Houston finds potholes on the road to Kitchener-Waterloo

The folks outside of the GTA (aka centre of the known universe) will not be pleased with this, the Globe and Mail’s William Houston has rejected their dream of a hockey team of their own as an unworkable situation.

But like any good Torontonian, he has a solution, and it’s simply to move the team to Toronto.

It seems that Mr. Houston has read the tea leaves and declared that a team anywhere in Ontario outside of the line of sight of the CN Tower and Don Valley Parkway, just won’t work. TV money would dry up, fans would apparently be taking to torches if the Leafs were out of their coverage area and driving an hour to Kitchener is apparently much worse than standing still on the Gardiner Expressway trying to find an exit for the Air Canada Centre.

It is all to boggle the mind, the solution is to move the Penguins to Toronto and play out of the Air Canada Centre, which is an interesting prospect if only those pesky Raptors might leave. Already considered one of the worst ice surfaces in the league, the plan would be to have two hockey teams share the rink with the Raps, concerts and world wrestling spectaculars.

Personally I think it’s just a gambit to finally get a winning team in Toronto, obviously the Penguins (and whatever they might call themselves after a move) will be competitive long before and most likely longer than the current combination of blue and white sweatered waifs plying their trade for MLSE.

So rather than face the competition, swallow them whole, shove them into less than spectacular dates and give them the dressing rooms that the rock stars trash after a show goes bad. Better yet make money off of them; it’s the way of the Leafs for years and years.

The Pens may very well leave Pittsburgh, but surely they don’t have to live as indentured slaves to one of the richest franchises in Canadian sports. Surely the folks outside the city that knows no others have a right to a little hockey team of their own. The Globe and Mail may wish to remember that there is more to Canada than those golden streets and advertisers of the GTA, there’s a whole other nation out there, most of which has better hockey teams to support as well.

With any luck there will be at least one more to join the list in the not to distant future.