Is it me or is it strange that NHL is the only league that isn't facing the wrath of the economy?
The NBA cut nine percent of its workforce, the NFL announced plans to slash 10 percent of its employees and the majority of Major League Baseball teams have many of their seat prices frozen for next year. The NHL? Apparently booming.
Earlier this week, in a stop that received very little coverage south of the Canadian border, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman arrived in Edmonton to say that the Oilers, currently playing in a 35-year-old arena, needed a new building.
"It can become an economic engine," Bettman told reporters. "It can attract tourists. It is critical both for the future of the Oilers and the city."
For one, there's this little thing called a recession that we're in right now. Steel prices are absurdly low, but you obviously can't finance a stadium, not unless what Bettman had in mind was a scale model of a new arena that was similar in size to "Derek Zoolander's School For Kids Who Can't Read Good."
And we didn't even talk about the depreciating Canadian dollar, which is now worth 17 cents less than the American dollar. But I guess the NHL is really fine. As Bettman noted "our numbers are almost incredibly strong."
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