You see future games being held . The smartass answer would be somewhere between we throw darts and it depends who was harassing me the most. The latter is closest to the truth. Actually, we look for to be opportunistic. We started in buffalo with the notion that maybe it would work. Once it did, we started looking for what would be the next place we could go to that can build upon it, and continue the growth of the winter classic and all Outdoor Games as an institution. As we got more and more comfortable building it as an event, as it got a bigger and bigger following, we decided we could try things that some people thought would be crazy. Last year, we did an outdoor game in los angeles and it was great. For us to come to the nations capital, there is a fan base here that ted has built through his organization and through his use of social media and his commitment to the community that made us comfortable that selling out the venue would be no problem. Secondly, we would have an impact on the community that we thought would not just be positive for d. C. , but would reflect well on the league. We thought the Critical Mass was there. Every city, every club wants one. Even in florida, arizona. Why cant we have one . Because it is 80 degrees at night in miami, does not work. So, what we do is we try to move it around. It is the same thing with the allstar game, the draft i told gary it is never hot and washington. He also promised me we would never have weather like we had this morning when we were dedicating the legacy rink. We thought what better place at this time in the genesis of the Outdoor Games than to be here and to bring in the blackhawks which is a great team and a great draw. We think theres no better way for us to start 2015. Full disclosure, we have a question from the representative from the new jersey advance. I need to know whether or not i will be canceling my subscription. We have already seen a winter classic at yankee stadium. When are we going to see one at the meadowlands . We have we played two Outdoor Games last winter in the new York New Jersey metropolitan area. The devils played in the game. We are going to be moving things around before we go back to the place we have been. We have been given many expressions of interest by Metlife Stadium and the devils but i think for the time being having played a round robin with the rangers, the islanders and the devils playing in new york and new jersey is a unique situation because of the three clubs. If we had only played one game the team that was excluded will say you are driving us out of business. So we had to play two games to make sure everybody was included but i have a lot of other teams that want the game before we can come back. Your success as commissioner is indicated in the fact that there seems to be a lot of interest in other cities that want an nhl team. So, i have a general question and a few specific questions that begins with specific cities that want a franchise. We expect you to announce it at the National Press club. What is your forecast on the prospect of future expansion and having an equal number of teams in the eastern and western conferences . I try not to be in the prognostication business. I dont like guessing about things. Yes, im charged with leadership and vision but prognostication is like being the weatherman. We know how often they are not right. We are probably stronger as a league. Our franchises are stronger as a group than ever before. The Ownership Group is the strongest it has ever been. As a result, we are getting expressions of interest from a number of places that dont have franchises. It is gratifying. It is also helping to make franchise values higher and higher almost on a daily basis. We are looking and listening but not doing anything about it. We are letting people look and we are listening to the expressions of interest. Yes, we have 16 teams in the east and 14 in the west. That was by virtue of a realignment we did a couple of years ago to try to fix what was wrong with our geography. Columbus and detroit columbus from their inception and detroit for more than 20 years were in the west. They are in the eastern time zone. It made it very difficult for their travel and for their fans when they went on the road and had to play games on television back because if they are on the west coast, it was late at night. We had minnesota in the northwest and wanted to be in the central. Dallas was in the pacific and wanted to be in the central. We realize and the only way we can do it and get everybody where they belong was to have 16 in the east and 14 in the west. We are scheduling around that. We dont think it is a problem. However, we do understand that there are some people who do. We are not going to expand just for symmetry. Somebodys notion of symmetry is not how you make an important business decision as to whether or not you bring in a new partner, a new city, but we will continue to look. If we were going to expand and somebody wanted a team in the east, it would make the evaluation a little more complicated to say the least because 17 18 in the east and 14 in the west exacerbates what some people perceive to be a problem. Since we are not in formal expansion mode right now, im not worrying about it. I dont expect you to give the pros and cons about the specific cities, but just to let you know, the request i had came from persons who wanted to know about the possibilities of an nhl franchise in seattle or portland or oklahoma or cleveland, ohio where i grew up watching the cleveland barons. Seattle has expressed an interest previously, before the nba went to oklahoma. Oklahoma city tried to get an nhl franchise. We are getting las vegas has given us solicitations of interest. We hear from quebec city. We are just listening. The canadian ambassador actually, i was waiting for the quebec city question. He actually was helpful and responsible for getting a team back in winnipeg after the jets left in the 1990s. We are pleased to have you. One or two more and then we will move over to your colleague. What are the challenges of playing with the Players Union and will fans be subjected to future nhl lockouts . Im going to ask ted a question about that. We dont like lockouts. The fact that i presided over three of them is not a matter of pride. The fact of the matter is we have had some fundamental problems that needed to be addressed. If you dont get the cooperation you need and collective bargaining from the union, we are prepared to do what needs to be done in order to get to a place where you think you can make the business of your game healthy. You sometimes have to go through those. We have had issues related to the union. After we took a year off, i think the union went through four or five executive directors. The last round of negotiations we had a brandnew executive director in the last round of negotiations. There are things that had to be changed. I get asked if it was worth it. It makes it sound like on some level that i was happy to go through it. The fact of the matter is we had no choice. We did what we had to do and the game for the last 10 years has never been healthier, never been bigger, never been more popular. The game on the ice has never been better. From an owners standpoint, how do you view work stoppages . By the way, if i did not have the support of ownership, we could not have gotten through it and achieve the objectives we set out to achieve. I think i have been an owner too long because while the commissioner was speaking, i noticed there is a light out up there. [laughter] if you owned a team, you would probably get about 30 emails from people saying you have a light out. [laughter] fans deserve the opportunity to have hope and dream and believe their team can be competitive. The system that the nhl has implemented now has proven out that every city enters the year thinking they can make the playoffs and compete for a stanley cup. We have seen in our league teams that just make it. They finish in the 16th spot and they end up winning the stanley cup that year. One of the great things about the system for the fans is that if you are a really big market you cant outspend somebody in a really small market. The competitiveness there you come to the sprint for the playoffs and your team is in it. We did not have a very good year last year and we did not make the playoffs. The first time in seven years and we missed the playoffs by three points. I look back you look at the schedule and say we lost in a shootout here, lost in overtime we should have made the playoffs. It is so healthy. The players all want to be on winning teams. I look at some other leagues that dont have a system like that. Usually, there are markets that spend 40 million on payroll and this other team is going to spend 200 million on payroll. As soon as my player who is young and i develop gets good, he is going to go to another market. What happens, the scar tissue builds up in the fan base because they feel disadvantaged. They dont want to fall in love with the young player. I believe firmly that the day the Washington Capitals took off was when Alex Ovechkin became this great player and an m. V. P. And he announced he wants to stay in washington, d. C. And we signed him to a 13year contract. [applause] i honestly believe the fan base said we can believe. We can trust he is not going to the first big market he can or a canadian team. It was like a verification to the community that this was a great place and we can have a great team. So, i like the system for the benefit of the fans. It starts to put an emphasis on how good you are as a leader and a manager and an owner because you cannot outspend everybody. You need to have a good ahl system, you have to draft and develop well, you have to make a few trades, manage the cap a lot a lot goes into it. It makes it more fun to manage. How painful are work stoppages from an owners standpoint . Like you cant believe. I didnt lay off a person. Right . I paid everybody during all the work stoppages. Financially, it is really painful. The bank didnt say you dont have to pay the mortgage on the building. Emotionally is where it hurts the most because that ebb and flow thats the great thing about sports teams. The other day, i was coming to a game with a very important person and we were a little late. He said, what time does the game start . I said, the game starts the same time every game. It is not like i am going to call over and say we are running late, can you wait to drop the puck . There is a trust embedded in that that you play this many home games and the season starts this week and it ends that week and the playoffs begin this week. When that gets taken away, it feels like death. Like a zombie, you walk around and there is nothing to do. You feel terrible for the fans for the workers, for the players. When you make that decision, it is a really difficult decision. You have to make sure that you come out of it as much stronger which we have proven. The league has never been stronger, the competitiveness has never been better, the play has never been better, the Revenue Growth has never been better. I think a lot of that comes from the core of the cba that all teams can be competitive. I will ask the questions now. Fix the lights. [laughter] we are going to switch the topic. You are involved in the effort to bring the olympics to washington, d. C. In 2024. What do you think the prospects are and how would the olympics change our region . Our country and our community is so in need of big missionbased projects we can rally around. I just came back from a week overseas and Many Organizations that people here represent are partially responsible for how the world sees us. We watched sky tv and bbc last week and the tv shows that gets shown, you would think everybody has ebola. Every city is closed down because of riots and that there is a race war going on in america. That is the imagery that is basically being delivered to the world. Every media outlet has headlines that talks about the dysfunction of washington, d. C. How broken america is and how dysfunctional the city is. We live here. This is the greatest city in the world. And, doing Something Like the olympics, our theme is unity. Russ ramsey, our chairman, is here. We have an opportunity, a once in a Generation Opportunity to accomplish a lot around a big mission. On a small level, we can reimagine the city. When i was in london last week i got goosebumps in seeing how the east end, which looked like the area around Verizon Center and now looks like ward seven and ward eight, were totally transformed for the olympic games. Some media write things and i go have you been to london . Have you seen . They made a profit on the games. They created a community where Public Transportation united a disconnected part of the city. They cleaned the river. They turned the Olympic Village into lowincome housing. The data centers and the fiber that was laid created silicon roundabout which is now their thriving number one job creator for their Venture Capital community and tech center. We can do that here. We can deal with the scar tissue and the birth defect we have in washington, d. C. We have not been able to embrace and go across the anacostia and make that community a part of ours. For the world, we are in desperate need to show a united front that we stand for something good. Nothing, honestly, nothing is more transformative and healing than the power of sport. Do you believe in miracles . Yes. [applause] that is representative. Let me ask you a followup question. Yes, i am passionate. [laughter] leading on from your comments, hockey is a rather expensive sport. With the cost of gear and ice time, how can the nhl and the Washington Capitals and other teams help kids get involved and afford hockey and further diversify the makeup of players in the nhl . Either or both. The commissioner should talk because the league has done a good job. A lot of times, this goes to the media reporting, it is not frontpage news to talk about the commissioners work with black colleges and scholarship funds. Why would you want to write about that . We just went to ward six in the rain and cold and im disappointed not a senior city official was there because it doesnt make big news. We built the playground and gave equipment and built the rink for kids that will have that for decades. We train kids. A hall of fame player was there. Sports teams, we really are in pursuit of a Double Bottom line. We have the iceplex and we give 1200 hours a year away to sled hockey and youth hockey and the like. I wont be disingenuous. It is the right thing to do but it is also good business. Introducing young people across all economic strata, making the tent as big as possible is smart business. They are the fans of tomorrow. They are the next great defenseman. The number one or number three pick in the draft a couple of years ago was the son of a basketball player who once played for the washington wizards. Popeye jones. He got traded to dallas. While he was in dallas, dallas had a really good hockey team. There was a boon of rinks that were being built. He started playing ice hockey and he could become the greatest defenseman in the league. It is how we will expand the game and the bigger the tent the better. We are very active. The fact is we spend millions of dollars in support of usa hockey which is the Grassroots Organization that manages hockey across the United States. We have programs, learn to play programs, try hockey programs. We have a number of clubs that support economically disadvantaged programs. Whether or not it is here or ice hockey in harlem or snyder hockey in philadelphia. The owner of the flyers has taken over from the city all the rinks that were dilapidated and were about to be shut down. For me this may not make an owner happy in terms of the bottom line but in teds case the broader objective is something i know he is supportive of hockey as a vehicle for disadvantaged children to learn life lessons. Be a good student, hard work team work, diligence, physical fitness, getting the education you need so you can do anything else. If we can get young people involved in life by using hockey, it will be great if they can become fans and itll be amazing if they become nhl players, but the last two objectives are not as important as giving back to the community by making kids to be in a position to go to college and do things with their lives they never would have had an opportunity to do. [applause] what is the last board of directors you joined . Thurgood marshall. Garys on the board of the Thurgood MarshallScholarship College fund. We are almost out of time. I just want to interject this format you two having a conversation, i think you deserve a special round of applause. [applause] before asking the last question and since you elected to receive during the first half, you will receive the last question which is a twoparter. First, id like to present you each with a traditional National Press club mug which we give to our distinguished guest of honor and you both deserve it. Thank you. [applause] this was not the cup i was expecting. [laughter] that was a very good line. Actually, im shortening my concluding remarks because before i ask the last question i will like to ask you one that you just referred to. The last time you spoke here the capitals were having success in its regular season and you predicted a stanley cup championship. I guess we had that on the record in our archives. So, why has that not happened . Because its hard. [laughter] there are 29 other clubs who want to make sure that does not happen. Its very humbling. Its very humbling to realize that ultimately there are 29 failures and one success. The great thing about sports is you get to try it again. You try new things and you keep making investments. My belief is that were hardworking enough, smart enough, energetic enough investment oriented enough. Keep at it and eventually we will get through it. Ok. Now, we are going to switch to the National Football league. As a successful owner of two professional sports teams, what advice can you offer the owner of the Washin