Mississauga: a mayoral candidate wants an NHL team

With the Coyotes’ (hockey assets) move to Salt Lake City, there’s been a lot of talk of relocation and expansion in the hockey world in recent weeks. Obviously, this has brought Quebec City back into the discussion, but we know that the capital isn’t the only candidate either.

Houston, Atlanta, Kansas City, back to Arizona and so on: it’s a busy time, as they say.

And of course, just because a destination isn’t the talk of the town doesn’t mean it’s not on the radar. It’s safe to assume that behind the scenes, there are discussions going on that we don’t know about.

But recently, a new destination has shown interest… and we’re talking about a city with a population of 830,000.

In fact, a mayoral candidate in Mississauga, Ontario, has a plan: he wants to bring an NHL (and CFHL) franchise to his city if elected.

An NHL team in Mississauga? Mayoral candidate wants to make that a reality

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– Ryan Rocca (@ryan_rocca) April 22, 2024

Peter McCallion, son of the city’s former mayor (who played hockey), has this dream, believing it would create a great rivalry with Toronto. For him, Mississauga is no longer Toronto’s “little sister”, and deserves its own NHL (and WHL) team.

Nothing less.

And McCallion has obviously already thought of his plan, as he already has a name in mind for his team: the… Hurricanes.

If you ask me, there’s one team in Raleigh that doesn’t quite fit the bill, even though he’d like to name them after his mother’s nickname when she was a professional player.

Of course, just because there’s interest from a mayoral candidate doesn’t mean a team will be landing in Mississauga tomorrow morning(especially since Gary Bettman doesn’t seem to want a government as a team owner, at least for Quebec City). That said, it shows there’s interest in many places for a team.

He still needs to be elected for the project to have any chance of materializing, however.

We’ll keep an eye on the situation over the next few weeks… but I have a feeling that Mississauga isn’t exactly Gary Bettman’s dream expansion destination.

The LPHF would be a good first step, though. We’ll keep an eye on that.