Andlauer wants to widen his fanbase.
The owner of the National Hockey League’s Ottawa Senators franchise, Michael Andlauer plans on having his franchise spend part of its 2025 training camp in Québec City. Andlauer’s business will play pre-season games in town like other NHL teams have done in the past. There is a hockey passion in Québec City but there is no owner ready to step up and give the NHL two billion US dollars, which is around $2.9 billion Canadian for a franchise and the Québec provincial government doesn’t seem ready to invest in an NHL franchise. Andlauer has said he is not moving the business to Québec City, he just wants fans in Québec. Andlauer would like to build an arena in downtown Ottawa but nothing has materialized so Québec City could provide some leverage in his talks for an Ottawa arena.
Québec City has a long hockey history, the Québec Bulldogs team was an original NHL franchise starting in 1917 and lasted three years. The Québec City franchise was sold to Hamilton, Ontario interests in 1920. Most of the Hamilton franchise players ended up with the newly formed New York Americans franchise in 1925. Québec City has a state-of-the-art arena and there could be a TV deal available but Québec City is a government town with limited corporate support. Fan enthusiasm will not sustain a franchise. The NHL had a team in Québec City between 1979 and 1995 and that team was sold to Colorado interests and ended up in Denver. The reasons Québec City lost its franchise? No state-of-the-art NHL arena and there was a tremendous difference between the American and Canadian dollar. The NHL operates in American currency. Québec City has an NHL-style building now but the Canadian dollar has been bouncing around 69 and 70 cents US. Québec City is not getting an NHL franchise anytime soon.
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