National Post editorial board: Welcome back to the big leagues Winnipeg

Many Canadians will view the return of NHL hockey to Winnipeg as a matter of natural justice: It simply stands to reason that the eighth-largest city in Canada, and thus by default one of the largest hockey markets in the world, ought to have a team playing at the sport’s highest level. Many will also see this as a repudiation of NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s strategy of scattering teams around the American deep south — one commonly viewed as absurd, and never more so than when the Winnipeg Jets left the windswept prairie for the Arizona desert in 1996.

There is something to this. Emotionally speaking, Tuesday’s announcement is great news for Winnipeg, and for Canadian hockey in general. The NHL is unique among the world’s top-flight sports leagues in locating the majority of its teams in cities where almost no one plays the game. For fans of more than half of NHL teams, the idea of a “hometown hero” is literally inconceivable. The same currently goes, unfortunately, for fans in Quebec City, Hamilton, Halifax, London, Ont., and perhaps other large Canadian cities that would field teams in a more logical, less lucrative top-flight hockey league