"There's smoke, we'll see if there's fire," Sportsnet's Jeff Marek said Saturday on the 32 Thoughts segment on Hockey Night in Canada.
Premier Francois Legault announced on RDS this week that his government will talk with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman about a Quebec team. the Videotron Centre, which now houses the QMJHL's Quebec Remparts but was constructed in 2015 with an NHL capacity of 18,259.
"So, a couple of things," Marek said. "The premier talked about soliciting Quebec investors to form a consortium so it's not just one group that would bring the Nordiques back, and they also discussed how the government may consider investing their own capital in the project as well, this probably in the neighbourhood of a billion dollars.
"We'd love to see the Nordiques back ... of course we would, but as people have mentioned to me, keep in mind here we're one year out of another provincial election and the campaigning may have already begun. Hockey is always a hot-button issue, sometimes it's a hot potato, we expect it to be very much over the next 11 months.''
"But you have to check it out. So, I texted with Bill Daly this morning, the deputy commissioner of the NHL, and he said a couple of things. He said: Yes, we did talk over the phone. No, we don't have any meetings planned right now. Yes, we are always interested in meeting and talking but, quote, 'We are obviously pleased with what we have right now.' We'll see where this thing heads."
For the 1995-96 season, the Quebec Nordiques became the Colorado Avalanche. The Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in their first season in Denver, with Patrick Roy in net.
