NHL Hockey thread

[Neil]

Kaberle might be the biggest coward in the league.

[Valmy]

Ah good Boston pulled it out.  Well that was a fun game to spend Tuesday night watching.

[Barrister]

The news keeps on coming.

ASG has entered into an exclusivity agreement to sell the Atlanta Hawks and Philips Arena (meaning they can't talk to anyone else for a period of time).  The Thrashers are not involved.

The Manitoba government is preparing to be involved in a low or no-cost loan (secured by the arena) to help bring the NHL to town.

[Barrister]

From the Globe & Mail:

[Grey Fox]

I wonder where the AHL Moose is going to move to.

[Valmy]

I wonder where the AHL Moose is going to move to.

Atlanta

[Barrister]

I wonder where the AHL Moose is going to move to.

One rumour had them going to Thunder Bay.

Another had them going to Abbotsford (or somewhere like that)

The second question is about affiliation.  The Moose are Vancouver's farm team - but will TNSE want to keep them as the new Winnipeg's farm team?  If so, then T Bay makes a lot of sense.  If they stay with Vancouver, then of course Abbostford makes sense.

Moose won't go to Atlanta.  Arena owners have said they can make more money from non-hockey events for 41 night per year - and that was with an NHL club.

[Grey Fox]

Depends. Expect the current Atlanta Affiliate to move next year too. The Chicago Wolves. Alright they aren't moving. I guess they'll become the Jets affiliate.

[Barrister]

Depends. Expect the current Atlanta Affiliate to move next year too. The Chicago Wolves. Alright they aren't moving. I guess they'll become the Jets affiliate.

Not if the Jets own their own AHL team (the Moose).

The Wolves will probably just switch affiliation.  I hear Vancouver might need an affiliate.

[Barrister]

NHL's calm before the storm 2
Light on Manitoba horizon growing brighter by the day

PAUL FRIESEN, WINNIPEG SUN

FIRST POSTED: WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 2011 9:05:23 CDT PM


So much for the rapper.

And the Balkan? Forget it. He's busy running from debts and lawsuits.

Two potential "saviours" of the Atlanta Thrashers have been nailed to the cross of irrelevance.

Which means that light on the Manitoba horizon is growing brighter by the day.

First, the truth about Lil John, an Atlanta-born rapper who was reportedly ready to buy a good portion of the Thrashers.

Wednesday, Lil John cleared up that lil rumour.

"I love the Thrashers. But I'm not investing in them," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "That's a lot of money to buy a professional hockey team! I'll help them out with some awareness, though."

Doesn't sound like Lil John got past the first step of shopping: looking at the price tag. If he was ever in the store at all.

Then there's J.B. Smith, dubbed the Balkan, who apparently can't be trusted in a store.
Smith, we were told, was in negotiations to buy the Thrashers, the NBA's Hawks and Phillips Arena from the Atlanta Spirit group.

Turns out the mysterious (ad)venture capitalist is in more trouble than he is negotiations, as there's reportedly a court judgment for nearly $2 million against him, of which he has yet to pay a dime.

That leaves one local group kicking the hockey team's tires, even as Winnipeg's Mark Chipman hooks it up to the hitch of one of his Birchwood Group SUV's, pointed north.

Even Atlanta booster Tom Glavine, the former left-hander who considered a pitch of his own for the Thrashers, admits the city appears to be down to its last at-bat, facing an 0-2 count.

"There was always some sense that we had a little bit of time as long as Phoenix was still in the picture," Glavine told the Associated Press. "Now ... everything is on an accelerated path. There seems to be a consensus there is going to be a team in Winnipeg ... unfortunately the bull's-eye seems to be on the Thrashers' back."

Sensing the sights of the Canadian hunter trained on their team, Atlanta fans are scrambling to organize a tailgate party/rally at a previously scheduled select-a-seat event for season-ticket holders, Saturday.

TSN has asked Atlanta's NBC affiliate for video of the event, which isn't likely to match the 35,000-person, save-the-Jets mob scene at Portage and Main back in 1995.

More proof that Atlanta fans don't care, the snobs from the Great White North will say.

The truth is, Thrashers fans have simply been taken advantage of far too long, and they've had enough.

The Atlanta owners have made Barry Shenkarow look like Mike Ilitch, redefining dysfunctional, too busy bickering with and suing each other to put a decent team on the ice.

Eleven seasons, one playoff appearance and not a single playoff game victory — name me one team not named the Habs or Leafs who'd thrive in that pail of crap.

Just like you can't blame fans in Phoenix for not supporting their dead franchise walking, you can't pin this one on Hotlanta hockey types. Nobody ever gave them a reason to believe.

So these last few days will likely be quiet down in Georgia. And they'll likely be quiet, here.

The calm before the storm.

Listen closely, though, and you might hear the scribblings of a sale agreement being hammered out. Followed by the rattling of a trailer hitch.

As the abandoned dreams of one city are loaded up and hauled to another, where they'll find hearts hungry to revive them.

Not with the help of rappers or mysterious, cloaked investors.

But on their own.

Just because they're eager to believe.

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2011/05/18/nhls-calm-before-the-storm

[Jacob]

Canucks up 2 and 0 vs the Sharks. Looks good so far

[Grey Fox]

The Jets, The Jets are coming!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/atlanta-thrashers-moving-to-winnipeg/article2029179/

An agreement to sell the National Hockey League's Atlanta Thrashers to a Winnipeg group which plans to relocate the franchise to the Manitoba capital is done.

Sources confirmed tonight that preparations are being made for an announcement Tuesday, confirming the sale and transfer of the Thrashers to True North Sports and Entertainment, which owns and operates the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League and the MTS Centre arena, which would become the NHL team's new home.

Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the National Hockey League, is expected to travel to Winnipeg to make the news official.

The announcement would end months of speculation about whether one of the NHL's financially-troubled American sunbelt teams might move north, filling the void left when the Winnipeg Jets packed up and left for Phoenix in 1996, where they became the Coyotes.

Much of the talk this spring had centred on that failing franchise, which was bought by the league after being placed in bankruptcy by its former owner Jerry Moyes in 2009.

But sources in Winnipeg suggest that the Thrashers had in fact been the primary target of potential owners Mark Chipman and David Thomson all along, and that some months back, the NHL board of governors quietly approved the sale and transfer of the team, pending the negotiation of a purchase agreement between Atlanta Spirit LLC, the Thrashers' owners, and True North.

In the meantime, no potential owner materialized who was prepared to keep the team in Georgia, and local governments there showed no interest in propping up the Thrashers.

"There seems to be a consensus there is going to be a team in Winnpeg," former major league pitcher Tom Glavine, who had tried unsuccessfully to find new ownership for the hockey team in Atlanta, acknowledged last week. ""The question is who, and unfortunately the bullseye seems to be on the Thrashers' back."

When it appeared this spring that the Coyotes might also be in play, after a deal to sell the team to Matthew Hulsizer underwritten by a municipal bond issue fell apart in the face of political opposition from the Goldwater Institute, the Winnipeg group sought to take advantage of what suddenly seemed a buyers' market, with two teams available and no other potential
owners or relocations sites on the horizon.

After the City of Glendale agreed to cover $25-million of the Coyotes losses for the 2011-2012 season, and the NHL opted to operate the club in Arizona for at least one more year, True North's full focus returned to Atlanta, and a deal was hammered out this week.

Even before those final negotiations took place, the potential Winnipeg owners concluded an agreement with the Manitoba government which will allow revenues from a sports bar with slot machine to be used for improvements to the arena, and to be used towards the debt service on the building.

That's consistent with what Manitoba premier Greg Sellinger told reporters earlier this week, when he said that the provincial government had no interest in subsidizing an NHL team, but that the province had financially supported the renovation of the MTS Centre in the past, and would continue to be willing to do so.

[HVC]

There'll be no living with BB now.

[Barrister]

There'll be no living with BB now.

You really shouldn't have doubted me... 

[Josephus]

I never doubted Beeb. Good for Winnipeg!