Vindication! Former Rapidz owner strikes out in court

The former owner of the Ottawa Rapidz has suffered another defeat.

Rob Hall of Zip.ca and Momentous has been out for vengeance since his chute-pull after the Can-Am League team's single, farcical season in 2008. Earlier Tuesday, Judge Lynn Ratushny of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed Hall's actions against the Can-Am League and Bruce Murdock, a season-ticket holder and Ottawa resident who put a lot of time and sweat equity into the ill-fated franchise. Claims vs. the City of Ottawa and Can-Am commish Miles Wolff are still extant.

The long-story-short is this is vindication for those who were sickened by how Hall and former partner Rick Anderson's gong show in 2008 almost drove the final nails into the coffin of pro ball in Ottawa. The court not only threw out the claim on jurisdictional grounds (i.e., an Ontario court shouldn't address claims against a North Carolina-based league), but also on its merits, which could be significant in the event of an appeal.

Hall, et al., still has claims pending against Can-Am commissioner Miles Wolff and the City of Ottawa (these people is nothing if not thorough). I'll just reiterate what I said in '08:

"The record will show that you and fellow/former Zipperhead Rick Anderson bought the team and acted like overgrown brats with a new toy, not as keepers of a quasi-public trust. You rejected advice from people whose track record, unlike yours, actually suggests they know their ass from second base when it comes to baseball. Worst of all, you toyed with the hearts of the fans. They honestly believed that a new team would rise from the ashes of the Lynx's Long Goodbye. They feel like fools now, and honestly, that sucks.

The legal system is not in the business of applying salve to the thin skins of megalomaniacs. As noted eight months ago, what it boiled down to is that they were trying to get back at the people for their self-inflicted embarrassment. Far be it that they could have found the culprits for causing the embarrassment simply by looking in the mirror first thing each morning.

For pity's sake, one minute Hall was talking about signing a 30-year lease on the Coventry Rd. baseball stadium and the next they were accusing the city and Wolff of duping them into thinking baseball could work in Ottawa. They talked about buying the stadium, but they wouldn't pay their bills. Say whatever you want about the litigation former Ottawa Lynx owner Ray Pecor has vs. the City of Ottawa, but when his team pulled up stakes, they left with every bill paid in full. Wolff worked to get the Can-Am team going and won over the right people at City Hall. The city, for the record, wanted baseball back.

When you get right down to it, the Zipperheads threw an OPM party (other people's money) all summer long party in 2008. Since then, they have been trying to collect a payoff on the backs of people who were sincere about keeping pro baseball alive in Ottawa.

The Rapidz quote, unquote lost $1.4 million. In reality, one of the owners' other businesses, Momentous, was the biggest creditor, to the tune of about $700,000, so one wonders if that was just creative accounting. The rest was unpaid expenses owed to suppliers. Those are the real victims, the businesspeople who have to go to bankruptcy court in hope of getting pennies on the dollar.

The bottom line is Ottawa ball fans should laugh long and loud. They earned it the hard way, by having their hearts broken.

Fronts: A Fine case for a lawsuit!

How many 18-year-olds could you get a picture of drinking? Many of them. Yet Soo Today, for reasons that have to be pretty goddamn original since there's nothing in our journalistic experience that would possibly justify this, chose to run a picture of newly minted Kingston Frontenacs forward Michael Fine getting his drink on next to a story about the trade between the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds and Fronts.



"Despicable" is the word which comes to mind. Fine had been sent home by the Greyhounds for disciplinary reasons and told to wait for a trade. However, context is everything in the media. The article offers nothing to explain why there's a picture of a minor getting booze poured down his throat. There is no photo credit to explain how the picture was obtained.

Anyone's issues with alcohol are private and personal so long as he/she is not driving drunk. How do you know, unless you're inside the velvet rope in junior hockey, whether someone has a serious problem or simply the normal teenage issues with alcohol? Lots of people drink before achieving the age of majority (a lot don't, too) and their picture does not end up on a legitimate media outlet's website, so-called.

It is understood that there probably is a lot of gossip going around over why Fine was kicked off the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds (whose general manager, Dave Torrie, has made a public objection to the picture being published), so such a picture might have seemed like a smoking gun.

Your guess is as to Soo Today's motivations as as good as any. Blame the TMZing of the media, blame small-town ignorance and insecurities ("Fine didn't realize how lucky he was that in Canada, we force someone to move 500 miles from home to pursue a career in pro hockey! We'll show him!").

Speaking from rather hard-won personal experience, it says here Fine, whose former team's home arena was the Steelback Centre for a time, should explore a lawsuit. The case law with libel and defamation in Canada is that the media has less leeway in smaller population centres. The Soo is not a very big place. Fine and the Frontenacs play a game in the Soo in about five weeks. Knowing the fringe element you get in junior hockey barns, someone is going to take that picture and blow it up to 24" by 48" size and hold it up on a stick.

Honestly, the reaction on this end would be the same even if Fine was not playing for my hometown team, the Kingston Frontenacs. No reasonable person is saying, "Great, we traded for a party boy." It's more live and let live, teenagers will be teenagers. The Frontenacs potentially gave up quite a bit (conditional draft choices which could become second-, third- and fifth-rounders across the next four years) if Fine plays to potential. Let's get real, though, this it is not the first time a hockey team traded for a player who had trouble sticking to the straight and narrow in his former city. It will not be the last, either. It's funny how this turns up about a junior hockey player most casual sports fans have never heard of, while no one knows why Dany Heatley ended finding his way to San Jose (just saying).

This is being written without knowing anything about Fine beyond stats and scouting reports, maybe it even looks good on him. No one presumes junior hockey players are saints, no one is going to be shocked by a Facebook-ish picture of a drunk teenager, so why do that? There's something to be said for showing some couth. Shame on Soo Today.

Selling out the Sonics

The rising hopes in Seattle that yesterday evening's court decision might allow the Sonics to stay in town were quenched by a sudden downpour: a metaphorical one as the city inexplicably reversed course and allowed the team to buy its way out of the lease only an hour before Judge Marsha Pechman's decision came down, followed by a an actual downpour later in the evening as the weather rose to the occasion and provided the proper mood for the occasion.

This is quite the change in tactics for the city. Prior to this, their entire case had been about how no amount of money could replace the Sonics. Former Seattle Center director Virginia Anderson testified about the team's importance to the city as a cultural instution to the city, local writer Sherman Alexie spoke about what the team means to the fans and a horde of economists on both sides discussed the intangible benefits the team provides (to varying degrees of success). The arguments, the evidence and the witnesses all focused on one thing: no amount of money would replace the Sonics.

The city's position had always been that they were only interested in specific performance and didn't care about the money, which is why they rejected Clay Bennett's $26.5 million offer back in February. At that time, city attorney Tom Carr (one of the principals in this new settlement) told The Seattle Times, "The city's intent is to hold them to the lease." Well, when it looked like the city had a good chance of doing just that, they folded faster than a collapsing deck chair or a poker player holding a 2-7 offsuit.

A key culprit here is Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, who made perhaps the boldest reversal. As he revealed in his own testimony, when his staff were approached by PBC in July 2007, he said, "My instructions [to the staff] were that we were not interested in the buyout of the lease." My, how his tune has changed.

The most bizarre thing about this is the timing. If the city had perhaps waited an hour for Judge Pechman's decision, they may very well have found out that they won specific performance. That would have left them in a much stronger position to either hold the team to their lease or unequivocally demand a rock-solid guarantee of a replacement team before letting the Sonics leave. Even more importantly, it would have meant that Howard Schultz's lawsuit for all the marbles (to overturn his sale to Bennett based on violation of the "good-faith" clause) would have been in pretty good shape, as the case will be heard before the same judge and focuses on many of the same issues and much of the same evidence.

If Judge Pechman had ruled in favour of the city on this case, there would have been a strong chance that she might have ruled in favour of Schultz on the next one. That's not a guarantee, but keeping the team here for two more seasons would have helped with the timing of Schultz's lawsuit (it takes away the need for a restraining order), and even if Schultz's effort had failed, it would have brought even more of Bennett's dirty laundry out of his closet, er, his e-mail inbox and led to more negative publicity for both him and the NBA, perhaps increasing the pressure on him to sell to local ownership. Enforcing the lease for two years also would have allowed for more time to secure a KeyArena renovation, which would have taken away one of Bennett and the NBA's main cards to play in calling for a franchise relocation.

Even a loss in this case wouldn't necessarily have been the end of the road: the city certainly still would have received considerable financial reparations if PBC was allowed to break the lease, Schultz still would have had a strong case, and there still would have been the potential for a reversal upon appeal. Instead, Mayor Nickels, who proclaimed on the stand, "The longer that this team is here, the more possibilities might open up to keep this team here for the long term," decided to cut that term far shorter than it might have been in favour of some quick cash and a vague promise from the NBA that they'll let Seattle know when a team becomes available. That and $5 might get you a cup of coffee at Schultz's Starbucks, especially considering that there will be plenty of interest in any team that comes up. It's ludicrously stupid to abandon a case where you probably have a better-than-even chance of winning outright and keeping your team in favour of a settlement that only guarantees you a few lousy millions in cash, allows the buccaneers to walk off with your beloved franchise, and perhaps affords a 15-20 per cent chance at best of ever getting another franchise (note: percentages given are based solely on my analysis of the situation).

There are still a couple rays of hope that glimmer, but they're faint. The only way this decision isn't moronic is if you read between the lines of its wording, which referred to a statement by NBA commissioner David Stern as a prior condition for the memorandum of understanding drafted in the settlement case. Stern's statement basically says that the NBA is happy to see the case settled and would consider allowing a new franchise to play in KeyArena if it was renovated quickly according to the Steve Ballmer/Matt Griffin group's plans.

Yes, that doesn't mean much on the face of it, but it's a considerable turnaround from Stern's comments the last time that plan was brought up in March, when he shot down any renovation scheme. We all know Stern is slippery, and that change of proposal may not mean too much in the long run, but it also may be significant. In fact, there's a good chance it offers substantial insight into what actually went down here.

Here's my construction of how this settlement came about, based solely on educated guesswork building off some of the facts:

Facts: The team and the city were at absolute loggerheads to this point. They pulled out all sort of evidence attacking each other in the trial and fought a dirtier battle than most mud-wrestling championship matches. They refused all previous settlement proposals, and were ridiculously far apart on a potential end-game scenario: the Sonics proposed paying $10 million, while the city was determined to stick to specific performance.

Guesswork: There's nothing in there to suggest a settlement was coming any time soon, especially at this late hour. Thus, the key question to ask is "what changed?" As I see it, there are only two potential options.

First, David Stern decided that he was sick of all the negative publicity around this case and especially didn't want to see the battle go on any longer. In this scenario, he phones up the city and PBC, essentially promises the city a replacement team if they agree to settle and go away and if they're able to get the requisite funding for a new arena. For some reason, this assurance cannot be specifically put into the memorandum of understanding, but it can be hinted at. Possible reasons for that could include Stern not being willing to commit to anything until the arena financing comes through (anything but a certainty, given Seattle voters' current aversion to publicly funding stadiums), Stern being his usual slippery self and leaving an exit so he can say he never actually promised, or Stern's desire to avoid the perception that Seattle's long legal fight deserves a reward.

Facts that support this premise include the similar situations that happened with the Seattle Mariners and Cleveland Browns, where litigation was resolved in favour of "replacement team" settlements, the language in the memorandum about the NBA statement being a necessary precondition for the settlement (although NBA.com's timestamp has it being released to the public 40 minutes after the start of the press conferences) and the city's abrupt and sudden reversal of their previous policy: it would be great to think that they got some more substantial assurances than were contained in the actual document before deciding to roll over and play dead.

The second possible option is much worse. In this one, there really is little to no hope. The Seattle leaders either were deceived by slick promises of franchises with little to substantiate them, figured their constituents might be, or decided that it would be better to try and avoid a big loss rather than going for the big win. In this scenario, they figured it was more advantageous to take the available money and run instead of running the risk of losing much of their leverage. That may at times be an acceptable strategy in the wider world of life, but it doesn't often work in the world of sports: it makes zero sense to kick a field goal on the last play of the game and lose by a respectable three instead of going for a end-zone Hail Mary that could either get picked off or win you the game.

At the moment, we don't know which of the scenarios is the real truth. Personally, I certainly hope it's the first one. I hope the city knew what it was doing, and I hope that this is much better thought out than it appears. I can't shake the suspicion that it's really the second scenario that went down, though, and that Seattle's leaders sold the Sonics for a mere $75 million (and possibly only $45 million) and a bag of empty promises. It's not a good time to be a Seattle sports fan: in addition to the Sonics tragedy, the Mariners recently fired their manager and GM and have the worst record in the American League to go with the sixth-highest payroll in the majors and the Seahawks recently cut one of their most famous players, meaning things don't look great for them either. Perhaps the only bright spot for Seattle would be the new MLS team, which hasn't even begun play yet. The rest of the Seattle world is also depressing: Bill Gates has left Microsoft, Starbucks is axing jobs and Boeing's getting fined. In any case, the depression and gloom might lead to renewed prominence on the national music scene: if Nirvana found so much to be unhappy about in 1990s Seattle, just imagine what a band in today's Seattle could complain about!

(Welcome, Yahoo! readers!)

Sonics trial: Things about to get ugly in Seattle

Neate was kind enough to recruit me for this blog, but I haven't quite figured out why yet. Perhaps it's only to see if the entire blogosphere goes up in smoke when myself and Tyler start writing for the same site?
[Douglas Adams interlude]:
Barman: Did you say the end of the world is coming? Shouldn't we all lay down on the floor or put paper bags over our heads?
Ford: If you wish.
Barman: Will it help?
Ford: Not at all. [/Douglas Adams]



(Photo from FresnoBeeHive.com)

Anyway, I figured I'd write a preview post about what you'll see from me over the next couple of days. I'm out in the Vancouver area for the summer, and I've managed to wrangle a media pass to Day 1 of the Seattle Supersonics trial against the city of Seattle, which kicks off bright and early this morning. Thus, I'll be staggering out of bed at 4 a.m. and making the long, coffee-fueled run down to Seattle to see the fireworks. I'll have a report here on the situation late tomorrow night, and possibly some more in the next few days, depending on how things go down. You can view more about the case, including a complete list of significant documents filed and PDF copies of many of them, on the United States District Court page for the Western Washington district.

If you haven't been following the situation thus far, here's the CliffNotes version from the writing I've been doing on the matter. Basically, Oklahoma billionaire Clay Bennett bought the team from Starbucks' head honcho Howard Schultz back in 2006. The team was bleeding money due to its aging arena without a lot of corporate revenue and its lackluster on-court product. At the time, Schultz stipulated in the contract that Bennett must make "good-faith efforts" to keep the franchise in Seattle. Bennett claims he did this with a proposal to build a $500 million arena in suburban Renton, $300 million of which was to be publicly funded (a non-starter in a city where they're still upset about paying for Qwest and Safeco Fields, the new homes of the Seahawks and Mariners respectively). According to him, when that proposal fell through, he began making plans to relocate the team to Oklahoma City, a proposal that was approved 28-2 by the NBA in late April. An effort by a group of local investors, including Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, to secure the funding necessary for major KeyArena renovations fell through, and Bennett looked to have clear sailing.

However, things started to unravel when the city lawyers planning to sue the Sonics for breaking their lease at KeyArena found some incriminating e-mails between Bennett and his partners, suggesting that they'd been lying all along about trying to keep the team in Seattle (which many Sonics fans had suspected for a long time, particularly after co-owner Aubrey McClendon told the Oklahoma Journal-Record ). At the time, I wrote, "Who knows what other evil lurks in the heart of Bennett's computer?" Well, it turned out there was plenty more.

Former owner Howard Schultz decided he'd join the bevy of lawsuits with one aimed at reversing the sale based on claims of fraud and breach of contrac, and throw in a plan to try and get a judge to turn the team over to local ownership. As a result of the discovery process in his suit, plenty of other embarrasing e-mails turned up, including one suggesting that Bennett was contemplating a "sweet flip" before he even bought the team: if an arena deal materialized in Seattle, he'd sell the team and buy another one, which he could then move to Oklahoma City. According to ESPN's legal columnist, Lester Munson, the new e-mails give Schultz a pretty substantial case. There's also a third lawsuit, involving season-ticket holders suing Bennett for false promises. Still, the Schultz and season-ticket holder lawsuits will take a back seat for the moment, as it's the city's lawsuit that's on centre stage today. The

The timing is interesting, to say the least. For once, it probably wasn't helpful for the league that the Lakers-Celtics Finals were extended last night. There are now two dark clouds hanging over Commissioner Stern's dream matchup: the latest revelations that popped up in the Donaghy scandal and the whole Seattle fiasco, where the league is all set to abandon the 14th-largest media market in the States for the 45th-largest media market. If the Celtics had won yesterday, you might see a lot less on the Seattle case around the country, as the reporters would probably be returning to their regular towns as we speak. With the convenient access provided at the Finals, though, and today's off-day where everyone will be searching for story topics, it's a pretty safe bet that this might come up during a press conference or two.

In any case, the implications of this case go far beyond Seattle. It's not entirely about out-of-town owners, or lying, or lease disputes. The key issue in Seattle is if teams and leagues have a right to demand publicly-funded arenas, and if they can walk away at whim from a promising market steeped in tradition to move somewhere else where they're offered a sweetheart deal. It's if fans and history really mean anything to sports leagues any more, or if it really is all about the money. As ESPN's Bill Simmons wrote back in February, if Bennett and co. win, your own team might be the next to demand a new publicly-funded arena and take off if they don't get it:

"Here's why the Seattle situation should matter to everyone who cares about sports: After being part of the city for 41 years, the Sonics are being stolen away for dubious reasons while every NBA owner and executive allows it to happen, including David Stern, the guy who's supposed to be policing this stuff. I think it's reprehensible to watch someone hijack a franchise away from the people who cared about the team and loved it and nurtured it through the years. It belittles not just the good people of Seattle, but everyone who loves sports and believes it provides a unique and valuable connection for a city, a community, family members and friends."

In any case, the trial should offer some good fireworks. It's highly unusual for a case like this based on a lease agreement to actually go to trial: most are settled for large sums of money before they ever pass the courtroom doors. That's not going to happen in this case, though: the city's resolved that no amount of money will compensate them for losing the team without at least the promise of a replacement franchise. As the Associated Press reports, "When Mayor Greg Nickels is asked how much money it would take for him to consider a settlement with the NBA, he just laughs."

There is some history on the city's side, as further detailed in the AP story above: when Cleveland owner Art Modell tried to move the Browns to Baltimore, a couple of key rulings forced the Browns to play out their three-year lease in Cleveland and then only allowed them to leave on the condition that the team colours and history would stay behind and the league would offer a replacement team. The stakes are high: if the city loses this first case, the Sonics can relocate as soon as they want, possibly even in time for this coming season. A loss here would also make victory in the other two lawsuits much more difficult, as a considerable amount of the evidence and arguments will overlap. If the city wins, however, not only do they keep the team for at least two more years, providing the necessary time to find funding for an arena solution, but they also offer plenty of momentum and ammunition to Schultz's bid to nullify the sale and return the Sonics to local ownership.

As Seattle Times columnist Jerry Brewer wrote Sunday, the accusations that have been flying back and forth for months and the highly-publicized nature of the case means this trial is probably going to get ugly.

"On Monday, a brawl worthy of Don King promotion and Larry Merchant commentary will commence, a nasty, brutal tussle that figures to leave both sides looking inhuman and incompetent," he wrote. "To the victor goes the right to house the Sonics. If the city wins, Seattle's oldest pro sports franchise sticks around for at least two more years. If the Raiders win, they'll have the team in Oklahoma before sunup. The court contains a gavel instead of a basketball now. This is the most contentious relocation attempt since Art Modell moved the old Cleveland Browns to Baltimore. Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson really should've based "There Will Be Blood" on this scrum. It's as unpredictable and unhealthy as it gets."

In any case, it should be a fascinating day in court. The rally on the courthouse steps after the day's proceedings wrap up, organized by the fans from Save Our Sonics who have done so much to unite the opposition to this move, should also be highly interesting. Former Sonics Gary Payton and Xavier McDaniel are scheduled to speak at 4:30 p.m., and other Sonics legends may show up as well. If they get a good turnout, that could really help draw some national attention to this case. I'll weigh in with more from the day late tonight when I get home.