The Montreal Canadiens greatest rival these days might be their own fans.
There is, of course, a large portion of the fan base that just wants to see the team succeed and improve the roster quickly. There is another portion of the fan base that appears uninterested in winning another hockey game for the next three years and has their sole focus on the 2029 Stanley Cup.
If you don’t have Twitter you are… well, not really missing out, but the arguments amongst Habs fans can be entertaining at times.
The point is, and I’ll try to get to one here soon, that on the ice the Canadiens don’t really have a nasty rivalry with anyone at the moment. They played the Toronto Maple Leafs last week and though it was sweet to watch them pump five goals by the Leafs netminders, there isn’t the same hatred that was there in previous seasons.
A lot of that is the fact the Canadiens season is clearly over already and there is not a lot to cheer for this season.
The rivalry with the Leafs was pretty hot as recent as last season when they met in the postseason, but it was the first time the two played each other in a playoff series since 1979 so the rivalry just isn’t as heated as it once was.
The Canadiens most bitter and hated rivals over the years have been the Boston Bruins and for a far too short of a time, the Quebec Nordiques.
Many signs are pointing to the fact it would make a lot of sense for the NHL to reignite the Habs-Nords rivalry as soon as next season, but commissioner Gary Bettman won’t hear it.
Instead, the Arizona Coyotes will rent an ice surface from Arizona State University and play games in front of about 3,500 fans next season. That is, of course, assuming they are able to sell all 3,500 seats in the arena.
That’s not fair. The Coyotes have averaged about 13,500 tickets sold (or given away) over the past decade. No one counts exactly how many people actually show up and sit in the arena to watch games, but it is without a doubt thousands less than the announced numbers around 13,500.
The Coyotes have cycled through owners and business plans and arena ideas forever and have come up with their worst one yet. They were pretty near thrown out of the Gila River Arena before this season because they had not paid their rent. They are an embarrassment to the National Hockey League but Bettman has no inclination to give up on them.
Since he was named commissioner back in 1993, Bettman’s mandate has been to expand the game throughout the United States. Teams quickly showed up in Dallas, Colorado (bye Quebec), Anaheim, San Jose, Florida, Tampa Bay, Nashville and Phoenix around this time. This turned the NHL from a league with teams mostly in Canada and the Northeastern United States, to a league that completely covered North America.
Bettman’s big plan all along was rewarded with the enormous tv deal the NHL just signed with various providers in the United States, which more than doubled the amount of income the league was getting from their United States tv deal.
Expanding the game throughout the United States definitely helped, but having the Arizona Coyotes as part of the package could not have helped much at all. Not only do they lag behind in attendance and tv ratings, but the Vegas Golden Knights recently moved into the NHL recently in close proximity to Arizona. If the NHL left Arizona, there would not be a huge void on the hockey map anymore since the Golden Knights are taking up space near the desert in the southwest.
For a time, it made sense to have Arizona on the hockey map. It filled a literal void and hockey worked in other non-traditional markets like Anaheim, Tampa Bay and Nashville. Why not Arizona?
Well, because they have not been run by a competent owner and they don’t have a sensible arena deal that works for fans in the area. They have had nearly 20 years to figure things out since moving to the area from Winnipeg in 1996, but they just can’t make it work.
Where would it work instead? In Quebec City where there is an NHL sized arena and millions of local, rabid hockey fans waiting to fill those seats.
The Coyotes haven’t built a single rivalry in 17 seasons, but the hypothetical Nordiques team already has one in the Montreal Canadiens. There is really no reason at all to be keeping the Coyotes in Arizona any longer. They are going to be playing in an arena that will make an actual NHL team embarrassed of the Trois-Rivieres Lions home rink.
It doesn’t make sense any longer to hold out and hope the Coyotes can work. Just move them back to Quebec and give the Habs back their most hated rival.