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Globe: Second NHL Team for Toronto?

Question: How did Vaughan ever make it into the picture? It's pretty much always been Hamilton or Kitchener-Waterloo until a week ago.

Hey, would they call a Waterloo team the...Thumbs???

HAHAHAHAHAHA
 
Gary Bettman hates Canada. The 2009 NHL awards are being held in Las Vegas out of all places! wouldn't make more sense to hold the NHL awards in a city that has a hockey team?:mad:
 
The awards are being held in Las Vegas in an attempt to prove that it's a potential market for hockey. It's not and the team will fail miserably there. But the NHL execs will walk away with their hundreds of millions in franchise fees so they don't really care, in the long run.

The only places that make sense for NHL expansion for the future are in Canada but Canada is seen as a teensy market even though compared to the few successful NHL markets in the U.S., it's about the same size.
 
May 06, 2009 10:44 AM
Comments on this story (120)
Kevin McGran
Sports Reporter

The NHL wants to keep the Coyotes in Phoenix and intends to fight the bankruptcy proceedings initiated by the team's owner while trying to keep Blackberry billionaire Jim Balsillie out of its exclusive club.

League commissioner Gary Bettman, appearing on a sports business panel discussion sponsored by the Wall Street Journal in New York on Wednesday morning, said the league prefers to fix it problems rather than abandon cities.

"This is not about whether or not we want a franchise in southern Ontario," Bettman said. "This is about league rules."

Some reports had Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf readying an offer to purchase the Coyotes, a move that was scuttled when Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes sought Chapter 11 protection from his creditors, which include the NHL.

In a statement released early Wednesday, Balsillie said he was offering to buy the team for $212.5 million, conditional on relocation of the team to southern Ontario. Balsillie also said he agreed to post debtor-in-possession financing of $17 million.

In response, the league said it has removed Moyes from all positions of authority, and the league says it intends to represent the Coyotes in bankruptcy hearings, which begin Thursday.

The Coyotes haven't turned a profit since Moyes, owner of trucking company Swift Transportation Co., invested in the team in 2001. Annual financial losses have exceeded $20 million in some years.

A move to southern Ontario - which could possibly encroach upon the markets belonging to the Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres - would represent a retrenchment for the NHL.

Under Bettman the Coyotes left Winnipeg, where they were known as the Jets, for Phoenix in 1996.

The commissioner stated repeatedly that he has no vote on whether Mr. Balsillie would be approved as an owner - the owners of the league's 30 teams make that decision.

The move to bankruptcy court creates a bidding scenario for Moyes, because the sale of the team would be handled by a judge, not the league.

The court has the right to sell it to any bidder without regard to the NHL's wishes.

"Extensive efforts have been undertaken to sell the team, or attract additional investors, who would keep the team in Glendale," Moyes said in a news release before being relieved of his duties as the Coyotes chief executive officer.

"Creating a process under the supervision of a judge assures that anyone wishing to purchase the team will have the opportunity to bid.

"Likewise, the City of Glendale, which has been very cooperative with efforts to keep the team in Glendale, will be able to provide potential buyers assurances of the city's willingness to offer incentives to keep the team as a tenant in the Jobing.com arena, the lease for which is subject to rejection in bankruptcy. The process assures that the identities of the new owner and the team's location will be known by June 30, 2009, thus enabling the NHL to include the team in its 2009-10 schedule."

Balsillie had made previous failed attempt to purchase the Nashville Predators and Pittsburgh Penguins with the hope of moving them to Hamilton, Ontario.

"The current team ownership asked that I table an offer to purchase the Coyotes and significant discussions resulted in an offer that is in the best interests of the franchise, the NHL, and the great hockey fans of Canada and Southern Ontario," Balsillie said in a statement.

"I am excited to move closer to bringing an NHL franchise to what I believe is one of the best unserved hockey markets in the world - Southern Ontario. A market with devoted hockey fans, a rich hockey history, a growing and diversified economy and a population of more than seven million people."

At the request of the Coyotes ownership, Balsillie said he has also agreed to provide $17 million in financing to allow the franchise to keep going in advance of the sale.

Balsillie's offer does not guarantee that the Coyotes will move.

"If others want to come in and there's an offer that is deemed better by the courts, then ultimately that would be a court decision," said Steve Roman, a spokesman for Moyes. "As I understand it, the hope and the plan is that all of this would be dealt with by June 30, 2009. You have a person who has a purchase agreement, but at the same time there could be other players who want to get involved."
 
I bet Jim Balsillie told Moyes to file for bankruptcy...
meaning the court would decide who gets the team and not Bettman and the league...

Smart man, he's trying to humiliate Bettman in the process.
 
The problem is, if Balsillie won the bidding, the NHL doesn't have to allow him into the league. The Board of Governors could reject him. No one knows what the BoG thinks, so it's hard to say what will happen. I don't know what happens if he legally owns the team without being accepted by the BoG. There's no precedent for this, so it's really hard to know where it's going to go.
 
jn_12 said:
The problem is, if Balsillie won the bidding, the NHL doesn't have to allow him into the league. The Board of Governors could reject him. No one knows what the BoG thinks, so it's hard to say what will happen. I don't know what happens if he legally owns the team without being accepted by the BoG. There's no precedent for this, so it's really hard to know where it's going to go.
Click to expand...

He could just give the control to someone else...(of his choice)
All he wants is a team in ontario.
 
even then, the BoG would have to agree to that pseudo-owner.

Listening to one of the top copyright law specialists in the US on Prime Time Sports, the specialist thinks Balsillie has a very good chance of getting a ruling in his favour. The judge will take the best offer, but take into consideration the league's bylaws and the economic viability of a team in Phoenix in the long term. This will negate two of Bettman's wishes since obviously a team is not viable in Phoenix and there are no bylaws about where a team can be located, other than that the BoG has to vote on it. If they bring up anything that has to do with territory rights and retribution, anti-trust law will be taken into consideration and that will set a precedent for the league, and no team will ever get a nice cheque if another team moves into their area.

I don't think there's much else to go into until tomorrow when we find out what the court is going to say. Should be interesting to see if any other bids get made as well.
 
Eisenberger to meet with Balsillie’s reps
Maybe it’s ‘so he can lock something up’

May 06, 2009
Ken Peters
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/article/561228

Hockey representatives for prospective NHL franchise owner Jim Balsillie are scheduled to meet with Hamilton Mayor Fred Eisenberger Thursday.

And at least one Hamilton hockey official is hopeful the Balsillie group will once again seek control of Copps Coliseum for the specific purpose of relocating the Phoenix Coyotes there for next season. It’s not known whether Balsillie will be at the meeting.

Balsillie announced this week that he has made a conditional offer for the Coyotes, which have filed for bankruptcy, with the intention of moving the franchise to southern Ontario.

“I think he said ‘southern Ontario’ because he has not locked up anything yet. Maybe the meeting is so he can lock something up so it’s no longer southern Ontario but Hamilton,†said city councillor Terry Whitehead, chairman of the city’s NHL subcommittee. “That’s what I’m hoping.â€

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a request to re-affirm the same arrangement we had in the past,†Whitehead said.

That previous agreement saw the city hand over control of Copps Coliseum to the Basillie group for the purpose of bringing a team to Steeltown. But Balsillie’s bid to bring the Nashville Predators here failed and the agreement expired more than a year ago.

But word that a second hockey group is interested in bringing a franchise to Hamilton may complicate matters.

“The only comment I would make is our role is to protect the interests of the taxpayers and leverage opportunity,†Whitehead said.

“I understand they are bona fide. I know where they are from,†Whitehead said of the second party, adding he could say no more publicly.

Jim Bethune, chairman of Hamilton Entertainment and Convention Facilities Inc., which runs Copps Coliseum, said he will not be part of the mayor’s meeting Thursday.

But Bethune said HECFI has a regular board meeting scheduled for that afternoon and expects Balsillie€™s latest hockey gambit will be raised “in a general sense.â€
 
jn_12 said:
If they bring up anything that has to do with territory rights and retribution, anti-trust law will be taken into consideration and that will set a precedent for the league, and no team will ever get a nice cheque if another team moves into their area.
Click to expand...

Does this apply to the NHL? I don't see how a potential owner could launch an anti-trust suit against the NHL over this. Territorial rights are a pretty integral part of franchising, you would be hard pressed to install a new Starbuck's franchise two stores down from an already existing franchise. If Balsille ever did buy an NHL franchise, I imagine he would be required to abide by the League's bylaws.
 
Could you legally not put that Starbucks there though? I can think of a few examples of chains in Toronto that have stores very close together. I guess it depends what "close" means, right?

Anyways it was always assumed that there were legitimate territorial rights in the NHL, but it's never been contested. In the past, Anaheim and New Jersey when they moved into Los Angeles and New York territory were asked to pay a fee, and the owners abided. However, it's never been contested in court and from what I have read if it ever went to the courts, it would lean towards being anti-trust and the new team wouldn't have to pay any compensation.

My guess as to why it would be considered anti-trust is that the each team would be considered a competitor and the NHL wants to preserve monopolies in each market and therefore, by purposely stifling competition it would be anti-competition. I guess it depends whether the courts considered NHL franchises as friends or foes. This is probably the best article on the issue - http://sports.theglobeandmail.com/s...0.2inToronto10/GSStory/GlobeSportsHockey/home

This is uncharted territory for the NHL, so no one really knows exactly how a court would rule. It's a lot of expert opinion and speculation, but unfortunately that's the best we can go on until this plays itself out.
 
jn_12 said:
Could you legally not put that Starbucks there though? I can think of a few examples of chains in Toronto that have stores very close together. I guess it depends what "close" means, right?
Click to expand...

Exactly. There are like six Starbucks within walking distance to each other in Yorkville. There are at least two which are less than a minute walk from each other (Yonge, north of Bloor (former Britnell Bookstore) and one in the Hudson Bay Centre, across from Shoppers Drug Mart)
 
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