I currently live in the market area of the Nashville Predators..
And to think.. I thought you lived in Boston!!
A good example of why NHL teams don't belong in warmer climate markets was my experience at the Playoffs in 2006. Buffalo was playing Carolina, and I took a roadtrip from Buffalo to Raleigh to catch the game. Now I'm a Carolina AND Buffalo fan, so this was win-win for me either way.. but what surprised me was that there were more Buffalo fans than Hurricane supporters at the RBC Center! If you watched the playoffs on TV then you'd notice the stadium was nearly packed with just Sabres fans.. nobody showed up to watch the Canes (who ended up clinching the Cup that year).. and local sports coverage was minimal as well as newspapers I bought.
See I grew up in hockey country. Any state where it snows, is close enough to Canada, and has a long history with the NHL has a nice niche market. And it's fun. I live in California now, not far from the Sharks, and you know what? No one watches them. They don't have what it takes. The only authentic West Coast team that has mjaor pull is the Canucks and they're in Canada anyway. The LA Kings, San Jose Sharks, and Anaheim Ducks are a joke.
I will say, I got to Phoenix pretty regularly and the amount of fans there for what is the hottest climate in the country is unreal. The Coyotes rule the roost down there - even moreso than the Cardinals and D-backs.. but if I had my guess, I'd say Gretzky's affiliation had something to do with that.