NHL Dreams

Thanks for asking

NHL czar Gary Bettman today responded to Andrea Horwath's open letter about an NHL franchise for this city. It was polite, but clearly repeated the NHL position that Hamilton isn't in its plans. Read the Bettman letter.

In Friday's Spectator, Steve Milton writes about how the NHL is drumming up support from disparate sourcesin its determined battle to keep the Phoenix Coyotes from being sold to Jim Balsillie and moved to Hamilton.

We should have predicted this, but politicians are climbing in to the Coyotes ring. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that a pair of senators are playing the buy American card. No darn way an Ontario city should get a U.S. hockey team.

Following the rules

Steve Milton today writes about how the two combatants over the future of the Coyotes each are claiming that all they want are the rules to be followed. But what rules? And who has the high ground on this?
Read his column here.

 Also in today's Spec, Joan Walters looks at mediation and how it might work. How can you mediate between the idea of " I own the team, and you don't."
 Mediators are used to entrenched positions.

  As Allan Stitt, president of ADR Chambers, a Toronto mediation firm notes in the story:

    "They tell me: We're really far apart, we're really firm in our position, we won't move and we don't     want to make concessions. I never get calls from people saying we're really close, we get along         well and  everybody wants to get creative."

You can read her full story here.

 

Hockey town in the desert?

Hockey fans in Phoenix are rallying to save their team.
But just how much passion for the game is there in the desert? Steve Milton said just three fans showed up at the courthouse earlier this week for the pivotal court date.
But nonetheless there is a site for those fans of the team that do exist.  Check out Save the Coyotes here.

 Earlier this week, the Arizona Republic asked the question: Can  Phoenix ever be a Hockey town:

Here are couple of excerpts from that article:

• This past season, the Coyotes had a 0.4 TV rating. That translates to about 7,210 homes. Hockey ratings generally are lower than those for other sports in a market. But ratings for the Suns and Diamondbacks are 10 times that, while the NFC champion Cardinals in 2008 had a 16.9 rating, or viewership in nearly 305,000 homes.

•   The Coyotes are among the lowest-rated teams for TV viewership across the NHL, with just a handful of teams such as Anaheim, Atlanta, Florida, Los Angeles and the New York Islanders having worse ratings, according to records compiled by Sports Business Daily.

You can read the entire article here.

Showdown in Phoenix

The NHL and Jerry Moyes face off in a Phoenix courtroom today. Judge Redfield Baum must decide  who controls the team in order to decide whether the Chapter 11 bankruptcy is legitimate.
Then he can determine whether the sale of the team — through an auction with Jim Balsillie's offer standing as the first bidder — can proceed.
But there's no guarantee any decision will be reached today in the hearing that begins at about 4:30 p.m. Hamilton time.
Kevin McGran writes about the latest evidence presented in barrage of submissions that the judge must consider.
Steve Milton  reports on the struggle between NHL boss Gary Bettman, Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes and Jim Balsillie.

In Phoenix, they're wondering if hockey will ever succeed in the desert. The Coyotes' attendance has been among the lowest in the National Hockey League, although the owner last season bought about 1,000 tickets per game. Their game broadcasts draw some of the league's lowest local ratings.

Even with legend Wayne Gretzky as coach, the team's on-ice performance has been poor enough to keep it out of the playoffs. Off the ice, the team, during its entire time in Arizona, never has posted a profit.

Phoenix Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes has sent a letter to the editor of the Arizona Republic newspaper. He says he is resigned to losing more than $200 million dollars of his own money put into the team "no matter what."
 And he says, after explaining a history of investing in business in the area that Jim Balsillie is the only one who has come forward with enough money to pay the team's creditors. IN it, he writes:

   

No one other than Canadian businessman Jim Balsillie's company has offered enough to pay the          creditors, which led to my initiating a court-supervised sale process. This process will be open and     transparent, and all offers current and future must be fairly examined; guaranteeing an equitable         offer.

    I know I will lose more than $200 million invested in capital and the majority of my loans to the           team, no matter what. I have come to terms with that. But I don't think it's reasonable for the city     or the NHL to go to the next person with deep pockets and give that person a deal they would not         give me and the investors I sought to attract.

See the full article here.

Live with Steve Milton

Earlier today, columnist Steve Milton live blogged on theSpec.com on the NHL bid for Hamilton.
 If you missed it, you can catch the  whole session here

The NHL tees off on Balsillie and the bankruptcy

Thursday the NHL filed its response in Phoenix court to the bankruptcy filing of the Coyotes.
That filing takes a pretty strong run at Balsillie and the deal.
 The very structure of the league is at stake it argues. And it says the league must retain the power to make sure owners with the proper integrity and financial clout and business acumen are allowed to join the club.
 There is also a suggestion he doesn't want to go through the league's rigourous vetting process.
That would be the same process that brought  William "Boots" del Biaggio into the league as an owner?
 Hmm.  Didn't Balsillie get approved by the League as part of his Pittsburgh bid.
Here Spec writer Ken Peters writes about the documents.

The Globe and Mail has an interesting take. Its focus is on what the NHL says it knew about the Coyotes financial situation in the documents, compared to what the public statements by league officials were.
 They don't always match.  Have a read here.

Later today we're expecting new court documents from Phoenix, this time from the Coyotes defending and explaining their move to bankruptcy.

Talking with Balsillie

Writers from the Spec and Star sat down with Jim Balsillie yesterday for a wide ranging talk.
In answer to critics that he refuses to play by NHL rules, he said there has never been a front door entry for him into the NHL owners club.  The Spec's Steve Milton explores that idea in this column published in today's Spec.

Andrew Deschel sat in and does his best to get a bead on who Balsillie is in his piece in today's paper.

In the Star, Damien Cox explores Balsillie's charm and motivation in his take on the interview.

You can view a video of a portion of that session from Thursday here.

News for Thursday

The Spectator's coverage starts today with news that the city and Jim Balisillie have reached a lease agreement for Copps Colesium. Steve Milton has a column on the challenges of moving NHL clubs and Jeff Mahoney reflects on the Great Expectations of the city's arena.

There is a also a CP story on the Premier's comments regarding possible funding for Copps renovations and an update on the city of Glendale's court filings in an attempt to keep the team in Arizona.

Jeff Blair, the Globe's baseball writer and a Hamilton natve, weights in on Gretzky. And the National Post says the value of Coyotes memorabilia could rise if the team comes to Hamilton.

The Arizona Republic has a story on the ongoing court squabbles between Jerry Moyes and the NHL.

Today's coverage

Our Spec's coverage today begins with Nicole MacIntyre's story that Jim Balsillie wants public money to help pay for renovations to Copps Colesium. Ken Peters has a piece on the fact that there's no deal between the Balsillie group and the City of Hamilton yet. John Kernaghan looks at the lastest in the court battle over control of the Coyotes and we have a round up of events to this point.

Damien Cox of the Toronto Star says that Wayne Gretzky is supportive of the Jerry Reinsdorf bid for the team the Great One coaches.

The National Post has a story on the challenges facing some of the cash-strapped teams in the NHL.