Any truth of the rumor that Ken Holland is on the phone, trying to get Owner Bettman to trade Doan to the Wings?

Posted by Paul from Motown Area on 08/25/09 at 05:50 PM ET

Any truth of the rumor that Ken Holland is on the phone, trying to get Owner Bettman to trade Doan to the Wings?

lol...I can’t wait until Owner Bettman pulls a Vincent Kennedy McMahon and tells Gretz, “You’re fired!”

Posted by dash_pinched from Rumour Mill Bay on 08/25/09 at 06:16 PM ET

Face it NHL, hockey in Arizona is D-E-A-D.  Balsillie may not be the answer, but at least he has a plan.  May not be the best plan, but is probably better than going belly up in a hurry out in the desert.  Kind of like the South Park episode where you choose between a giant douche and a turd sandwich.  No plan is worse than a bad plan

Posted by yreland from Paul MacLean's Moustache on 08/25/09 at 06:18 PM ET

Oh yeah, this is going to end well.

Posted by HockeyJoe from Upstate New York on 08/25/09 at 06:34 PM ET

League is going to look bad in a couple of years when they HAVE to move or contract that team… They are just being spiteful now (both sides).

Personally I would prefer Jim get the team - don’t really care where he puts it - but I agree with the above poster, AZ + Hockey = FAIL

Posted by WingMan from Qc on 08/25/09 at 06:56 PM ET

This is so dirty.

Bettman’s going to ‘buy’ the Coyotes out of bankruptcy court with league money, and then ‘sell’ them to Reinsdorf for a song… probably less than whatever his first offer was.

What a corrupt, classless league.

Posted by HockeyinHD on 08/25/09 at 07:33 PM ET

How is this even legal from a competitive business perspective?

Posted by Dakkster from Southern Sweden on 08/25/09 at 07:36 PM ET

The best possible outcome of this is the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals disaster. But in the case of MLB, you at least had a semi-competent commissioner pulling a dirty deal. Considering the NHL’s track record, this has catastrophe written all over it.

My first thought was not that Bettman was trying to swing a sweetheart deal for Reinsdorf, but that maybe Reinsdorf had had second thoughts and backed away. His original bid was contingent on some major refinancing and concessions from local authorities; maybe he became convinced that the franchise was a lost cause, and now the NHL is going to be stuck with a failing franchise and looking for anyone willing to buy the team for chump change.

And this is preferable to a rich Canadian with a deep connection to hockey, exactly how??

Posted by jvwalt on 08/25/09 at 07:59 PM ET

So if all the other teams have a few million dollars each to toss into a bid for the Coyotes, why are so many of them struggling?  The other 29 teams should all be doing great.

What a cluster this situation is.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 08/25/09 at 09:52 PM ET

The whining and boo hooing from the hockey haters is in full voice.  Those that believe hockey should only exist in Canada and NE US hate this deal. But of course they hate anything that impedes the control they thought they had over the game. But in reality this only shows they don’t really love hockey and want to see it expand and grow. They don’t really believe it is the greatest game on earth, because they have so little confidence it can succeed in new places. Well the NHL knows better and thank goodness. To all those that want to go back to the dark ages get over it. The sport is now a national game and you will never stop that! It won’t be long and the best players in the world will come from Texas and California, and the sunbelt cities will set the stage!

Posted by Tero from Tacoma on 08/25/09 at 10:22 PM ET

Winning changes everything.  Teams to ask: Stars, Lightning, Hurricanes.  Those aren’t hockey towns but have devout (or semi-devout in Tampa’s case) followings.  Even the Mighty Quackers had problems before winning. 

Here’s an idea, why doesn’t the “GREAT ONE” step up and pull a Mario Lemieux ownership swap...maybe he didn’t play there but he’s getting PAID there.  A couple of drafts and a good farm system is all it takes (I guess the Yotes have neither).

So..."Build it and they will come” (ie...a winning franchise).  “Move it and they will come” just won’t work when your star players are Shane Doan, Kyle Turris, and Ilya Bryzgalov.

Posted by stoneman from vegas on 08/25/09 at 11:33 PM ET

I just can’t wait to see how many millions of dollars are going to be wasted on this team before they’re moved.  Let’s try to reach 300 million is losses first…

Posted by Matt Fry from Winnipeg on 08/26/09 at 07:18 AM ET

League is going to look bad in a couple of years when they HAVE to move or contract that team… They are just being spiteful now (both sides).

Personally I would prefer Jim get the team - don’t really care where he puts it - but I agree with the above poster, AZ + Hockey = FAIL

Right on…

How is this even legal from a competitive business perspective?

Yes, the entire situation right from the start seems completely counter-intuitive to the free market principals that we are supposed to pride ourselves on in America. Balsillie put forth, by far, the best offer to buy the team, long ago. Seems like a no brainer.

The best possible outcome of this is the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals disaster. But in the case of MLB, you at least had a semi-competent commissioner pulling a dirty deal. Considering the NHL’s track record, this has catastrophe written all over it.

This is exactly why an Expos/Nats situation is NOT the best possible outcome for the NHL. All that does is delay the inevitable and punish the good owners in the league by making them continue to subsidize the Coyotes (apart from the side where they’re essentially subsidizing all small/weak-market teams thanks to the cap).

Well the NHL knows better and thank goodness. To all those that want to go back to the dark ages get over it. The sport is now a national game and you will never stop that! It won’t be long and the best players in the world will come from Texas and California, and the sunbelt cities will set the stage!

Funniest post of ‘09!

Winning changes everything.  Teams to ask: Stars, Lightning, Hurricanes.

You are partly right. But other things to consider about those three clubs:

1. Texas has actually had a very strong minor league hockey presence, and some decent youth hockey programs for quite a long time now. The existing strength of lower level hockey in Texas helped the Stars succeed, and at the same time, the presence of the Stars has helped lower level hockey in Texas continue to thrive. It’s been a good relationship. Yes, you are right—if the Stars fell off the ice like the Coyotes, it would be much tougher, but Texas has shown a greater interest in hockey, generally speaking, than Arizona ever has.

2. The Lightning—when they were at their most successful—had a decent owner in Bill Davidson, that had financial clout from other endeavors to help prop up his hockey club when it was necessary. Phoenix obviously didn’t have this with Moyes, and given the embarrassing bid that Reinsdorf put forth, clearly he wasn’t willing to shift any of his Sox/Bulls cash to the Coyotes, he’d rather make the tax payers take care of it.

Additionally, plain and simple, Florida has a hell of a lot more people in it than Arizona does, so even if the same low percentage of the population are hockey fans in each state, there are still significantly more hockey fans in Florida. Think about how the tri-state area has been able to sustain the Rangers, Devils, and Islanders (and Sabres)—the area is so heavily populated that you only need 1% of the population to feel like going to a hockey game to fill all four arenas.

3. The Hurricanes have a good owner that’s dedicated to his hockey team. I think that’s the most important thing in developing the success that club has had. It’s hard to win in any sport without an owner that wants to win, and the Canes have had that. Karmanos has deep pockets, and thus is able to suffer losses if necessary to try and grow the game in the Carolinas. The Canes also have the benefit of at least being on the east coast, where the majority of hockey teams exist. It’s easier to build rivalries and market the game and your team in the Eastern Conference because of how close everything is in the region. It seems like it would be much easier to sell the average sports fan on coming out to see the Canes play the Bruins, Habs, Leafs, or Rangers, whereas the West is filled with expansion teams—there’s no “name brand” recognition when you try to sell tickets to the Coyotes/Sharks matchup.

Perhaps if Phoenix had Balsillie as an owner, his deep pockets could provide the same stability that would allow the team to root itself in Glendale and build a fanbase over the years; however, the point is that if the man owns the team, as far as I’m concerned, it’s his asset to do with what he pleases, and if that means he wants to move it, more power to him.

“Move it and they will come” just won’t work when your star players are Shane Doan, Kyle Turris, and Ilya Bryzgalov.

Never underestimate just how many hockey fans there are in southern Ontario… remember he was able to start selling ticket packages before he even owned a team, let alone had arrangements in place to move it. There are a lot of excited people in many Canadian markets that would love to have an NHL team in their back yard, and that excitement alone would probably give the club at least a few years of a “honeymoon” period where they could be as bad as they want to on the ice and they’d still sell the place out every game. Toronto and Ottawa have sucked the last couple years, but they’re fanbases are still rabid and devout hockey fans.

I just can’t wait to see how many millions of dollars are going to be wasted on this team before they’re moved.  Let’s try to reach 300 million is losses first…

Amen… Balsillie was willing to pay Moyes a hefty sum that would’ve helped recoup lots of the losses he’s sustained. This sort of feels like that saying… “never look a gift horse in the mouth.” The NHL should’ve swallowed its pride and they would’ve immediately erased this horrible story from their game (plus), added a financially powerful, stable owner to their ranks (plus), gotten out of an unsuccessful hockey market (plus), and added an excited, passionate hockey market (plus). I know, some people consider adding Balsillie’s personality a negative, but for crying out loud, with all those positives, you’d think the one drawback was that he was part of the Taliban.

Posted by Nathan from Jonny Ericsson's ice cream truck on 08/26/09 at 08:05 AM ET

The whining and boo hooing from the hockey haters is in full voice.  Those that believe hockey should only exist in Canada and NE US hate this deal. But of course they hate anything that impedes the control they thought they had over the game. But in reality this only shows they don’t really love hockey and want to see it expand and grow. They don’t really believe it is the greatest game on earth, because they have so little confidence it can succeed in new places. Well the NHL knows better and thank goodness. To all those that want to go back to the dark ages get over it. The sport is now a national game and you will never stop that! It won’t be long and the best players in the world will come from Texas and California, and the sunbelt cities will set the stage!

Wow...Better to remain quiet and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.

Posted by dash_pinched from Rumour Mill Bay on 08/26/09 at 02:54 PM ET