Despite clear evidence, Gary Bettman continues to parrot same old lie
Photo credit: Sportsnet
National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman shot down a recent report suggesting expansion is on the horizon.
Expansion has been a hot topic around the National Hockey League throughout the early part of 2024 and began to heat up again recently. Andy Strickland of Bally Sports Midwest revealed last week that the National Hockey League's owners would be meeting soon to give the green light to the opening of a formal expansion process. Strickland also mentioned that two front-runners right now are Atlanta, Georgia and Houston, Texas. Other than those two cities, there would be quite a few others if the NHL were to open the formal process soon.
"NHL Owners will be meeting soon to approve the expansion opening. Leading candidates/ownership groups are believed to be Fertitta in Houston and Krause in Atlanta. #NHLexpansion #NHL" Strickland said.
With Andy Strickland's report suggesting that expansion could be coming relatively soon, National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman said the opposite in a recent interview with Kevin McGran of the Toronto Star.
"Everything that's been written in the last week is categorically wrong," Bettman said. "We're not going through an expansion process. And other than updating the board on Oct. 1 as to places that have expressed an interest, there's nothing else that's going to be done on expansion."
He added, "Everything else was either speculation, or I don't know what to call it, but it had no basis in fact,"
He added, "Everything else was either speculation, or I don't know what to call it, but it had no basis in fact,"
While Bettman has shut down expansion rumours right now, we'll have to wait and see how long it takes the National Hockey League to grow beyond the 32 teams they currently have. Last September, TSN's Darren Dreger reported that whenever the league decides to expand next, it could come with a fee of $2 billion USD, which may be too hard for the NHL and the owners to pass up.
| POLL | ||
SEPTEMBRE 25 | 79 ANSWERS Despite clear evidence, Gary Bettman continues to parrot same old lie Should the NHL expand beyond 32 teams? | ||
| Yes | 13 | 16.5 % |
| No | 66 | 83.5 % |
| List of polls | ||
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