^^^The truth of the matter is, with the exception of the Canadian teams, if you don't put a good team on the ice, you're not going to do well in that city. Even in an original 6 city like Chicago, their attendance numbers were way down in those years they were rebuilding before they won the cup. A place like Carolina may not be a hockey hotbed, but it works because they have good ownership that tries to win. It definitely helps that they won the cup once, but I don't believe that is the only reason they have survived and have done generally well. The Thrashers only made the playoffs once in their history and got swept in the first round. On top of that they had horrible ownership that didn't really care. There was no one in Atlanta that wanted to keep the team their so they moved.