Kansas City No Longer Being Considered says Steve Thompson of Bleacher Report

Here's another hockey writer saying Kansas City has left the picture in regards to gaining an NHL franchise. The focus of the article is Winnipeg and Canada in general, but author Steve Thompson has come up with what he believes are Gary Bettman and the NHL's four conditions for gaining a franchise:

1. Adequate fan support
2. A proper NHL-size arena
3. Credible investor(s)
4. No territorial conflicts

Thompson writes because of the first condition—fan support—Kansas City is no longer being considered. I asked Steve in the comments where he came up with the conditions; he responded here and said, in part, "Kansas City built a proper NHL arena (18,000+) and there was speculation that the Islanders would move there. The Islanders played a pre-season game there and drew under 10,000. Since then there has been no talk about Kansas City getting a team. The bad fan support turned off the NHL."

So that makes two recent columns stating that no one's talking about Kansas City anymore (see my previous post). Even if that's the case, the only mentions of the NHL coming to Kansas City come in the form of speculation from the media and fans, not from the NHL. Bettman's company line all along has been that they will protect current markets and expansion is not imminent. Nothing has changed in that regard.