Bettman to meet with Quebec Premier on the return of the Nordiques.

It has been 26 years since the Quebec Nordiques were moved in May of 1995 and relocated to Denver, Colorado where they became known as the Colorado Avalanche. That is a significant length of time but for some hockey fans in Quebec the fight to get the Nordiques back home will never be over, and one such fan is Quebec Premier Francois Legault.

Unlike other hockey fans however Legault has the power to actually influence the likelihood of the National Hockey League opting to re-enter the Canadian market, and it appears he intends to do just that. This week it was announced that Legault was forming a committee to address a number of issues that have made Quebec City a less than desirable option for the NHL in recent years, with expansion franchises being created in both Las Vegas and Seattle while Quebec City was passed over, with the express purpose of bringing the Nordiques back to Quebec City.

Legault revealed this week that he has a number of meetings planned in the coming months, meetings that will feature NHL commissioner Gary Bettman himself.

"I've already spoken to Bettman," Legault told RDS. "There are already meetings planned over the course of the coming months."

Legault's committee will look to address some of the challenges with bringing hockey back to Quebec, but it sounds like it may also be on the hunt for investors.

"You have to look to know who is ready to invest," said Legault. "We have an area already built in Quebec City and we've reached out to commissioner Gary Bettman to better understand what we need to bring back the Nordiques."

There will be some significant hurdles for the Quebec Premier moving forward, with one being that the league now has an even number of teams at 32 with the inclusion of the Seattle Kraken this season. In this scenario the best chance Quebec City would have of getting a team would be in a situation similar to the one that led to the Nordiques leaving in the first place, the relocation of a struggling NHL franchise. 

There is an obvious candidate for relocation in the NHL right now in the form of the Arizona Coyotes, but the very same commissioner Bettman that Legault is hoping to convince has thus far been reluctant to give up on hockey in the desert.

Even in the event of the Coyotes being relocated, there are other potential cities that have been rumored to be potential destinations for the NHL. Houston, Kansas City and even Hartford have all been rumored as cities the NHL could look to relocate, or even expand, to alongside with the aforementioned Quebec City.