Economy affecting hockey...

[lafountain]

With the way the economy has gone, even professional sports have felt their share. In the ECHL during the season the Augusta Lynx and Fresno Falcons have both folded operations. Now in the NHL the Coyotes are getting quite strapped for cash.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=3790207

I did find this part of it quite interesting.

"Take parking. The Coyotes, unlike most teams in the NHL, receive nothing from parking fees at the arena. Instead, they actually pay a surcharge of $2.70 per vehicle. That means instead of generating upwards of $10 million in revenue, they pay more than $2 million."

With the arena being so new, I would have figured that the Coyotes would have been getting revenue from parking.

Also wouldn't be a surprise if the next two years the Salary Cap actually went down.

[MRichards18]

The NHL expanded way too much. Their should only be 24 teams not 30. The talent pool is diluted. The leagues greed along with Gary Bettmans idiacy is destroying this great sport. Now the economy. It would not surprise me if the league lost a few teams. That would be good and bad. To bad about the parking situation in Phoenix.

[JeffB]

I don't think I have ever, ever heard of a team that has to pay for it's customers to park. Whoever got them to agree to that sounds like they really fleeced them badly.

[ZoomZoom18]

The free parking at Jobing.com Arena is great! Its just too bad they are losing money on that deal. I never knew about that.