Don’t Expect San Diego Franchise, NHL Official Says

In less than a month, the National Hockey League’s Board of Directors will convene in West Palm Beach, Fla., to announce the league’s first expansion since four teams were added for the 1979-80 season.

Up to six teams could be voted into existence, but Joel Nixon, one of three NHL representatives in town Wednesday to meet with San Diego’s potential expansion ownership group, said not to expect that many.

“There are three directions the board can take,” said Nixon, addressing the media after a closed lunch meeting with entrepreneur Harry Cooper, La Jolla attorney Scott Wolfe and the core group. “The board could award franchises, not award franchises, or defer its own decision. The board made guidelines that we would like to see the league at 28 teams by the end of the decade, but we never said we’d have 28 teams (after the meetings). We could very well award six, or we may award none.”

The purpose of Wednesday’s meeting was to brief the ownership group--which has yet to be identified by Cooper and won’t be until the franchise is actually awarded--as to what both sides can expect to happen in December’s meetings.

Cooper, owner of the San Diego Sports Arena and the Gulls, San Diego’s International Hockey League expansion team, has told the NHL that he would prefer to be awarded a franchise for the 1996-97 season, but that the franchise could be in a new sports arena as early as 1994, or operate temporarily in the current arena by 1992.

Talk of the new hockey franchise has been mentioned in the same breath as plans to build the new arena, and Cooper and his group are still looking at land he owns in Sorrento Hills and downtown San Diego as possible sites.

Nixon said Cooper’s preferred timetable won’t necessarily hurt his bid.

“Each application has certain desires that are idiosyncratic to its particular marketplace,” he said. “I can’t respond to Harry and his group’s time frame, that’s the board’s decision . . . but neither do I think that the time frame would rule out any market.”

Said Cooper: “We’re willing to accommodate them whatever their wishes are. If it turns out they want us for ‘92, we would try to accommodate them. But the way we see our situation, we see ’96 as really the best date. But we’re not ruling out ’94.”

Wolfe, who put together the Padres ownership group--he is a part owner--and the hockey ownership group, said they would seek a break on the payout fee schedule if forced to start by 1992. As it now stands, a franchise in operation by 1992 must play the $50 expansion fee by Dec. 15, 1991.

“If it’s necessary to operate out a NHL team out of this arena for a short period, the group would have to look at it, although it might require a payout for a franchise fee. But I don’t think this group would be prepared to acquire a franchise without a new arena.”

In addition to bids from groups representing Houston, Seattle, Miami, St. Petersburg and Tampa, Fla., Ottawa, and Hamilton, Canada, San Diego is considered to have two bids.

Jerry Buss, Laker owner and former owner of the Kings, has a bid that previously was in an undisclosed Southern California location. Nixon said Buss’ application is considered to be a San Diego bid.

Asked if he would join forces with Buss to bring the NHL to San Diego, Cooper was noncommittal: “It brings (someone) else to the table,” he said.

San Diego has an additional lure as a cable TV market, with what Nixon described as a market with current cable penetration much higher than the national average.

“When you have cable market availability, this certainly have to be a plus,” Nixon said, “especially when you’re looking at a sport where cable has become a means for local teams to build a night in and night out identification. Cable has been a way of introducing arenas and the players to the people.”

Also working in San Diego’s favor is the Gulls, who have averaged 4,919 through eight home games.

“Any fair-minded person would characterize that as a plus,” Nixon said. “The fact that his organization put together a team that’s nine weeks old and is making a success of it, they’ve got to take notice.”