I can name a few franchises that NEED to move out of their current locations... Phoenix, San Jose, Florida, Carolina, Anaheim (??), Nashville. Move them up north.
BTW, and I don't know, but I was watching the NHL Network one day a couple of weeks ago and a guy by the name of Dave Checketts bought the St. Louis Blues. So that deal for Hamilton may once again go down the drain.
I can tell you (and I have said this before), if Hamilton (or London, when it has the arena) get an NHL hockey team, I would go to some of their games in a second. But again, I am only speaking for myself. My uncle and other people I know would like to see Hamilton get an NHL franchise (or have one moved up there) as well, because 30 teams is by far ENOUGH! Gary Bettman was actually in London at the Memorial Cup tournament, so I don't know if that is a sign or not, but he could have interest. Bettman is a boob, though, I will admit that, and doesn't seem to run the NHL very well.
I guess because in Southern Ontario, within a 200 km radius of London, you do have over 6 million people, maybe it would be an ideal location, but they would have to double the size of the JLC or have a private developer or somebody build a new rink. I think they could easily double the size of the JLC, by raising the roof a lot. London also, got a TON of exposure thanks to last year's NHL lockout and successful Memorial Cup tournament in which the London Knights won (to no surprise, they dominated the entire year, literally), over 1 million people watched that across Canada, so of all the cities that may have benefited from the NHL lockout, London probably got the most.
Hamilton got some good exposure as well with the lockout last year, because of the charity hockey game at Ivor Wynne Stadium that year.