Breaking: Gary Bettman makes his official expansion announcement!

A huge announcement from the NHL commissioner.

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HockeyFeed
Published 7 years ago
Breaking: Gary Bettman makes his official expansion announcement!

The National Hockey League has officially announced it's expansion plans.

During a televised press conference on Wednesday night commissioner Gary Bettman announced that the NHL board of governors had voted unanimously to grant Las Vegas and majority owner Bill Foley a new franchise bringing the league's total number of teams to 31. The announcement came as little surprise to most who have followed this story, and Bettman's announcement regarding the expansion bid of Quebec City and Quebecor was also unsurprising.

Bettman announced that the expansion bid for a franchise in Quebec City had been deferred and he listed three major factors as the motivation behind the decision to do so, all of which are frankly reasonable.

Bettman cited the fluctuation of the Canadian dollar, specifically it hitting a low point of $0.68 during the expansion process, as a major issue for Quebec's expansion bid. He also added that the imbalance between the Western and Eastern conferences was also a factor, with the West still having only 15 teams with the entry of Las Vegas to the league when compared to 16 from the East. Last but not least Bettman also cited the new expansion draft rules as a motivation for moving forward with only one team which was a very interesting factor.

The current expansion rules appear designed to make the expansion franchise very competitive immediately out of the gate, and Bettman indicated that the process was better suited to a single team at a time, which makes perfect sense.

An exciting day for Las Vegas, and a devastating one for fans in Quebec City.

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