jn_12
Senior Member
Well good thing they might not have a choice. The myth of the veto has been long perpetuated and the fact is, there's nothing to suggest that any team has territorial rights. It's not in the NHL's by-laws and it's never been put to a vote by the board of governors. Why? because it would violate anti-trust laws. Yes, when Anaheim got it's team, the Kings got a nice cheque, and similarly when the Devils got their team the Rangers were paid off, but there was no legal basis or it. It was just done to appease the owners of those clubs.
This very issue was brought up yesterday on HFboards and here's a pretty good summation of the legalities of the issue:
One interesting twist here is the jurisdictional issue - whether a Leaf challenge to a hypothetical NHL approval under 36.4(c) would be heard in US or Canadian Courts, under US or Canadian Law, or both (especially if the Leafs are challenging the relocation of a US based team). I would guess that the primary challenge would be under the CCB and Ontario courts.
The CCB's preliminary advisory ruling that the NHL's relocation policy did not violate the Competition Act was based on By-Law 36 being in effect - simple majority rule and no single team veto.
The Leafs might be in a Catch-22 here. If they challenge By-Law 36 as being an invalid de facto amendment to the NHL Constitution (which would have required a unanimous vote), they risk By-Law 36 being invalidated, which could lead to the CCB ruling that the territorial restrictions of Section 4 violate the Competition Act and are thus unenforceable - the net result would be a team would be free to move to Markham with no vote, no veto, no restrictions, and no territorial rights fees (which were one of the considerations in the vote under 36.4).
