Blog blast past: Balsillie boarded; the Phoenix Coyotes story few people read

As you know, the bond sale that would keep a NHL hockey team in Glendale, Ariz., has gone awry. Reading back to July 30, 2009, it's not surprising when you realize whose interests the NHL and most politicians are really representing these days.

The NHL really showed Wednesday how as a business, it is a game of TEGWAR, The Exciting Game Without Any Rules.

Jim Balsillie's camp smartly pointed out minutes after he was denied that this had nothing to do with his fitness to be an owner, and that the judge in Arizona said in June that the league would have to show he didn't have the cash. Of course, the nets had already been moved, like a group of kids moving their ball hockey game down the street (which might cheese the judge off, but that is neither here nor there). Bruce Arthur's National Post column pointed out, well, if it wasn't money, then it had be something else, but this is the league that let future felon Boots Del Biaggio into the fold.

Granted, being the person who waits for Canadians to wake up to what Gary Bettman's NHL stands for is like being sent out on a snipe hunt. Please, though, sometime between now and the next labour stoppage, clue in that denying Balsillie, again, really betrays that the NHL always represents its interests to the bitter end. It's just that those interests have nothing to do with the great game of hockey and everything to do with corporate malfeasance that could launch six Naomi Klein screeds and a couple Bruce Cockburn ditties. They won't care you could have three teams in Southern Ontario which would each draw more than the Phoenix Coyotes (with higher ticket prices) until the day when the U.S. economy is really up a creek.

The Coyotes are just a game piece in a scheme where, to quote an alternative weekly said the week Balsillie's bid for the Coyotes became public, a "broke" city is "also trying to line the pockets of some of the wealthiest investment groups in New York City, Saudi Arabia, and Abu Dhabi." (Phoenix New Times, May 14.)

The above link came via Make It Eight, Eh?. From the look of it, a Hamilton, Ont., insurance broker named Craig Ferguson, over the run of this sordid saga, has evolved from a thinking fan's case for the NHL to put more teams into Canada to advocacy for taxpayers in Arizona in the wake of a swindle/boondoggle which is going down in the American southwest. You really should, if you have time, read through it since Ferguson makes it clear why the hell Jerry Reinsdorf wants to own an unprofitable hockey team which has never been about hockey from the day it arrived in the desert.

"The attraction to the Coyotes hockey team has always been an issue of land development opportunites and great deals with government, and the profits that would go along with them. Nobody in their right mind would take this team with the clear math currently in place. As soon as (former owners Jerry) Moyes and (Steve) Ellman broke up the land from the ice, that’s when the 'Coyote' should have chased the Roadrunner out of town.

"Are we to believe, as mentioned by the Reinsdorf camp, and now even by the new Canadian/American mixed coalition represented by Daryl Jones (Research Edge LLC) that trying to share in a little bit of food and parking is going to cut the mustard? 'Little things add up' is the argument? Were we born yesterday? And, if I might add, if Daryl Jones and his group thinks they are going to break into this game with nickel and dime thinking, they had better think again. Like all politics, what would make sense from a genuine, honest angle usually doesn’t win the prize."

In other words: Cha-ching! Ferguson has flipped over a couple other rocks, noting two weeks ago that Jerry Reinsdorf's son is "is a director of a partnering firm, International Facilities Group (IFG), that has a hand in consulting the City of Glendale for the Jobing.com arena, and more."

It is not like this should shock anyone. For the most part this is the way of the world, at least up until Bear Stearns went nips-up last fall. (At this point, one should allow that maybe the NHL would like Balsillie to pay $350-400 million for an expansion team instead of $212.5M for an established team. At some point, though, these guys have to stop playing the Canada card.)

Most sports fans, regardless of background or intelligence, would be like, "Why should I care that the the city of Phoenix is going to hand over $100 million in subsidies in return for 200 public parking spaces at a time when it can't afford to open public pools? I just want to know if the team is going to relocate or not." Thankfully, no one needs a public pool in a desert during a time of high unemployment). That is just the nature of following a sport, nothing wrong or evil about it.

However, it does seem crazy how few in Canada have really gone to lengths to explain how the Duel in the Desert, so-called, was more than Gary Bettman and Bill Daly delivering a big screw-you to Jim Balsillie. In the grand scheme, this only reaffirms Canadians' Pavlovian slavishness to the NHL. Hockey is a wonderful sport, perhaps the best of the team games, and the NHL is more appealing to watch that it has been at pretty much any point in the Bettman era.

At the same time, to repeat Peter Gent's "every time I say it's a business you call it a game and every time I call it a game you say it's a business" corollary, let's have some clear eyes. At the end of the day, this league Canadians hold so near and dear is run by some not-too-nice people who are only to eager to be part of greater outrages. On a macro level, it does affect the competitive product.

It was nice to speculate for a couple days when that one bid group for the Coyotes talked about playing games in Halifax or Saskatoon and having an AHL team in Thunder Bay. Maybe that was akin to The Simpsons episode when Monty Burns ran for governor: "They're like seals. Toss 'em a couple fish and watch 'em jump."

Point being, smarten up. The next person who says Balsillie needs to learn to play by the NHL's rules should get two minutes for bein' stupid. (Outgoing Montreal Canadiens George Gillett actually accuse of him creating a "distraction" that caused the Habs' season to go downhill was a new low. (Mr. Gillett, I have with me a Mr. Jared Allen who has debunked the myth athletes can be distracted, and he's not above using physical force to make a point.)

Rules? The NHL has but one that it honours, realizing its place as a pipsqueak in the lumbering dinosaur of the American economy, 2009. Balsille, to borrow a line from those Ford ads which have been playing all summer, might "pulled off a game-changer" by moving the Coyotes to Southern Ontario, but there were other interests to defend.

Gary Bettman fits right in with the Boomer mentality where old-economy businesses hide that they are just going around in circles, slowly losing ground before realizing time has run out. The commish is a pipsqueak in the grand scheme of bankrupting America, but like any good CEO, he knows who he works for. That's why they pay him the big bucks.

As previously stated, "It would be silly to use the league's idiotic business practices to justify non-interest in what happens on the ice." However, this has been an exercise in the NHL as usual. It has no rules and when you have no rules, you have less of a game.

Related:
Balsillie vows to press on; BlackBerry billionaire given rough ride by NHL's board of governors as bid for troubled Coyotes rejected (Paul Waldie and David Shoalts, Globe & Mail)
NHL: Anybody but you, Balsillie (Bruce Arthur, National Post)

Views from the West

As a North Carolina Tar Heels basketball fan, it just kills me to see Coach K with a championship trophy. It doesn't matter if Duke earned it. Still hate anything to do with Blue Devils success. Needless to say I was praying along with the State of Indiana and the other Butler bandwagoners the Hoosiers' knockoff would pull it off like the movie. This was one of the best Final Four finals I've ever seen.


•For those who missed it, the NHL, via a Phoenix publication, used Winnipeggers' love for their fallen Jets against them and Glendale city administrators to get someone else a deal to keep a team where no one wants it. Sounds like the NFL's use of Los Angeles, doesn't it. And yes, I, and many other Manitobans, are offended by this. If you want to move the team back, fine. I'll buy some tickets. If you don't, stop using a city that's suffered enough by this story as a pawn.

• News in Winnipeg that a new football stadium may actually happen came to light recently. A few quick thoughts on this. The U of M location is fine by me. I have to drive more than 200 km to get to it anyway, so an extra click or two isn't much bother. Rapid Transit (which I'm sure will move much faster than the city councils that tried to set it up) will link it with downtown, should it ever be built. But did the government really need to give David Asper such a sweetheart deal of a loan to get this done? If I were Mark Chipman or Sam Katz, who had to battle varying degrees of bureaucracy and negative public opinion from naysayers to get their very successful sports facilities built, I'd be pissed. If a provincial election featuring a Premier without legacy weren't around the corner, I wonder if it would be built. this way.

• Brandonites have gotten behind the Memorial Cup with their wallets, buying up any available tickets. So much so, that the initial allotment for fans has increased several times by the CHL to meet local demand. Now that the CHL has seen the light on going to smaller venues once in a while to create an atmosphere, maybe the Canadian Curling Association can do the same by looking at Brandon for an event such as the Brier. Sure it won't make as much money. But it will be the only thing people will talk about for a week, unlike some larger centres.

• Anyone else sick of hearing stock answers about Tiger Woods from Tiger Woods about issues he could have put to bed by being honest months ago?

• Baseball season has opened, and with it, one more season lamenting the loss of the Montreal Expos.

• How's this for irony: Ilya Kovalchuk gets traded to the New Jersey Devils, then eliminates his old team, the Atlanta Thrashers from the playoffs a few weeks later — a team that seemed to play better without him.

• It's high time the NHL adopted a four-point system for its standings. Reward teams for winning in regulation time as it shows a more accurate picture of dominance, and lessens the value of a shootout "win" that is hockey's excuse for a slot machine.

• Note to the CTRC: WE WANT ESPN (a homage to Rob Vanstone, Regina Leader-Post, but seriously, cough it up and give us what we want).

• If the dome stadium goes up in Regina like some hope it does, this could be the start of a serious shift in power from Manitoba to Saskatchewan. Power of positive thinking vs "We can't do that here". Winnipeg used to have positive thinking on their side when they brought up Bobby Hull to the WHA. Where did it go?

• Buck Pierce may have a lot of talent, and the CFL needs talented quarterbacks. But was Wally Buono trying to tell people something by grabbing Casey Printers and shipping him out the door? That maybe too many concussions means playing more football is more risky than it's worth?

Gary Bettman cannot see the forest for the empty seats...

The Phoenix Coyotes had 1,000 fans at a game. That is all.

"About 1,000 fans were at the 17,800-seat Jobing.com Arena for the Coyotes preseason opener."

Related:
Coyotes fans blame Phoenix media for lack of support (Phoenix Business Journal, Sept. 16)

Thursdays with RIM Jim: Making head and tail of something that should be settled with a coin flip

(If you want a short and snappy answer about where the Phoenix Coyotes will play, just say Kansas City.)

A league with a dated perspective deserves a dated analogy, so the latest turn in the Phoenix Coyotes saga makes the NHL look like the scene in Old School where Will Ferrell screams, "We can't have anyone freakin' out out there! We gotta keep our composure!"

The NHL, as always, is expressing confidence it is going to prevail. There is a half a mind to snark off, like one of Jim Rome's listeners, "Dear Gary, pro sports leagues always prevail in court, sincerely, Al Davis, Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders."

Meantime, the realization the Phoenix Coyotes drama has — with a tip of the cap to lame-duck Ottawa GOSINOG* Larry O'Brien — is more than a big swinging dick contest has really hit critical mass since this time last week. Judge Redfield T. Baum's ruling on Wednesday really takes the animus between Jim Balsillie, Gary Bettman and 26 owners of solvent-for-now teams out of play (see From The Rink). That should be burned into memory. Everyone has seen the Phoenix New Times article which laid out the depth of the sweetheart deal Jerry Reinsdorf stood to score from the city of Glendale, Arizona.

The New Times' Sarah Fenske notes that a "good city manager ... has to do whatever he can to keep the (team)" — stop cry-laughing, Ottawa readers — "But it's one thing to fight to save a team. It's another thing entirely to fix the playing field for connected insiders." Here is the trenchant part:

"Michael Reinsdorf, who is Jerry's son, had been hired to help manage the Arizona Cardinals' stadium in 2004. (His firm, IFG, got the contract as a joint venture with Global Spectrum, a Philadelphia-based firm that just happens to employ John Kaites as a lobbyist.)

"In the fall of 2008, Glendale hired Michael Reinsdorf's IFG to assess stadium operations at the Coyotes' home, Jobing.com Arena. It was IFG — which, again, is Michael Reinsdorf's firm — that suggested Glendale hire Beacon, as city officials confirmed to me.

"The Reinsdorfs have a long history of working with Beacon. In fact, court records show Beacon was sued in Los Angeles by a client who claimed Beacon had leaked a confidential report to, yes, Michael Reinsdorf.

"So when the Coyotes ran into trouble, Ed Beasley brought in Michael Reinsdorf's firm. At the suggestion of Michael's firm, he brought in a second company, one that had a history of dealing with Michael Reinsdorf. Then he stood by as that firm secretly met with Kaites and Jerry Reinsdorf.

"And now we're supposed to look at the firm's analysis as neutral, looking out for Glendale's best interests?

"I simply don't buy it.

"In May, the Coyotes filed for bankruptcy. Its current owners want to sell to an investor who'd move the team to Canada; it's their only hope to recoup even part of their investment, they say. Meanwhile, for reasons that are still unclear — to me, at least — Kaites and Reinsdorf have become the NHL's pick.

The great Stephen Brunt, who makes grasshoppers of us all, characterizes it by saying the "subsidies (Jerry) Reinsdorf is demanding are political dynamite in a place where few are sentimentally attached to the team."

Meantime, as James Mirtle notes, Balsillie's bid still has a legal leg to stand on:

"That the judge hasn't already thrown out Balsillie's bid says to me he won't feel obliged to do so before the auction itself, although we're certainly going to hear plenty of new arguments from the league on that front. And while some of the information presented by the NHL certainly paints Balsillie in such a way that makes it easy to see why they dislike him, the fact his dealings in Pittsburgh and Nashville were aimed solely at moving a team to Hamilton will not likely 'taint' him in the eyes of the court.

"Think of it from the court's perspective: If the biggest issues surrounding Balsillie's conduct relate to his push for a franchise in his backyard, would his winning the Coyotes bidding process not solve those issues?"

Mirtle also linked to an East Valley Tribune column, "Bettman responsible for Coyotes' mess," which made it sound worse than the Montreal Expos situation a few years ago:

"This has become a disaster of Titanic proportions. The Coyotes still don’t know who their owner will be, and they may not have an answer by the Oct. 3 start of the regular season. They don’t have a TV contract. Their season-ticket base is dwindling, and sponsors are scurrying away like cockroaches when the light comes on."

No one can really say for sure how the court will decide Sept. 10, which is just five days before Bettman's overpriced orphans of winter will play their first exhibition game. It's a little funny that no one seems able to definitively answer, "What's going to happen if Balsillie wins in court?"

The great site Make It Eight argues that Bettman has a chance to set "a precedent for accomodation" if the court accepts Balsillie's bid at auction. Go ahead and say that will never happen. To hazard a guess, if Balsillie won, the NHL would insist on holding a vote . Bettman would win in a Mahmoud Ahmadinejad-esque landslide and the league would run the Coyotes and try to scare up an investor who could plunk the Coyotes some place such as as Las Vegas Kansas City, which already has an arena built by the company which owns the Los Angeles Kings. After Wednesday, though, the league's power seems less absolute, but they have wriggled off the hook before.

Related:
Why an empty rink may be better than a local rink (James Mirtle, From The Rink)

(GOSINOG: Acronym for Guilty of Stupidity, If Not Officially Guilty. O'Brien's case perhaps should have never gone to court, but the damage was enough.)

Hoserdome 2009: Oh, that court thingy...

The stickiness of a sports business story is usually in inverse proportion to how sticky it is outside. People might have missed the story about a court finding the NHL has been underfunding pensions, especially in Ontario, where it's probably bigger news the LCBO strike has been averted.

"The decision by Ontario Superior Court means the league will have to top up its pension fund by as much as $30 million and may have to make retroactive payments to the widows of deceased players.

"The suit, brought forward last year by the NHL Players' Association, charged that errors in the calculation of pensions for players who died before 1986 meant their widows received as little as 10 per cent of the funds entitled to them."

This does not necessarily go all the way to Gary Bettman and Bill Daly, but it whets the thirst for reading about what depths of malevolence to which a league will sink. Point being, it will be really interesting to see what kind of reception Bettman and/or Daly get on Friday at the NHL draft in Montreal, since it would be his first appearance in Canada since a bankruptcy court dealt a setback to Jim Balsillie's plan to buy the Phoenix Coyotes (which is still very much a going concern).

Meantime (and there is a damned-if-you-do element to this space blogging on hockey on the 24th of June), there are a couple fish to toss out there.

• Have you heard the one about Dany Heatley being traded to Vancouver for the Daniel and Henrik Sedin? It would not come as a shock, after reading Bruce Garrioch's story, that the Senators might end up getting stuck with Heatley.
  
  
• Ex-Senator Martin Havlat Twittered that he is "only thinking about singing with Chicago."
  
  
• Actual words from an actual FAN 590 caller:

  "Any real Leafs fan knows the only way to get better is to suck."

  Believe it or not, people are already entertaining the idea of finishing dead last and earning the right to draft Taylor Hall No. 1 overall. That would certainly explain why the Leafs would have interest in bringing in ex-Senators Wade Redden and Peter Schaefer: They're planning to tank the season.
  
  
• Further to the point about the fault-finding mission with John Tavares, check out an interview that OHL coach Dave Cameron did with Islanders Point Blank:

  "As a head coach in the OHL, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes we over-play our best players. These young men play too much. It is impossible for them or for anyone to go full-out over a 100-game season as a teenager. We ask too much of them. So if anyone - the scouts, the experts, the fans - want to focus on gaps in a young player’s game, there will always be areas to pick apart."

  Meantime, someone actually said Tavares and Victor Hedman might be the same dyad as Alexandre Daigle and Chris Pronger in 1993. That's rough, man. The only common thread there is Daigle and Tavares were both left-handed shots.
  

Tuesday afternoon ...

What's not bothering you today, since it's all raisins off an Oldsmobile ... oh, and an Islanders beat writer says the team will take Matt Duchene No. 1 overall.

... Being the only person who ever saw a resemblance between Oren Koules and Michael Bluth from Arrested Development (it was the hair). The comparison is totally apt, considering what's happened to the Tampa Bay Lightning. At this rate, they'll soon be holding a Save Our Bolts fundraiser?

... CBC going ahead with a figure skating reality show. At least they showed a sense of humour by casting Glenn Anderson and Stéphane Richer as figure skaters. Talk about meta.

... Rosie DiManno getting into it with the entire city of Hamilton after she called it "a dump." Shame on her for violating the unwritten rule to never to point out the Hammer's failings in print. She missed the point that people love Hamilton, Ontario, the way you love a three-legged, half-blind, hard-of-hearing dog with a flatulence problem (so sayeth the guy whose sister and brother-in-law live in Stoney Creek, so hold the hate mail).

... ESPN.com failing to put Peyton Manning on its All-Decade NFL team.

... sports columnists who go on about the Tiger-and-Phil overkill during major golf tournaments. Please just explain to people that the way it works is the PGA's corporate sponsors expect the big names who move product to get more camera time, regardless of the leaderboard. Looking for serious storytelling on a golf broadcast is like looking for chastity in a cathouse.

... Peter C. Newman saying Heather Reisman "saved the publishing industry." Apparently saved is synonymous with running independent booksellers and small publishing houses out of business, but hey, Newman's books still sell at Chapters once they're marked down to $9.99.

... the MuchMusic Video Awards getting a worse ass-kicking than Perez Hilton. CBC got twice as many viewers by showing Happy Gilmore, a 13-year-old comedy.

This has nothing to do with any decision handed down just now by Judge Redfield T. Baum

The dream never dies ... just the dreamer.



Now that the Phoenix Coyotes' status is still uncertain, can Dany Heatley buy them for $1, install himself as captain/coach/GM/president/owner and play himself for 60 minutes a game? Someone was asking about that on Ottawa's The Team 1200 today.

Fronts: Werek to Boston talk, Gilmour the closet Canadiens fan

Rest assured, the Kingston Frontenacs are still generating post fodder, even though it's the off-season and they haven't announced a trade or whether they have signed any draft picks beyond the first-rounder.

New England Hockey Journal has a look at whether Ethan Werek being drafted — irony alert! — by the Boston Bruins. Meantime, there's the ripple from coach Doug Gilmour telling Sun Media he would "one hundred per cent" want to work for Jim Balsillie if he brings a NHL team to Southern Ontario, right in the Toronto Maple Leafs' backyard.

It seems best to start with Werek, since it's less likely Fronts fans have seen it:

" 'He had a tough start to the year but really picked it up as things went along,' said another NHL scout, one who has followed Werek since his days with the Stouffville Spirit of the OPJHL. 'I think Doug Gilmour taking over behind the bench helped bring out the best in Ethan; he’s big, thinks the game well and has a quick release and accurate shot. He can both set up the play and finish it off, and he finishes his checks and plays with an edge.

" 'While his skating isn't the best, I wouldn't say that it's poor either. He could stand to get quicker, but he’s also showed that he can get there when he needs to.' "

The irony of Werek being a possible pick for the Bruins is that he was bound for Boston University before he opted to report to the Frontenacs.

As he has previously, Werek touched on why he didn't go to Boston U:

"Werek was picked ninth overall in the 2007 OHL Priority Selection by Kingston. At first, he spurned the OHL, determined to join legendary coach Jack Parker’s BU squad, even going the extra step to graduate from high school early. However, when there wasn’t enough room for him at BU in 2008-09 and, faced with another year of junior hockey, this time with Indiana of the USHL, Werek altered course and embraced the opportunity to play for one of the OHL's most storied franchises.

" 'It was a tough decision ... I wanted to go to BU and be a part of that great hockey tradition and outstanding academic institution. When things fell apart, and it was looking like I would have to play another year of junior hockey, it was just something that I felt would hurt my development. I give all the credit in the world to Coach (Jack) Parker and his staff; they were all extremely supportive and understood my decision, but it was one of the most difficult things I've had to do."

That does put the lie to any claim that Werek reporting was any validation for Frontenacs management (ignore the folderol about the Fronts being "one of the OHL's most storied franchises," since they are certainly in the top 20, keeping in mind the OHL has only 20 teams).

Incidentally, the article provides some material for the spin doctors in K-Town, noting "23 of the club's 40 losses were by one goal." That kind of ignores they lost 50 games when you count overtimes and shootouts. Really what 23-of-40 talk says is that this team was no good at winning tight games in the third period. Also, eight of their 18 wins were by one goal. Come to think of it, they won in overtime in Gilmour's debut, with Werek scoring the winner in the dying seconds, and beat London when Werek scored the tie-breaking goal with four seconds to play, on a crazy bounce. Thank goodness for randomness, or it might have been a 16-win season.

The hope, of course, is that the Frontenacs will be improved enough to at least treat Kingston fans to some playoff hockey at the K-Rock Pot next March (and maybe even the first week of April). Hope is tempered by being honest about the organization and not echoing the party line about Larry Mavety being an "astute hockey man" or landing the OHL All-Star game goes farther toward hosting a Memorial Cup than icing a competitive team.

(Owner Doug Springer, of course, said at the outset of last season the team's goal was "top four" in the Eastern Conference. Does this mean he won't celebrate if the Frontenacs finish anywhere from fifth to eight in the East and make the playoffs? Don't hold your breath.)

As for what Gilmour said, it was music to the ears to hear a decorated former Leafs captain say, "First and foremost I played for the Leafs ... but for hockey fans in this area it would be great. From the Leafs standpoint it would create a rivalry. I'm not here to go against the rules or start fighting with Gary Bettman. All I'm saying is that it could work. I don't see a downside." It shows he cares.

From a Frontenacs fan's perspective, though, it's just idle talk. The understanding all along, as it always is with a junior coach, is that if a NHL or AHL team comes calling, you pretty much bid him adieu and wish him good luck. It's the same as it is when a player moves up to The Show. Besides,Mark Potter noted on Kinger's radio show six months ago that pro teams would be quick to show an interest in Gilmour once he showed the barest sign of success. Meantime, he seems

It would be a hoot if Balsillie succeeds in moving a team to Southern Ontario and ends up having a couple former Leafs in the organization. It would be just like how the WHA Quebec Nordiques raided the Montreal Canadiens for players in the 1970s. A lot of dominoes have to fall for that to happen. Gilmour will be there in September ... beyond that, well uh, a man makes a contract with an eye to breaking it, not making it.

It has been 599 days since Doug Springer promised to do "whatever it takes" to bring a winner to Kingston.

(Digression: It's not clear if Gilmour necessarily was raised as a Leafs fan. Kingston was always Switzerland when it came to the Canadiens-Leafs rivalry. Geographic distance, general resentment toward the big city and a local conceit than Kingston was of a more discerning taste than other cities of similar size meant it was never really part of Leafs Nation. It had Leafs fans, Canadiens fans and lots of Boston fans, since the Bruins had a farm team there in the 1960s and there was a connection with Harry Sinden, Wayne Cashman, Don Cherry and Freddie O'Donnell having coached or played for Boston in the 1970s.

Gilmour was born in 1963, so he's too young to really remember the Leafs' last Stanley Cup, but he would have been coming of age while the Habs were winning six Cups in the '70s and the Leafs were mediocre, my how times have changed. The Whig-Standard once ran a childhood photo of him in full hockey gear, wearing a Canadiens sweater. Those colours don't run, just sayin.')

A little levity, a little Gary and little coming from MLSE

A little levity is always good with regard to the Phoenix Coyotes situation. Seeing Gary Bettman represented by Nathan Thurm, the chain-smoking lawyer character whom Martin Short played on the mid-'80s Saturday Night Live is almost as funny as the commish himselfclaiming the Coyotes "were never in jeopardy."



Meantime, and it's not as if people are unawares about this, but there is nothing-but-nothing coming out of MLSE about the possibilty of a team moving into Southern Ontario.

One would expect that to be the case, of course, and perhaps people who read the business section faithfully would have heard about the following. However, this section from a Phoenix Business Journal profile of Richard Rodier, Jim Balsillie's legal eagle, really shows how defensive MLSE is about the A-word, antitrust.

"At a 2008 sports business conference in Toronto run by then-Anaheim Ducks General Manager Brian Burke, several people in attendance recount a tense moment when Rodier posed an antitrust question to Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment President Richard Peddie at the end of a panel session.

" 'Why, if I’m in the city of Toronto, can’t I watch the Ottawa Senators?' Rodier asked.

" 'I’m not going to debate antitrust law with you,' said Peddie, who did not return calls requesting comment for this story.

"Rodier defended the question last week, saying that it was legitimate. 'To ask a question that makes someone who may be operating outside the law uncomfortable is not in my view a bad thing,' he said."

That can be backed 100 per cent. No doubt a few people have wondered about an antitrust suit against the NHL at some point down the line. A court has found that Major League Baseball's infamous antitrust exemption does not apply to the sale of franchises, so speaking as a layperson, it could be a legal tempest.

Also on this topic, this site's own Andrew Bucholtz was on a conference call where former CFL commish Tom Wright talked about Balsillie's application. Here's Part 1 and Part 2.

That's about it from here. It would be remiss not to pass along something from the article on Rodier that seemed funny, since it furthered the stereotype that all Canadians know each other.

"(Rodier) then went on to the University of Toronto Law School, earning a law degree in 1984 and coming to the Canadian bar in 1986.

"Balsillie graduated from the University of Toronto in 1984 with an undergraduate degree, but Rodier said they didn’t know each other at the time."

The U of T only has 60,000 students. There's a good chance a law student and an undergrad would not be acquainted.

(Pretty please keep in mind a much lazier man was earlier to the game with the Bettman-as-Thurm comparison. Granted, this space has also likened Bettman to the Chip Diller character in National Lampoon's Animal House ("Remain calm! All is well!) and the NHL to Cameron Frye in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.)

NHL: Nothing good happens after June 5th

These are the days when you wish someone would plant a bug in Jim Balsillie's ear to underwrite a pro hockey league which would offer something different, like a snowball's chance in hell of deciding a champion before the end of May.

There is little need to join the chorus that includes Michael Farber at Sports Illustrated, Cam Cole at the Vancouver Sun and Larry Brooks at the New York Post, who got off on some of the better rants about the Stanley Cup final not starting until June 5. Far be it to point out any members of the press corps, especially those from Canadian outlets, could always ask their bosses to let them pass on covering the final and devote less coverage to hockey (fat chance).

The questions really are what you do as a fan who's followed it all season (not watch the final?) and how late the final could run in 2010, when the Olympic hockey tournament in Vancouver will run from Feb. 16-28.

On the first question, Hockey in June does not work from a fan's perspective, never has, never will. Three years ago, CBC lost a million viewers between Games 1 and 2 of the Edmonton-Carolina final (it went seven games, which brought casual followers back).

The games can be very well-played, but to borrow a phrase from Mark Moore's book Saving The Game, the players are not on the hook if it's hard for an observer to get inspired. It is weird to wake up on a gorgeous Sunday in May and realize the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings are playing a third-round game that afternoon. The day is much better suited to going on a long walk than being indoors watching hockey. Nevertheless, the NHL blunders on:

"If the series begins June 5 and goes seven, it would be the latest-finishing Stanley Cup final in a non-Olympic year since 1999, when Brett Hull's toe-in-the-crease goal won it for Dallas at 1:30 a.m. Eastern, on June 20 — after which I distinctly recall NHL senior vice president of hockey operations Colin Campbell telling me the league simply had to find a way to end the hockey season before June." — Cam Cole, Vancouver Sun

The reality is only with the NHL do you have long-time followers saying, "I just wish the season could be over with." Baseball still manages to wrap up in October more often than not. The NBA improved its product by eliminating the long layoffs between games (David Stern also made a good deal with TNT so the Association wouldn't have to Gary-rig its schedule to suit a broadcast network).

This has the air of "renovating the restaurant you don't own," but there's a common-sense solution. The league could shorten training camp and pre-season and start the regular season around Sept. 20. The salary cap dictates who is going to make the team. The players have have personal trainers to help them stay in shape. The four-week training camp is just a holdover from the old days when players spent their summers pounding beers and looking for a piece of strange. The teams would save money, which heavens knows a few such as Atlanta and Tampa Bay wouldn't mind.

Meantime, there is the fun question of how late the season might run in 2009-10. The NHL's TV contract with NBC is up. That might eliminate the possibility of once again, as Farber put it "ben(ding) over backwards to plant a big wet one on the backside of the Peacock." ESPN would be more accommodating. That is counter-balanced by the Olympic break. Sports Business Journal reported a while ago that NHLPA boss Paul Kelly wants an even longer break that the league has in mind, so the NHLers can march in the Olympic opening ceremonies.

The point is the obvious (obvious since it was obvious three bloody seasons ago, even to a self-acknowledged master of the obvious). Nothing good happens after June 1. The NHL has to put that into practice, just as everyone eventually learns nothing good happens after 2 p.m.

The whole Winnipeg question

It deserves to be passed on. Tom Brodbeck, the City Hall columnist at the Winnipeg Sun, had the heart to break the harsh reality for all the Bring Back The Jets-Setters:

".... what it really boils down to is what owners can charge for ticket prices versus what their player salary costs are projected to be.

"It's really that simple when it comes to sustaining an NHL franchise.

"This is not the NFL or Major League Baseball, which enjoy lucrative television revenues. TV revenues for the NHL are modest.

"NHL teams rely much more on gate sales to pay the bills. And there's a huge difference between a team that can sell tickets for $50 to $70 and ones that can sell them for more than $100. A half-decent ticket for a Vancouver Canucks regular season game, for example, is $130. Is there enough jingle in the jeans of Winnipeggers to pay that kind of freight on a sustained basis?

"According to Statistics Canada, we have among the lowest average weekly wages in Canada. In 2008 only PEI, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick had lower wages than Manitoba.

"This isn't the 1990s, where you can sell $7 hockey tickets at 7-Eleven. The world of hockey has made a tectonic shift since we last had a team. And being near the bottom of the Canadian wage-earner list does not help our cause."

Again, that doesn't mean it's folly to root for a Jets revival. Brodbeck pretty much hit the nail on the head. Winnipeg is not a town of big spenders. There is kind of a warehouse mentality, which is not necessarily bad or something to be made fun of, but it's undesirable to the NHL.

Related:
Cash and the NHL; Manitoba's economics are not inviting (Tom Brodbeck, Sun Media)

The money pit in Phoenix

As a follow-up to a recent post on the Phoenix Coyotes, it's only necessary to point out the number-crunching From The Rink did about Glendale:

"... it's all but impossible for Phoenix to turn a profit, even under ideal conditions. The team's expenses are too high and its potential for generating revenues too low barring a long playoff run and a massive price hike." — James Mirtle

The great mc79hockey also looked at the team's expenses and wondered how in hell they think they can make money settling cut-rate tickets to some of the NHL's smallest crowds.

That doesn't necessarily give people in Canada license to bash people in Phoenix who did actually support the Coyotes. The fans weren't responsible for profligate spending and the NHL's broken economic model — or for the birdbrained decision to build a hockey arena in Glendale, Arizona, so far from Phoenix's downtown core. There is also the more macro concern that Arizona "was one of the most severely affected states" for foreclosure filings last month (Phoenix Business Journal, May 13). When people are losing their homes, it's little tough to fork out more money for hockey tickets. Businesses probably have less latitude to gobble up tickets which can lavished on clients. As Mirtle notes, though, the dream scenario for preserving the NHL in Phoenix involves a massive price hike:

"To hit those ticket revenue figures, prices would have to increase significantly from the average $37 current average price, however. My rough math tells me that, even if the team sold an extra 3,000 seats a game at current rates, they'd be $12-million shy of the "potential" ticket revenue figure here, meaning tickets would have to cost roughly $15 to $17 more on average to hit that mark."

Meantime, the one irony of all the Balsillie-boosting, as others have noted, is you'd move a team from one economically devastated area to another, Hamilton.

As a sidenote, it seems like a lot of us up in Canada are throwing stones from a glass arena. It's a bit of a collective conceit that Canada has some monopoly on supporting major league hockey. Kurtenblog noted earlier this week there was one season during the pre-lockout era when the Nashville Predators had a higher average attendance than Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. (Granted, hockey was a novelty in Nashville, and who knows what the difference were in average ticket price and comped tickets.) We're not so perfect.

Gary Bettman: Happiness is watching franchise bingo

Forget the Stanley Cup playoffs. With the NHL these days, it's all about atrophy.

There is not enough hours on the day to keep up with all the minutia of the Duel in the Desert over the Phoenix Coyotes, unless you are employed to cover the NHL. However, it bears noting Chris Botta at islanderspointblank.com has spelled out that Johnny Tavares' betrothed, the New York Islanders, have one, maybe two years left on Long Island before they'll have to relocate. Most of you know full well that the Atlanta Thrashers and Tampa Bay Lightning have a licence to hemorrhage money. All one can really do is try to understand why Gary Bettman is fighting like a drowning muskrat against the interest of most fans. It has less to do with creating anarchy where anyone could move any team. It's a house of cards scenario that basically parallels the financial crisis, which is really about unravelling the economic lies that have become accepted fact since the early 1980s.

There have been enough rumblings to suggest that keeping Jim Balsillie (at this point, just hearing the words "ball" or "silly" is enough to bring on fatigue) from moving a team to Southern Ontario is about preserving a market for future expansion. People pooh-poohed the idea when it was brought up the other day, but Tom Benjamin, who has more hockey geek cred (he's been on Hockey Night in Canada!) said as much earlier this week:

"Bettman's priority is clearly not about saving hockey in the desert. It is about keeping any hockey team from relocating to Southern Ontario. This is a about protecting a territory the league can sell. (And that’s the worst thing about a failed Balsillie bid. The league will expand in response to the fallout in Canada.)"
-- Tom Benjamin

Essentially, Bettman is fighting to hang on so the league can repeat what it did in the 1990s. Most of you know the NHL went into a period of expansion, from 21 to 30 teams, not long after the 1990-91 recession. It's now known as the Southern strategy.

The problem is that these markets only work - both in real economies and the NHL itself - if there's an ability to sustain it. The NHL during the 1990s succeeded for a time in convincing enough people in places such as Miami, Florida, that they needed to buy hockey tickets. Like the original Florida Panthers owner, Wayne Huizenga, told Sports Illustrated back in 1993, "We want this arena to be a happening place when the Panthers are playing, a place to see and be seen. We've got to get people here for all the wrong reasons, then turn them into hockey fans so they'll come back for the right reasons."

That worked, for a time. At a certain point, though, either there is a market for something or there isn't. It goes bust if there's an artificial market. Imposing demand on sports fans fits in with the same kind of consumption for its own sake that ran rampant in North America during the back half of the 1990s and early part of this decade. It's the same as convincing people to buy a third car, when they only need two, or a McMansion (according to Chris Turner's book Planet Simpson, the size of the average American home increased 17 per cent during the '90s). It's like extolling the virtues of (to quote a commercial that was in heavy rotation during hockey broadcasts a while back) having "fifty-two inches of glorious HD" when you can watch DVDs of your favourite shows on a four-inch high window on your laptop.

At some point, the NHL has to pay the bills. Their economic model is broken because it was short-sighted. A friend who knows about such things says this is pretty much a microcosm of the way the U.S. economy has gone since 1981.

You have probably read at some point that Gary Bettman has shepherded the NHL from being a $400-million business to a $2.2-billion one, and that's why the owners like him. The big but is this assumes as long every member franchise was healthy on its own. It assumed there was infinite amount of goodwill towards pro hockey in markets, just as there was an assumed infinite amount of cheap credit.

It's the same kind of thinking that as recently as 12 months ago, meant any number of idiots believed they, too, could be CFO for a hedge fund. As long as there were not en masse bankruptcies and no one lost arenas (which are sub-prime homes in our analogy), it was all good.

In a further irony, as Bob McCown noted on Prime Time Sports last night, there's not an idea how Phoenix could be saved. The NHL has about as many fresh ideas for keeping hockey in Phoenix as Arizona Sen. John McCain had for fixing the U.S. economy. All both could muster is, "Well, that won't work," and try to hold on to the carcass.

All it takes for one franchise to crater and the whole thing collapses. There was no fallback, no bailout, no nothing. Like Benjamin said with regard to the court-mediated tussle over the Coyotes, the longer it goes, "the bigger the league's black eye gets." The Islanders, the Coyotes, who's next, eh?

You can still block it out and watch the rest of the playoffs, which should be wrapping up sometime in June. It would be silly to use the league's idiotic business practices to justify non-interest in what happens on the ice. Be grateful for the ability to compartmentalize.

One 'skate' to drop amid the obfuscation from Balsillie and Bettman

There is more than one way to thin-slice what someone says in a court filing. As soon as the word of what Gary Bettman said in court filings hit the newswires yesterday, one knee-jerk reaction was, "Here we go. Head-fake 'em with the talk about Winnipeg and the idiots go for it." Bettman didn't necessarily say he wanted the Phoenix Coyotes to move to Winnipeg; he just hates the idea less than them moving to Southern Ontario, since it would mean giving in to Jim Balsillie.

Now that the throat has been cleared of snarky phlegm, there is a historical precedent people should think about amid the legal hockey tape holding together the remnants of the Coyotes franchise. If applied, it could represent a win-win for both Emperor Gary and BlackBerry boy. Balsillie would get a hockey team. Bettman would have so much hand that it would be coming out of his gloves!

The precedent involves a U.S. city which just lost a major pro sports team — Seattle — and a team located in Southern Ontario.

Of course, this is just one ass-talker's personal theory, not to be taken literally. It derives from:

• A desire to see a second NHL team in Southern Ontario, although its catchment area is very vague;
• Animus/grudging admiration for Gary Bettman;
• A knowledge of the legal pinholes Jim Balsillie must pass through to enter the kingdom of hoser heaven, owning a NHL team.

As some of you know, the Seattle Mariners baseball team "were created as a result of a lawsuit." (Wikipedia.) The city had a team, the Seattle Pilots, which existed for only one season, 1969, before they were bought and relocated to Milwaukee. All three levels of government sued the American League for breach of contract and eventually, the league set things right by offering them an expansion franchise to begin play in 1977.

The Toronto Blue Jays also came into being during that round of expansion, since a baseball league requires an even number of teams. For those who don't remember or find this as dry as a great-uncle's funeral, shortly before that time Labatt's had almost succeeded in purchasing the San Francisco Giants and moving them to Toronto. An 11th-hour effort by business and political leaders in San Fran, including late Mayor George Moscone, kept the Giants from moving.

The thought of three levels of government, the city of Hamilton, the province of Ontario and the government of Canada, suing the NHL might be a little far-fetched, even if Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a professed hockey nut who's not above being litigious. We're probably too docile to take that step.

All three levels of government certainly have self-interest. The city council wants to revitalize the rapidly deteriorating downtown core in the Hammer. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government, as others have already noted, would like to take back some once solidly-red ridings in the 905 area code that have gone NDP in the biggest union town in Canada. Attaching a hockey team to any big federal-provincial infrastructure project, such as the expanded light-rail system Southern Ontario is begging for, would make it an easier sell. (As an aside, you do realize that by 2025, you're going to be nostalgic for the days when gas for your car was only $1.30 a litre?)

There is a scenario which could come into play as this winds it way through the court system. The NHL, as baseball did, could turn around and offer Balsillie an expansion team. It would be a face-save and a sop to Canadian patriotism, plus it is probably inevitable that the NHL will have to put a second team in the Toronto area, since it is one of the 10 largest metropolitan areas in North America and the largest where hockey is a major sport (where it ranks in size is debatable, see the comments from Jason Cormier). Two of the larger three, New York and L.A., have more than one hockey team. Chicago also has a thriving AHL franchise.

It would allow both to get what they want. Balsillie gets a team, albeit an expansion outfit instead of the Coyotes, who are presently a good young team that's close to being a contender. He gets time to build an arena that is more accessible to fans in the Kitchener-Waterloo region and in Toronto. This addresses any concern about a team playing out of Copps Coliseum siphoning off ticket buyers from the Buffalo Sabres, who always seem to have one skate on the banana peel which is Western New York's economy:

"The Sabres are always in a very precarious financial position, given Buffalo's shrinking size and awful economy. The Sabres (company name Niagara Frontier Hockey, L.P.) depend on the roughly 15 percent of their business that comes from the Niagara Peninsula, all the way up the Golden Horseshoe to Hamilton. Never mind that after almost 40 years most of the Canadians who attend Sabres games do not root for Buffalo; the main thing is that they’re helping to fill the HSBC Arena."
— Jeff Z. Klein, The New York Times

Meantime, Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly will still have "hand," to borrow George Costanza's term, in the relationship. It reduces the possibility of Bettman having to present the Stanley Cup to one of Balsillie's employees in the near future.

Bettman, et al., certainly want to expand the NHL from 30 to 32 teams, even during a recession.

The Hollywood producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, a noted "celebrity puckhead," (From The Rink) is apparently interested in owning a team in Las Vegas (David Shoalts, globesports.com). Please also keep in mind that another fish Bettman would like to fry is to provide a tenant for the Sprint Center in Kansas City, which is operated by L.A. Kings owner Phillip Anschutz's company.

It could become a three-minus-one: The NHL adds Kansas City, Las Vegas and thethe Golden Horseshoe Hammerheads, while subtracting Phoenix. It could also be four-minus-two, if the Sabres' situation in Western New York becomes untenable if the local economy continues to crater; relocation to a more western city such as Winnipeg or Seattle could be on the table. (Klein, a Sabres fan, makes a good point that people should stand up to defend "a true hockey city" such as Buffalo, but he lays on a little thick by pointing out that many hockey people make their home there. They moved to avoid paying Canadian taxes.)

No one knows how an Arizona bankruptcy court might mind. The best we get before Tuesday is an educated guess. However, people should at least be open to the scenario where Balsillie gets his team through expansion, although this would be a few years down the road, so try not take it too literally.

A 32-team NHL with four divisions even works out in terms of scheduling. Each team plays six games vs. each divisional foe (42 games), three vs. inter-divisional opponents (24 games) and one against each inter-conference team (16 games) to make up an 82-game schedule. For argument's sake, here are possible alignments that try to maintain existing rivalries:

• Adams Division: Boston, Buffalo, Florida, Tampa Bay, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton
  
  
• Patrick Division: Atlanta, Carolina, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New Jersey, N.Y. Islanders, N.Y. Rangers, Washington
  
  
• Norris Division: Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, Nashville, St. Louis, Kansas City
  
  
• Smythe Division: Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, Edmonton, Los Angeles, San Jose, Vancouver, Las Vegas
  

Obviously, the NHL would probably copy the NFL and divvy up 32 teams into eight divisions of four. But the fantasy has gone this far ...

Anyway, this is not a prediction on how it might shake out, but an acknowledgement of a possible compromise. Balsillie is not going to give up. Bettman, like one of those Southern expansion teams playing the neutral zone trap back in the '90s, could just be trying to prolong the inevitable.

It's better to look at this way than to jump to conclusions about what a paid liar like Bettman says in a court filing. Sure, he might prefer the Phoenix Coyotes to move to Winnipeg instead of Southern Ontario. Taken another way, that could be on par with a man saying he'd rather be kicked in the rear end than in the groin.

Why Leaf Fans Should Support Balsillie

The man of the moment in the NHL seems to be RIM CEO Jim Balsillie. His plans to move the Phoenix Coyotes to Southern Ontario (recent reports suggest Hamilton is the number one candidate) have been gaining momentum over the last few days and it is looking more likely than ever. As they should be most hockey fans are excited about this potential move. Taking a struggling team to a thriving hockey area. The only people who seem to be upset about the way things are panning out are, Gary Bettman, all seventeen Phoenix Coyote fans, and Toronto Maple Leaf owners MLSE.

Of course anything that takes the game away from a struggling market in the United States and moves it to what is sure to be a successful market in Canada is a bad thing for Bettman. This time however it looks like Bettman will have no alternative other than to let the deal go through.

On the other side of things MLSE has to be very disappointed about the possible competition another team in Southern Ontario would bring, but to all you Leaf fans out there don't panic. In fact for the Leafs there really is nothing better for the organization than a little bit of competition.

For years MLSE has been content with a very poor product on the ice as long as the money keeps coming through. Of course with the Leafs being such an major brand it's been a pretty easy sell, especially pre-lockout when Toronto was a consistent playoff team.

This meant that Leaf fans had to put up with five years of the John Ferguson Jr. era. Since Ferguson's firing in 2008 things are starting to look up with the hiring of Burke. Even with Burke at the helm, MLSE still cares very little about the product the Leafs are putting out on the ice, as long as they continue to rack up the cash.

A new team in the area would change that. With the threat of losing bandwagon fans (which in Toronto tends to be most of the city, just look at Raptors attendances this year vs. last year) MLSE will be forced to make sure they do everything they can to improve the team. If this new Hamilton/ Southern Ontario team makes the playoffs before the Leafs do you can be more than sure that the GTA would get behind this local team and several fans would inevitably be swayed to follow the new, more successful team.

Leaf fans wallets may also be considerably fuller if Balsillie brings a team to the Toronto area. Leaf tickets are not only very difficult to get, but also extremely expensive. For many people getting to games is impossible. Balsillie has already shown support to hockey bloggers, and his commitment to making this a fan accessible team has been outlined. He will be sure not only to offer significantly reduced ticket prices, but also make them more available to the general public. In a city with two major universities, filled with students livinig on limited budgets this would be very good news to many.

Now it is naive to think that anything would stop the Leafs from continuing to sell out every game, but MLSE wants to make sure that the Leafs continue to make revenue through paraphernalia, TV deals and sponsorship deals. If fans are leaving to go watch a more accessible team in the area, then there will undoubtedly be a major revenue loss. In order to keep the fans they have MLSE may have to change a few things up on the business side of things as well.

However inadvertently, Balsillie could force major improvements in the Leafs organization, so Leaf fans out there should welcome him with open arms into Southern Ontario.