Report: Seattle could be in line for an NHL expansion franchise

It seems ludicrous for a league currently in a lockout to be interested in expanding to a city currently without an arena, but so goes the NHL.

According to James Mirtle of Toronto's Globe and Mail, Chicago Wolves (AHL) owner Don Levin, who would like to get in on NHL ownership, told ESPN earlier this week that he thought the NHL would expand in three years.

Mirtle writes:

The league has stronger interest in going to Seattle than any other market but has been waiting on the building to come together before considering it a realistic possibility.

Expansion to 32 teams has been talked about off and on in NHL circles for the past few years, with Quebec City and a second Toronto team getting much of the attention.

Despite a few setbacks in some troubled markets, however, the league’s brass want to continue to try and expand the league’s footprint in the United States. The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metropolitan area is the 15th largest in the country and is also likely close enough to Vancouver that the team could establish a rivalry with the Canucks.

is close to building a new arena