Question: After more than four years of trying, what is Kansas City’s outlook for landing its own NHL team?

"I don't know"
--Luc Robitaille, current president and former player of the Los Angeles Kings.  AEG writes his checks.


Awesome.  Not a very encouraging Q&A by Randy Covitz on the KC Star's site today.  That line pretty much sums it up, although it's obvious Covitz was looking for more of an answer out of Luc.  KC needs an owner, it's hard to move NHL teams (but it's not--/laughing), KC needs to support the arena, yada, yada, yada.  The problem is no one has "stepped up royally" and we should all just deal with it.  It's the same old talk, but I am not sure what Covitz was looking to get out of the president of the Kings.  He knows hockey operations, he is not in on the day-to-day of AEG and Tim Leiweke.  Yes, he was in charge of finding a team for the building back in 2006-07, but he is far removed from any business dealings with KC.  His team is coming for a preseason game because the ownership group and a bunch of other people thought it was a decent idea from a marketing standpoint.  Oh, and it is.  Find a decent sized market with no rooting interest and saturate the market.  This will be the third Kings preseason game in KC.  The St. Louis Blues have played in four, they are closer, they appear on local TV occasionally, but they are by no means the Missouri's team.


Covitz asked decent questions, but he asked them to the wrong guy.  Robitaille can only answer based on trends he has seen around the league and hearsay that may or may not be true about Leiweke's motivation to bring a team to the city.  Take it for what it is; a piece by the media to show they are still looking out for the city's interests.  Also, that Luc cannot truthfully answer these questions even if he did have all of the answers.







But, he said this on the topic of tickets sold for the preseason game, which I do not believe.

"We have over 10,000 tickets sold. … We expect to sell out the game. We expect nothing (less). We expect people to come to the game and make this building alive …”

10,000 tickets?  Really?  It has to be corporate or group seats.

But I can't stay mad at him...

“I don’t think you’re being used. You have the best option. Look at North America. Is there another arena that is better than (the Sprint Center)? A city better than this? You have the best options. It’s really hard to move a team. The (New York) Islanders still have to figure out to do their deal … their lease is up in 2015. If that doesn’t happen, what city will take the burden to build a new arena and take the risks they did here? There’s a reason every concert wants to come here.”

Gasp!  Lucky loves us!  *swoon*


Now watch him hit some dingers!