NHL 2009-2010 Season

[Neil]

The Canucks' shittiness has been exposed.  Now, they must continue to lose.

Lose? they won the division. I don't see any Alberta teams in the playoffs. Canucks in 6.

Canucks vs. Habs in the dream all Canada (Bettman in tears) final. Canucks in 7 there every game an OT nail biter.

No true Canadian supports the Canucks.  They represent everything that is wrong with hockey fans.

[PRC]

0 - 0 going into Overtime in Colorado vs. San Jose... and the Sharks end up with an own goal!  WTF!?  The Sharks are cursed.

[Barrister]

The Canucks' shittiness has been exposed.  Now, they must continue to lose.

Lose? they won the division. I don't see any Alberta teams in the playoffs. Canucks in 6.

Canucks vs. Habs in the dream all Canada (Bettman in tears) final. Canucks in 7 there every game an OT nail biter.

Meh.

If the Flames aren't in it, I don't care.  That certainly isn't my dream final.

[BuddhaRhubarb]

The Canucks' shittiness has been exposed.  Now, they must continue to lose.

Lose? they won the division. I don't see any Alberta teams in the playoffs. Canucks in 6.

Canucks vs. Habs in the dream all Canada (Bettman in tears) final. Canucks in 7 there every game an OT nail biter.

No true Canadian supports the Canucks.  They represent everything that is wrong with hockey fans.

Like what? You always say that, but despite what you say on Languish constantly, your decrees do not make anything so.

Real Hockey fans are the same everywhere.

[Neil]

Like what? You always say that, but despite what you say on Languish constantly, your decrees do not make anything so.

Real Hockey fans are the same everywhere.

All that snivelling and whining and blaming the goalie for not saving every odd-man rush that comes his way.  They whined and they cried about how their goalies were no good, and then all of the sudden they change their gameplan, play a little more defensively, and suddenly goaltending isn't a problem anymore.

I will never, ever forgive the Canucks fanbase for the crimes of the late 90s and early naughts.

[Valdemar]

Denmark only has 6 players in the NHL (And some not regulars) yet we IIRC have 3 playing in the playoffs atm 

V

[PRC]

I will never, ever forgive the Canucks fanbase for the crimes of the late 90s and early naughts.

I blame Mark Messier.

[Neil]

I will never, ever forgive the Canucks fanbase for the crimes of the late 90s and early naughts.

I blame Mark Messier.

And Jovonovski.  And Bertuzzi.  And Naslund.  And the Sedin twins.  And the ownership, management and coaching staff.  And the Vancouver media, and the fans.  And pretty much everybody involved in the team other than the goaltenders, although Luongo is also a bad person.

[PRC]

And Jovonovski.  And Bertuzzi.  And Naslund.  And the Sedin twins.  And the ownership, management and coaching staff.  And the Vancouver media, and the fans.  And pretty much everybody involved in the team other than the goaltenders, although Luongo is also a bad person.

No, just Messier... although I guess you should include Mike Keenan.

[Ed Anger]

I will never, ever forgive the Canucks fanbase for the crimes of the late 90s and early naughts.

I blame Mark Messier.

And Jovonovski.  And Bertuzzi.  And Naslund.  And the Sedin twins.  And the ownership, management and coaching staff.  And the Vancouver media, and the fans.  And pretty much everybody involved in the team other than the goaltenders, although Luongo is also a bad person.

I loved that planned Vancouver victory parade route website in the middle of the playoffs last year.

[Barrister]

On my favourite NHL topic...

Steal of a deal gets nuttier: Reinsdorf gets $200K if it flopsBy: Randy Turner
16/04/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 15
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ROSS D. FRANKLIN / AP PHOTO Enlarge Image

FILE - In tis Friday, Jan. 22, 2010, file photo, Jobing.com Arena, right, owned by the city of Glendale, Ariz., where the Phoenix Coyotes hockey team currently plays home games, and University of Phoenix Stadium, left, where the Arizona Cardinals football team plays are shown in Glendale.
Not to beat a dead Coyote, but.....

Surprise, surprise. Turns out, as suggested in this space Thursday, the lavish and too-good-to-be-true deal to keep the Phoenix Coyotes in Glendale appears to have more holes than Vesa Toskala.

We're speaking, of course, of a proposed lease agreement that provides Jerry Reinsdorf an unprecedented $165 million over seven years in tax funds to NOT guarantee the Coyotes' future in the desert.

Get this: According to the memorandum of understanding, the city will pay Reinsdorf $200,000 if the deal doesn't come to fruition. We're not making this up.

Stinks, right? Yet most media outlets and pundits across North America pretty much concluded that once the MOU was unanimously passed by Glendale council Tuesday night, selling the Coyotes to Reinsdorf and keeping them in Arizona was pretty much a done deal.

Go figure, however, that as details of the outrageous proposal spread, the disbelief took hold.

"I have worked with dozens of government entities, and I can't think of anyone who would entertain anything like this," Marc Ganis, a sports-business consultant for 20 years and president of Chicago-based Sportcorp Ltd,, told the Arizona Republic. "But the whole bankruptcy situation has been unprecedented."

How does this happen? The City of Glendale, which is leaking tax revenue profusely in a reeling economy, desperately wants the $4 million the Coyotes pay in rent, and they'll also get revenue from parking and a ticket surcharge under the proposal. According to our math, that means the city is prepared to charge a handful of local businesses $47 million a year in taxes to get $4 million-plus in revenue. Isn't that, like, criminal?

Remember, former Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes, before taking the team into bankruptcy court, pleaded with city fathers for concessions, too. Moyes didn't get a sniff.

"If they had given us this deal two years ago, there would not have been a bankruptcy," former Coyotes CEO Jeff Shumway told the Republic. "It's a good deal for Reinsdorf and the NHL, but I don't know how good of a deal it is for the taxpayers."

You know, when a former Coyotes executive is questioning a deal he would have killed for, you've got to seriously wonder what's going down at city hall. After all, these are the same people who built the arena on the taxpayers' backs to the tune of $180 million.

The same politicians ponied up more than $120 million to fund a spring training facility for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Reinsdorf's Chicago White Sox. Now another $165 million for the Coyotes, a team that has lost hundreds of millions of dollars and never turned a dime in profit?

Then there's the most confounding aspect of all: If hockey hasn't worked in Phoenix for 15 years, why does anybody believe now that the financial fortunes of the team will ever change?

Look, we're not kidding anybody here. If the proposal, which will probably be challenged in court, doesn't fly, then the Coyotes probably will, and Winnipeggers could wake up some morning soon and find the NHL in their backyard again. The NHL has very limited options -- a self-imposed deadline of June 30 to either sell the team to a local buyer or relocate -- and already league owners stand to eat at least $20 million in losses on the orphaned team this season alone.

Commissioner Gary Bettman can't afford to cover those losses anymore.

We'll see if the businessmen and residents of Glendale can.

Tick, tock.

[email protected]


Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 16, 2010 C1

[HVC]

Just move them to Hamilton already.

[Neil]

A winning team can go a long ways towards building a fanbase.  Of course nobody cares, because the Coyotes were terrible for 15 years.  They were Leaf-like in their futility.

[Barrister]

Just move them to Hamilton already.

Winnipeg.

Scoring with the NHLEight steps to getting Winnipeg's team backBy: Tim Campbell
10/04/2010 7:59 AM | Comments: 17
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FREE PRESS ARCHIVES Enlarge Image

RUMOURS and the twits and bloggers who peddle them aren't going to make the NHL come back to Winnipeg. More rel­evant is the timing of things very much out of Winnipeg's control.

Two things will be most important to fans eager for this outcome: Be ready to wrap both arms around the news and put one credit card on the counter. Step by step, here's precisely how the story will unfold:

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Forget Coyotes, folks 1 FIND BACKERS AND PARTNERS

Any Winnipeg transaction for the foresee­able future will involve True North Sports and Entertainment, which controls the MTS Centre, the NHL-capable downtown arena that opened in 2004. It has 15,003 seats and 50 luxury suites.

True North and its partners have the finan­cial wherewithal to acquire an NHL team, so Step 1, though not as simple in every case, appears to be a hurdle passed. The company's main players are the Chipman family, which controls multiple businesses, and Osmington, the personal real estate arm of David Thomson, head of Canada's richest family.

Myths unravelled -- "Thomson owns the large majority of True North." In fact, True North is owned by the Chipman family and Osmington in relatively equal proportion.

2 FIND AN AVAILABLE TEAM

Sounds easy, but it's not. Whatever the reports of attendance and/or bottom-line challenges in the league's 30 markets, almost all NHL teams are tied to leases of varying lengths in their communities and/or buildings.

Florida, for instance, is alleged to be a wreck on financial sheets but is in a lease that still has decades to run at BankAtlantic Center.

Speculation continues to swirl around several struggling franchises, especially Atlanta, Nashville and Phoenix, which are all mired in ownership and fan-support uncertainty. Other franchises are said to be quietly for sale, and one of them -- not so quietly due to the finan­cial troubles of owner Tom Hicks -- is the Dallas Stars. Phoenix appears the most likely candidate to relocate in the short term, given that the NHL, which bought the team out of bankruptcy last fall, believes it can simply walk away from Glendale, Ariz., by mid-year if it needs to. Nashville is tied to Bridgestone Arena until June 2012.

Myths unravelled -- "Thomson will just write a cheque for the NHL franchise." Not going to happen, insiders say. If a suitable deal comes along, though, the True North partners will back the financing.

3 BE AVAILABLE WHEN GARY BETTMAN CALLS

Take this, above all, to the bank. No team is going anywhere unless the NHL com­missioner says so. This owner or that may want to sell, but no transaction will even begin until Bettman, who acts on behalf of all owners, lines up the deal. The good news on this front is that Bettman is more than familiar with Chipman, True North and the MTS Centre, and Winni­peg's history. Insiders say that given the right circumstances, the commissioner would jump at the chance to rectify what happened in 1996. They also say Bettman has long moved on to formulating a future plan and pays little regard to his harshest critics, who continue to be stuck in the past by bashing him for his U.S. expan­sion plan of the '90s.

Despite the spate of rumours and wishful thinking, this call has not yet been made.

Myths unravelled -- "Thomson is throwing his financial weight around and is negotiating this and a few other rumoured deals." All of that is believed to be false because Thomson, a very wealthy but private person, has no inter­est whatsoever in the limelight or being front and centre in a transaction that would be such major news.

4 NEGOTIATE A DEAL

If and when Bettman calls, the vendor (unknown) and buyer (True North) will be already lined up. Details like the amount, the timing of a move, etc., will fall to teams of law­yers for both sides. Sales can be enacted and closed quite quickly -- earlier this year, Jeff Vinik took the helm of the Tampa Bay Light­ning in about eight weeks -- but relocation will be a shade more tricky.

As for price, Chipman is on record saying the sky is not the limit. His breaking-point number is unknown, but he has said the cost of acquisi­tion has to be reasonable in order to make an NHL franchise a viable business in Winnipeg.

Given the wide speculation on the number of troubled NHL franchises, it's entirely possible Chipman will refuse to chase any deal, that he may actually try to drive a hard bargain because of his "instant-playability" location and also because he may feel the NHL needs him more than he needs them. It's our belief, and ours alone, that Chipman starts to go cold on a deal when the number nears $200 million.

5 THE TICKET AND CORPORATE DRIVE

Step 5 will be in conjunc­tion with, not following, the negotiation to purchase a team. When Bettman starts the wheels in motion, expect a quick announcement that phone lines and the MTS Centre ticket windows will be open for fans to make ticket commit­ments. Credit card numbers and multi-year promises will surely be required from Winnipeg fans.

And the poten­tial fran­chise's corporate sales team will also be looking for multi-year commitments in many areas. A week to two weeks of those simultan­eous "time-to-buck-up" campaigns will provide Chipman and his group with the support and ammunition they will need to make a deal -- or else it will be a major red flag telling them they might be reaching too high.

Of all the steps in the process regarding any return to Winnipeg, this one makes insiders the most nervous.

Myths unravelled -- "Winnipeggers are in for sticker shock, which may scare them away." Most pundits who spout this don't give fans here enough credit. The price of tickets, should they ever be for sale, won't be cheap -- not averaging in the mid-$20s range, as they were 14 years ago -- but most followers of this story are well aware that costs in the NHL have risen dramatically since the league left in 1996.

6 NHL DUE DILIGENCE

Welcome to the lawyers' favourite part, which includes formal applications and a blizzard of paperwork once there is prelimin­ary agreement for a sale and relocation. This step also involves background checks by the NHL of potential owners and their net worth. In the case of a relocation, the league also seeks to examine the market it will enter, including obtaining the likelihood and level of ticket and corporate support. The NHL has been saying it's done little of that kind of background work on Winnipeg to this point, a very convenient way to deflect any questions, but it surely has a book on some elements of a market it once occupied for 17 seasons. The past will count for something, but the present and future are likely the deal-breakers or deal-makers in this step, and the league will want to do much of its own work in this area to feel more certain.

The main question is going to be what level of revenue Winnipeg can contribute to the overall equation. Generating enough revenue is critical -- first, to be able to properly operate a team within the CBA-mandated salary structure (payroll floor of $40.8 million and ceiling of $56.8 million), and second, to actually be a serious step up from the "bottom-rung-revenue" market it will replace.

This stage also includes an inter­view process and the commis­sioner assigning some due­diligence tasks to league committees, from which will come one or more rec­o­mmenda­tions.

The league by­laws stipulate that a relocation involving a new owner or ownership group affords that new owner or owners a chance to come before the board of governors to make their case. If mat­ters ever reach this stage, it will be fascinating to see who sits in the chairs on behalf of the relocated franchise. Chipman will surely be the point man and is the person many NHL govern­ors are familiar with, but will the ultra-private Thomson be there with him?

7 NHL BOARD APPROVAL

This is crunch time for any potential re­location. It's when other NHL owners give thumbs-up or thumbs-down to any proposal.

According to the league's bylaws, a majority of other clubs must approve a move, meaning support is required from at least 15 of the other 29 teams. The teams are given a list of criteria with which to judge the application -- several of those are spelled out in the bylaws -- and the league might even ask for a fee for such a relocation. It's not known if the NHL would insist on this with Winnipeg, but the best guess, especially as it relates to the current case in Phoenix, is that the league wouldn't have the clout to demand it and would be more than happy to simply find a landing place for a fran­chise that is on life-support. The bylaws appear to contain several malleable items, including the requirement that the application for any franchise transfer and relocation be submitted to the league by Jan. 1 of the year preceding the intended move. If the Phoenix option is a real one, we're past that deadline by some 15 months and there are still people who believe this option is do-able for 2010-11. As in the pre­viously mentioned case with Vinik and Tampa Bay, things can happen relatively quickly in the NHL when ducks are in a row and the league is motivated.

Generally speaking, the impression else­where of Winnipeg leans towards the favour­able for several reasons -- the new arena, the somewhat romantic notion of re-addressing a past situation, and the fact it's got to be some rungs higher than the worst of the U.S. markets on the revenue meter.

8 AN APPROPRIATE FACILITY

In the current case, upgrades to the MTS Centre will be required for an NHL team to call it home. Despite what comes from so many commentators and talking heads, those modifications will not include adding seats.

Whoever spouts the erroneous belief that more seats are a must shows a lack of depth in the economic matters of an NHL franchise, given that extra seats are the worst seats and gener­ate the lowest revenue.

The most important improvement to the arena is surely to make it NHL-media friendly.

Facilities for TV and radio crews need to grow substantially. An expansion has been planned for above the ice if the NHL were to move back to Winnipeg. There are also some behind-the­scenes matters like studios, working rooms and crew space required at ice level. The arena has been designed to allow for those expansions and upgrades.

Officials say there is a way a few luxury suites could be added to the building, but those won't be required for the NHL's return date, whenever that might be. Those could be retro­fitted at a later time, but the construction cost of those adds won't be small.

Myths unravelled -- "Start adding the seats." Not happening. "We might even lose a few for camera positions," True North chair­man Mark Chipman said. "Adding seats can't be done. It's not physically possible. We can't take the roof off. Any building improvements will not include the addition of any seats. The NHL likes the building. In discussions we've had with the league in the past few years, size has never been a concern. We have always thought the building is the right size for the market.

"Our ability to add a couple thousand seats would produce revenue that would not be material, given the ticket prices, and moreover, it would make it more difficult to sell commit­ted season-ticket revenue that will ultimately determine the success of any team."

[Neil]

The problem with Winnipeg is that it's poor and full of Indians, who can't afford to see a hockey game.