You know it's hockey season when...

Note: this is a little lengthy, so the last NHL preview will be pushed to Saturday with NFL picks tomorrow like regular.

Here we go again. NHL to Hamilton, blah blah blah blah freaking blah.

I’m from Hamilton, still go to hockey games in Hamilton, still love Hamilton, and I don’t want to see it happen.

My grievances:

1 - Hamilton is a Leafs town. It’s the Leafs market, and walking through town, you’ll see more Leafs jerseys than Hamilton Bulldogs and Hamilton Tiger-Cats jerseys combined. There are idiots that wear Leafs jerseys to Tiger-Cat games, and even more that wear them to Bulldogs games. Fact: since setting the AHL record for single-game attendance for game seven of the 2003 Calder Cup Final (the record has since been broken), the Bulldogs have sold out one game when the opposing team wasn’t the St. John’s Maple Leafs or Toronto Marlies. Fact: during the Calder Cup playoff run in 2003, the Bulldogs sold out two games during the entire playoff run. I got walk-up tickets to every game that year except games six (which I missed) and seven.

2 - Copps Coliseum, while a fine minor league venue, and a great place to stage the 1987 Canada Cup, 1991 Memorial Cup (and more would be cool if we could support an OHL team), concerts and the next Brier. But the place barely holds the 4,000 extra people that show up when the Leafs’ farm team is in town, and I remember being one of 17,000 people there once, and it was awful. I love the rink, it’s where I learned hockey (the Steelhawks, baby), and it’s where I watch the hockey I’ve loved most for the last six years (the Bulldogs, baby), but it’s not an NHL-caliber arena.

3 - I hate this part, but it’s a reality in today’s sports landscape. Where’s the money going to come from? Hamilton is a blue collar town, and if it’s going to cost $400 or more for a family of four to see a game, they won’t be there. It’s not like the people of Hamilton have been socking cash away for the day the NHL comes. Then what? Blackouts on televised games like the CFL used to have and the Blackhawks have? Ask Bill Wirtz how that’s working out for him the next time Chicago’s AHL team out-draws the Blackhawks. Again, I hate this, but it’s reality. And forget the “cheap seat” money, where is the corporate money going to come from? Let’s say Copps is retro-fitted with 40 luxury suites, are there 40 corporate and private suitors in line? I’ve got my doubts.

4 - I need to lighten this one up, cause it’s been too much doom and gloom so far. People in Hamilton still call the Hamilton City Centre the Eaton Centre, even though they changed the name nearly a decade ago. There are people in Hamilton that still don’t realize James and John Streets aren’t one-way anymore. How long do you figure a new name on the side of Copps will take to catch on? Entering their 11^th season, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn there are people in Hamilton that don’t know who or what the Bulldogs are.

5 - How would an NHL team affect the Tiger-Cats? After two sold-out seasons, the Tiger-Cats fielded a terrible team this season, and attendance is way down. The people of Hamilton won’t pay for a loser, or a team stuck spinning its wheels the way the Cats are now. Without some cuts in ticket pricing before next season, ticket renewal is going to plummet. Forced to choose, most Hamilton sports fans would likely choose the comfortable confines of a renovated Copps Coliseum to the cold and windy, though charming and beloved, Ivor Wynne Stadium. I’ve no doubt that if the NHL came to Hamilton, it would be the end of the Tiger-Cats as we know them (or entirely).

6 - The Toronto Maple Leafs are on the strongest financial footing they’ve ever been on, so one could assume they would be less adverse to the idea of a team in Hamilton than they were back in the late 80’s when Tampa Bay got the nod over Hamilton (which is so much better a “Hockey Bay” than Tampa could ever be), but the Sabres are still not sound, and they would probably still exercise territorial rights till they’re blue in the face and actually look like a hockey team again. An aside: how in the world is Buffalo’s farm team one of the sharpest-looking hockey teams in the world, and the big club just can’t figure it out?

7 - Lastly, the league simply doesn’t seem to want it to happen. It doesn’t even seem to be a matter of not wanting Hamilton to have a team, so much as the league is desperate to keep the Penguins where they are.

So to recap, figure $20 million for arena upgrades, and an as-yet-undecided arbitrarily-decided number of millions to the Sabres and Leafs for territorial rights, and it’s going to cost somewhere in the $35 to $50 million ballpark just to get the team to Hamilton.

Folks, it’s just like 1990 all over again. Las Vegas, Kansas City or Winnipeg will get a team long before Hamilton does.