How to start a letter

Does the city really need to start a letter-writing campaign in support of a second Toronto hockey team?

Last week, Josh Colle presented a motion to Toronto council urging the city to pursue bringing a second National Hockey League franchise to Toronto "should the opportunity arise" (whatever that means). Of course, because that wasn't silly enough on its own, today council's economic development committee put forward a request that Mayor Rob Ford write a letter—we're still not sure if that means the ink-and-paper variety—to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to express the city's interest.

The request was accompanied by a debate hosted by the chair of the economic development committee, Councillor Michael Thompson, who, despite our original suspicion that he would resolve to schedule a future meeting to schedule a future meeting—this is municipal politics, after all—acted as a voice reason and did not support the request.

We're just a little skeptical of how effective a letter from the mayor will be, considering the Brothers Ford have handled their campaign to bring the NFL to Toronto with all of zero grace, drawing the ire of Canadian Football League commissioner Mark Cohon and the entire city of New Orleans.

The perceived and actual economic benefits of sports franchises are worlds apart, so this may have more to do with the fact that Vancouver and Winnipeg have been hogging the hockey spotlight as of late. Glad to see our tax dollars hard at work.