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NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman Says Florida Panthers Aren’t Moving

By Phil Watson

Plenty of good seats available at BB&T Arena in Sunrise, Fla. Mandatory Credit: Robert Mayer-USA TODAY Sports
Plenty of good seats available at BB&T Arena in Sunrise, Fla. Mandatory Credit: Robert Mayer-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Florida Panthers are setting all sorts of the wrong kind of attendance records this season but NHL commissioner Gary Bettman says the team isn’t moving.

The Florida Panthers aren’t doing well on the ice, currently sitting in seventh place in the Atlantic Division with a 6-4-5 record.

And they’re doing even worse off the ice, setting several records for low attendance, including the smallest home-opening crowd in franchise history last month.

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The Panthers are dead last in the NHL in attendance this season, according to ESPN.com’s figures, averaging 9,072 for seven home dates—just 53.2 percent of the capacity of the BB&T Center.

Considering that attendance figures are always artificially boosted by the home team including the season ticket holders in the total whether they are there or not, it’s a fair guess that 75 percent of the crowd at Florida home games is cleverly wearing empty-seat costumes.

But commissioner Gary Bettman tried to downplay speculation that the Panthers are headed to Quebec City.

"“Let me say this the right way,” Bettman told reporters, via Pro Hockey Talk. “I don’t think it’s fair for the speculation on any franchise, including the Panthers, to be that it’s moving. It’s not.“The Panthers have good ownership that’s committed to South Florida and any speculation that that team’s future is anywhere but in South Florida is unfounded.”"

Yes, the franchise is committed to Miami. That’s why the team included a slide in its PowerPoint presentation to Broward County about the impact of losing a tenant at the arena.

The team and the county are in negotiations for a new lease for BB&T Arena.

Quebec City will have a new arena next year and it’s a bit more of a traditional hockey market than Miami (there’s not a lot of shinny happening on South Beach).

Given the league is already unbalanced, with 16 teams in the Eastern Conference and 14 in the Western Conference, if Quebec City is to return to the NHL, it makes sense that it would be via an existing Eastern Conference club moving there.

Quebec City had an NHL team from 1979-95, before the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver to become the Colorado Avalanche.

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