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Columnist: ‘Is a separatist owner good NHL business?’

PQ

Sportsnet’s Mark Spector has written a thought-provoking column on billionaire Pierre Karl Peladeau, who we’ve referenced previously on the pages of PHT as the potential, if not likely, owner of an NHL expansion team in Quebec City.

If you like expansion speculation, the column’s worth a read, because if you didn’t hear, Peladeau just announced his candidacy for election with the Parti Québécois, a provincial party that advocates the separation of Quebec from Canada.

Writes Spector:

In the past, NHL owners have made some curious decisions when it comes to whom they award franchises to. In Peladeau’s case, his political leanings could hurt the Canadian dollar, either in the short or long term. That would cost NHL owners money, plain and simple, and could cost the owners in Montreal a boatload of money.

Will the current 30 owners want a man in their midst whose every political move could devalue their own franchise? A man whose market would slot in as one of the smaller ones in the NHL, and a decent candidate to be on the wrong side of revenue sharing within the decade?

Translation: Peladeau’s political aspirations may be bad news for hockey fans in Quebec, and good news for hockey fans in Seattle and Las Vegas.

At the very least, the news -- combined with the falling Canadian dollar -- has tempered our previously high expectations that the Nordiques are bound to be reborn sooner or later.

Related: Is the NHL getting closer to putting a team in Vegas?