Isn't Hamilton a good size city? i read the same reports that Toronto wants a second team. I remember a while back, before the Detroit area had it's problems that Detroit wanted a second team. And the team that was going to move to Detroit was Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay is (or was) owned by Bill Davidson who also owns(ed) the Pistons.
Yeah. Hamilton makes sense. That would be (3) franchises in extremely close proximity though with teams all ready in Toronto and Buffalo. They probably won't even consider Houston, but I've been eager for a team in Houston for a long time. It is the 3rd largest city in America for Christ's sake.
They should move to Mississauga (T.O suburb). It is actually larger than Vancouver and Winnipeg, population wise.
Bettman doesn't like the deal made by the Phoenix owner. He is supposedly filing chapter 11 and trying to get around league rules to sell the team. The purchaser is the guy running the Blackberry Corp. and wants to move to Canada. I'm not saying that won't happen but don't look for this to be a quick deal. Bettman usually gets what he wants, and he seemed none too happy about how the ownership in Phoenix try to skirt the rules.
I don't follow NHL, but hockey playoffs in HD is pretty awesome. I remember getting into the Stanley Cup finals last year.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/columns/story?columnist=burnside_scott&id=4146131 Balsillie again takes wrong approachComment Email Print Share By Scott Burnside ESPN.com Archive In the end, you have to ask yourself this question about BlackBerry lord Jim Balsillie and his quixotic quest for an NHL franchise: Does he really want a team, or is he more interested in kicking sand in commissioner Gary Bettman's corn flakes? It's a fair question following Balsillie's latest bid to join the NHL owners club, an offer of a whopping $212.5 million for the troubled Phoenix Coyotes provided he can move them to Southern Ontario. Like his earlier bids to acquire and then move the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Nashville Predators, this gambit looks like it has almost no hope of succeeding in large part because Balsillie continues to try the old end-around as opposed to a more conciliatory approach. AP Photo/Dave Chidley After failing to land past bids with Pittsburgh and Nashville, Jim Balsillie is trying again with the Phoenix Coyotes. Diplomacy definitely is not in Balsillie's vocabulary, and he appears more like a man who believes that simply because he is richer than rich, Canadian and owns a pair of skates and a stick, it is his birthright to own an NHL franchise. Guess what? Balsillie is not the only rich guy in the room, although his actions regularly suggest he thinks he is. And trying to put the NHL in a headlock and make it say, "Uncle! You can be an owner" is never going to play. Not with Bettman as commissioner. That's why this latest scheme smacks of trying not just to land a team, but to create a pressure point where the NHL owners have to decide between Bettman and Balsillie. That strategy, if indeed it's part of the dynamic here, seems fatally flawed. We recall talking to an NHL owner a couple of years ago when Balsillie had been denied in his attempts to secure the Predators, a bid marked by his soliciting down payments on season tickets for a team in Hamilton, Ontario. What was wrong with Balsillie, we asked? After all, he is a passionate hockey guy and is certainly rich and smart, something that hasn't necessarily been the case with all NHL owners past and present. The owner explained that, with the salary cap in place, owning an NHL team is an attractive bauble for rich people who like to have their toys, whether they're big yachts or race horses or sports teams. This owner figured there would always be demand for teams, which is why potential owners have to act nice. They can't run around like secret squirrels trying to sneak into the club. Which is exactly what Balsillie has consistently done; it is what he has done with this latest bid. Balsillie and Jerry Moyes, the trucking magnate who continues to lose around $40 million annually on the Coyotes, cooked up this deal on the sly. How's that for loyalty, by the way? Moyes has been getting handouts and advances from the NHL for months to help his cash-strapped team stay afloat, and then he slithers around behind the league's back, quietly declaring his team bankrupt to pave the way, in theory, for Balsillie to buy the Coyotes and move them out of town. Honorable? Hardly. You know how this is going to play in Canada, of course. Balsillie has already set up a Web site to attract support for the repatriation of one of Canada's NHL franchises, the Coyotes having left Winnipeg in 1996. No one seems to remember the team moved because the prairie city couldn't afford to have an NHL team. It still can't, but that doesn't stop Canadians pining for more NHL franchises in the Great White North. So, Balsillie is seen in many Canadians as a great champion of their grand game. Some in the Canadian media like to portray Balsillie as the white knight to Bettman's evil scientist, intent on performing unspeakable experiments on the game they hold so near and dear. The Phoenix experiment, of course, has been a disaster, both on the ice and in the board room. A series of woeful business decisions made by Moyes and his former partners have conspired to make the future bleak in the desert. But the future looked bleak in other NHL cities in the past. Remember when it looked like Calgary would lose its team? Or Ottawa? Or Buffalo? Or Pittsburgh? The league stayed the course and those are all healthy markets now. Could Phoenix be another example? Maybe. Maybe not. At the very moment Moyes was filing Chapter 11 papers Tuesday, TSN of Canada reported Bettman was in Phoenix to discuss with Moyes a potential offer from Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf. Once Bettman found out about the bankruptcy/Balsillie scenario, those discussions didn't take place. Shortly thereafter, Moyes was stripped of his duties by the NHL, setting the stage for what will be an ugly court case over the bankruptcy and the ownership bid. No doubt Reinsdorf wouldn't be interesting in paying what Balsillie is offering, but that always has been Balsillie's strategy: overpay because he can. Would the Coyotes be better off somewhere in Southern Ontario? Everyone assumes another franchise in or near Toronto, the country's biggest city, would be an instant money-maker. And given recent meetings held with local businessmen and deputy commissioner Bill Daly in Toronto, Balsillie isn't the only one who thinks so. It behooves the NHL and its partner, the NHL Players' Association, which tacitly supports the addition of another Canadian team because of the potential revenue boost it would represent, to do a detailed study on whether another Ontario team is valid. And it behooves them to make those findings public. The study should include what the impact would be on the Buffalo Sabres, who draw heavily from the Niagara region, and the mighty Maple Leafs. Let's not guess or assume it would work, let's find out. It would make more sense than trying to ram yourself down the league's throat, as Balsillie seems intent on doing ... again. Scott Burnside covers the NHL for ESPN.com.
I thought Houston was the Fourth largest city? I agree with having a team in Hamilton would put three teams in very close proximity. Buffalo is only an hour or hour and a half from Toronto, anyways...
Mississauga might have a larger city population than Vancouver, but the Metro Vancouver area is over 2 million while, like you said, Mississauga is part of Toronto's metro. Not that it doesn't make sense to move a team there...just that your comparison to Vancouver doesn't make sense.
Oh, gawd. Quebec City having a hockey team again? That would be awful. As though the Habs aren't bad enough, now 2 teams in the province of Quebec? Of course this is my bias, but I KINDA understand why it would be done. Toronto has asked for a 2nd team, but that got shot down. Winnipeg, Hamilton, or Milwaukee would be marvelous options, IMHO.
Sounds like the potential buyer is targeting Hamilton for the team. A segment of the linked Arizona Republic news story from this morning is below. http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2009/05/07/20090507biz-coyotes0507.html The NHL's roughly $35 million loan could be a key issue in its claim that Moyes had no authority to put the Coyotes into bankruptcy protection on Tuesday. The filing also included selling the Coyotes for $212.5 million to billionaire Jim Balsillie, who wants to move the team to Hamilton, Ontario. Bankruptcy filings also shed light on how bad the financial situation was for the Coyotes and reveal that coach Wayne Gretzky will receive millions of dollars if the sale goes through. The records show the following: • The team lost about $73 million during the three previous fiscal years, the last one ending June 30. Earlier years and the current fiscal year were not disclosed. • The team's arena-management arm, which runs concerts and other events at Jobing.com Arena, lost $20.1 million during those three fiscal years. • During the past three years, the team's ticket sales have totaled 41 percent to 43 percent of total revenue. A typical NHL team generates at least one-half of its total revenue from gate receipts. The average ticket price for the Coyotes was $37.45, $12.21 below the NHL average. • Gretzky, also a minority owner, will receive $22.5 million if the sale goes through. A change in ownership allows Gretzky to sever his ties, but he has a guaranteed coaching contract that pays him $6.5 million next season and $8 million the following year. He also is owed $8 million in deferred compensation. During his four years as coach, the team never made the playoffs and posted a 143-161-24 record. Gretzky could not be reached for comment. The bankruptcy hearing, where Glendale and the NHL will try to block the Coyotes from leaving the Valley, is set for 1:30 p.m. in downtown Phoenix.
