Six Candidates for Expansion Emerge

By HELENE ELLIOTT

Feb. 20, 1997 12 AM PT

The NHL on Wednesday announced it has narrowed the field of expansion candidates from 11 to six but did not set a timetable for admitting teams.

Commissioner Gary Bettman said no clubs will be added before the 1998-99 season and said he told prospective owners the fee “wouldn’t be less than $75 million and not more than $80 million.” The most recent expansion teams, the Florida Panthers and Mighty Ducks, paid $50 million each in 1993.

The six active applicants are from Atlanta; Columbus, Ohio; a Houston group backed by Chuck Watson; St. Paul, Minn.; Nashville, Tenn., and Oklahoma City. Two other Houston groups were eliminated as were groups from Hamilton, Canada, and Hampton Roads, Va. Raleigh-Durham, N.C., withdrew its bid this week.

More to Read

Hockey

Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

Six Candidates for Expansion Emerge

More to Read

More From the Los Angeles Times