

Bobby Orr gets involved with an NHL expansion team bid

Adam Laskaris
Adam Laskaris
|
Jan 10 2025, 5:42 pm
Bobby Orr gets involved with an NHL expansion team bid
Boston Bruins/Facebook

Back in his days as a star NHL defenceman, Bobby Orr was known for being one of the league’s most transformational players.

The only defenceman to ever win the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s leading scorer, the former Boston Bruins and later Chicago Blackhawks defenceman’s career still holds up as well as just about anyone ever to play the game.

And some 45 years after his retirement in 1979, Orr could be set to help make NHL history yet again, with his involvement in an NHL expansion project.

The 76-year-old is helping with a push to bring the league back to Atlanta as part of an expansion bid, having made an appearance at a Forsyth County Commissioners meeting on Thursday as confirmed by Forsyth News, a region in North Atlanta that’s one of the prime targets for a future NHL franchise.

Orr appeared alongside a team led by Vernon Krause, who is best known for his work with Krause Auto Group, a series of car dealerships throughout the southeastern United States, with the development of an arena and mixed-use zoning development getting approved at the meeting.

“Our team remains committed to pursuing the dream of bringing the NHL to this great region, advancing this development and delivering a vibrant space where our community can live, work and gather,” Krause wrote in a statement on Friday. “This pivotal decision marks another major step in realizing our visionary and transformative mixed-use project — centered around a state-of-the-art multipurpose arena — for the residents and visitors of Forsyth County.”

It is not immediately clear what Orr’s role in the bid may be. Back at the 2024 NHL All-Star Game, commissioner Gary Bettman suggested that expansion groups out of Cincinnati, Houston, Kansas City, and Omaha, in addition to Atlanta, had all approached the league.

However, Bettman later followed up at an NHL media event in Toronto in September saying that while the league was always listening to interests, they were “not going through an expansion process” at this point in time.

NHL Network insider Kevin Weekes also dropped a photo of Atlanta with an eyes and clock emoji, helping to fuel the speculation.

The most obvious downside to an NHL team going to Atlanta would be that a franchise has inhabited and left the city twice before, with the Atlanta Flames existing from 1972-1980 before a move to Calgary and the Atlanta Thrashers calling the city home from 1999-2011 before moving to Winnipeg.

And simply having an NHL-sized arena doesn’t necessarily guarantee a hockey team will come, as we’ve seen Quebec City and Hamilton, Ontario, unsuccessfully pulling off that move in the past.

After expanding from 21 to 30 teams from 1991 to 2000, the league has only added two teams in that process, though Atlanta and Arizona both relocated.

We’re still likely several years away from the NHL actually having another team in Atlanta, but if the league does go back for a third go-around, perhaps Orr’s influence and celebrity status might play a small part in the move.

ADVERTISEMENT