The Canadian franchises and Canada as a market for NHL hockey has always been a priority for us.

Our economics are not baseball's economics. Our game is not baseball's game. Our owners are not baseball's owners, with one or two exceptions. Our union is not baseball's union. What we do has to be crafted and suited to address hockey, to address the NHL, to address our 30 teams and our 700-plus players.

This multifaceted partnership will create exciting opportunities for our fans and us.

The truth is Canada is a cloud-cuckoo-land, an insufferably rich country governed by idiots, its self-made problems offering comic relief to the ills of the real world out there, where famine and racial strife and vandals in office are the unhappy rule.

From what I can tell, hockey is not selling in the U.S. Sunbelt anymore. All the Canadian franchises are doing well at the gate, although only Toronto is doing well financially. But would you rather sell hockey in the desert to the few people who know about it, or sell it where people love it and worry about the value of the currency.

The U.S. market has the highest priority for Volkswagen.