IN THE INTEREST OF EQUAL TIME...

Western College Hockey looks at the potential Nashville Predators relocation from an American hockey aficionado's perspective.

"Ontario is probably pretty close to maximizing their potential in terms of developing hockey players. Nashville is nowhere near maximizing their potential to produce quality hockey players. Without an NHL team in Nashville, chances are much greater that the next potential NHL star will choose to play football, or baseball, or God forbid, soccer, instead of hockey.

The biggest problem facing the NHL today is a lack of skill players. Watching a boring clutch and grab style of hockey is no fun to watch. So how do you get more exceptionally athletes? You get them by expanding to untapped areas and finding more exceptionally gifted athletes. You can't do it by cramming another team into a country of only 31 million people. There just aren't enough people to produce that many great athletes."

Maybe so, maybe not... there are a lot of exceptionally gifted athletes in Canada, and the Western Canada domination of the last couple world junior squads and the OHL's recent poor fortunes at the Memorial Cup would suggest Ontario is not tapped out. Besides, the job of developing skills at the grassroots is somewhat separate from where teams are located.

Still, it's a perspective we haven't heard up here yet.