So we still don't have a National Hockey League team. I wouldn't normally bring this up, but people keep mentioning it like it's a brand-new concept.

I'm not one of those keeners who would suggest that the lack of a top-level professional hockey team is the only thing keeping Winnipeg from being a successful city because, honestly, we've got a lot of problems that are both way more pressing and way more troublesome.

An NHL team would be nice, sure, but even as a man who owns a vintage Jets jersey and two albums by Les Dales Hawerchuk, I still find myself unconvinced by the explanations offered by local pundits and citizens for the continued absence of professional hockey in our city. (Or rather, to clarify, professional hockey not played by farm teams. Sorry, Moose! We're picky like that.)

Commentators have insisted at various points that the NHL continues to skip our fair city because True North Sports head Mark Chipman doesn't pursue a team actively enough (as compared to the lunatics in Quebec City who have started promising a brand-new arena), because the MTS Centre has less seating room than a school bus, or because potential team owners are put off by the city's hot-and-cold support for the hot-and-cold Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

But if you'd be willing to humour me for a minute, I'll tell you my own theory on why nobody is jumping at the chance to put an NHL team in the arena in the heart of Winnipeg. It has nothing to do with negotiation skills, nothing to do with the arena's relative capacity and nothing to do with the level of support shown to a football team that hasn't won a championship since the end of the Cold War. (Fun fact: If a child was hypothetically conceived the night that the Winnipeg Blue Bombers last won the Grey Cup, he or she would be either finishing or finished high school by now.)

No, if you want to understand why nobody has bought out a hockey team in a struggling southern market and moved it here, just do what I did: visit the arena, start at any given corner of the streets surrounding it, and walk around the block until you're back where you started.

Now, if you took this tour, what kind of commerce opportunities did you observe along the way? There are a few bright spots, along the western border, of establishments that will cater to patrons who visit the downtown for the evening - but once you've passed that quick array of restaurants and lounges, hoo boy, do the prospects ever begin looking dim. Multiple (!) low-rent bargain stores; a novelty T-shirt store; a mall that closes at 6 p.m. every single day, whether there's a sold-out event at the MTS Centre or not; a church; a public library; a gigantic, single-level surface parking lot; an old theatre being renovated with no stated timeline for completion; and a gigantic hideous purple building that, save for a month or two as a Halloween costume store, has been empty for almost half a decade.

If you were a fat-cat sports owner, would you plunk your millions of dollars in start-up costs into surroundings like these? Judging from the track record of places such as the A&B Sound building or the Avenue Building, no prospective business in the entire world wants to put something in surroundings like these.

Some may believe that the return of an NHL team could lead to downtown revitalization, but I believe it's far more accurate and realistic to say that downtown revitalization could lead to the return of an NHL team. I'm not guaranteeing anything, but I would say it's definitely worth a shot. Let's see some hustle, local leaders!

James Howard felt a definite poignancy when his old favourite player, Teppo Numminen, retired this past August after 21 professional seasons. Oh God, we're all getting old.
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