Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Does Quebec want back into the game?

Quietly it seems that a bit of ground work is being laid out in order to possibly return the NHL to the walled city of Quebec. While it sounds more like tire kicking than anything else at the moment, there is a fellow named Mark Charest who is apparently trying to determine the interest level in bringing the NHL back to the city.

He's described as a little known businessman, possibly not the best moniker to be taken seriously, but there he is doing his due diligence and forming a committee to investigate the possibilities. Chraest claims that there have been people working behind the scenes since 2004 in an attempt to find the right plan to bring the game back to the Quebec capital. They plan on launching an internet petition, which they hope will hold 500,000 names by October and show any possible investors that it would be a wise place to bring a team.

The stumbling block in Quebec has always been the Colisee, it's an ancient building which was probably too small back in the late seventies when the Nordiques first appeared on the scene. Charest says for only 25 million dollars he can bring the old dame of hockey up to NHL standards. While he's not taking cheques at the moment, he does say that he's begun exploratory talks with possible investors in the project.

His press conference was greeted with a fair amount of skepticism over his plans, as many in the media feel that the NHL has no intention of returning to any more smaller Canadian markets. But then that's just the cynical media types eh, for true fans of hockey any dream can be a possible dream if the stars all align properly.

Quebec hockey fans will be watching the night skies looking for those stars to show them the way back to the days of the Battles of Quebec.

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