The NHL is getting another team, as the league signed off today on granting a franchise to Seattle.
The unnamed team will begin playing in 2021-2022, expanding the league to 32 teams. The NHL Board of Governors approved the move in an unanimous vote today.
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The Seattle franchise is primarily owned by David Bonderman, who paid $650-million for the right to join North America’s fourth-most popular professional sports league.
The team will be playing out of the (lacklustre) Pacific Division, with the Arizona Coyotes being bumped to the Central Division.
The move means the NHL will hold another expansion draft in 2021, with the same format as the previous one for the Las Vegas Golden Knights, which miraculously made it to the Stanley Cup finals in their first year.
“Today is an exciting and historic day for our League as we expand to one of North America’s most innovative, beautiful and fastest-growing cities,” NHL Commissioner (and Hall of Famer) Gary Bettman said in a statement. “We are delighted to add David Bonderman, Tod Leiweke and the entire NHL Seattle group to the National Hockey League family. And we are thrilled that Seattle, a city with a proud hockey history that includes being the home for the first American team ever to win the Stanley Cup, is finally joining the NHL.”
Congrats to the Seattle Grunge or Seattle SeaOtters or whatever.
And sorry Quebec.
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