There are many reasons why the Arizona Coyotes should relocate to another city.
One of them is the fact that they play out of a college-sized arena with a capacity of 5,000. Another is that despite being a quarter of the size of an average NHL rink, they still can’t seem to fill it up.
According to HockeyDB.com, the average attendance at Mullett Arena during the 2022-2023 season was 4,600. For the record, that’s fewer than 24 teams in the AHL.
Now, let’s compare that to the Quebec Remparts, a QMJHL team that sells out all 18,259 seats of Quebec City’s Videotron Centre regularly during the playoffs. The junior franchise’s regular season numbers also put Arizona to shame, averaging over 9,700 spectators on any given night.
HockeyDB
For those who are counting, the Remparts also averaged more fans at their games than any other non-NHL team in North America last season ā including AHL teams.
Suffice it to say, despite Quebec City having a population of less than one million, its passion for hockey is off the charts.
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And unlike Arizona, Quebec has a state-of-the-art NHL-sized arena that would welcome a big league team with open arms.
Ironically, back in 1995, the reason the Nordiques were forced to leave la belle province in the first place to become the Colorado Avalanche was because there were no plans to modernize their aging arena or build a new one.
Now, Arizona finds itself in the same boat after Tempe voters recently rejected a proposal to build an arena for the Coyotes.
So far, cities like Houston and Kansas City have emerged as rumoured frontrunners.
Still, the case for another NHL franchise in Quebec is strong. Despite much of the market belonging to the Montreal Canadiens and unique language issues that may arise, thereās no denying that the league is better off filling up the second-newest and seventh-largest indoor arena in Canada with passionate hockey fans than trying to maintain another failed experiment down south.
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