The old arena once hosted an NHL franchise.
Le Colisée de Québec, an arena that housed the National Hockey League’s Québec Nordiques between 1979 and 1995, is finally meeting its end. Over the next two years, the building that opened on December 8th, 1949 and saw its last event on September 14th, 2015, a Metallica concert, will be torn down. The building has been empty for the past decade. The reason the Nordiques ownership led by Marcel Aubut decided to sell the franchise to Colorado interests in 1995 was Le Colisée. The arena was antiquated and Aubut was lobbying Québec politicians to spend money to help fund a modern venue. The Québec political leadership said no and the franchise moved to Denver.
A modern arena opened in Québec City in 2015 and there was some hope in the province that Québec City would be able to land an NHL expansion franchise. But NHL owners declined a 2015 Québec bid but took Las Vegas in that expansion cycle. The city and province have hockey fans but hockey fans don’t pay the freight. There doesn’t seem to be full government support of having an NHL franchise return to Québec City which is a small market with limited corporate and television money. The NHL is not expanding in the near future. What Québec City will have in the fall is two Ottawa Senators’ pre-season games. The Senators owner Michael Andlauer, who grew up in Montréal and owns a franchise that straddles the Ontario-Québec border, wants to extend his fanbase and thinks playing two pre-season games in Québec City will help increase interest in his team. Andlauer didn’t rule out playing regular season games in Québec City. Andlauer could be using Québec City as leverage in his negotiation with local Ottawa officials to build a new arena in town. The arena game works that way.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
