Looks like Canada may have a new team in the future.  Not realy but with the new salary cap it could have kept teams in Canada and avoided stories like this.  According to the Tennesean.com's Bryan Mullen the city of Nashville may have to buy $2 Million worth of tickets next year.  The Predators have been such a great team this year and they still aren't selling tickets.  You can read the whole story here. You can also see the sad pictures of how empty an arena they have when they have such a great team.  Isn't the team at fault as well?  Why have they not marketed this team better?  How about giving tickets to every radio station in town once a week for the whole season?

  Here are the highlights: 

If the Nashville Predators don't boost paid attendance by one-fourth for the rest of the NHL season, owner Craig Leipold will be able to ask for about $2 million in help from the city and lay groundwork for a possible departure.

Under the team's 30-year lease, average paid attendance has to reach 14,000 a game for this year or Leipold can declare next year his pivotal "cure" season - a designation that among other things would let the club ask Metro government to buy thousands of tickets to prop up sales with taxpayer money.

It also would set the stage for the Predators to consider moving to another city at the end of next season, although they would have to pay an $18 million exit fee.

Entering this week, the Predators were averaging 12,766 in paid attendance, with 15 regular season games remaining, including tonight's game against the Los Angeles Kings, according to ticket statements obtained by The Tennessean.

The Predators must draw 16,080 paid fans a game for the rest of the regular season to reach the minimum number called for in the team's contract with Metro. The club has managed to put that many fans in the seats only four times all year through Thursday's game against Toronto.

This is what the NHL gets for taking teams from Canada where the love of Hockey is greater than anywhere else.  They never protected the teams in the cities of Canada against the American dollar.  I don't think I have seen more mistakes combined by every other pro sports league in the world as the NHL has over the last 10 years.