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Del Biaggio Had Plans For Preds
by Paul on 07/13/08 at 07:48 AM ET
Comments (5)
from Brad Schrade of the Tennessean,
As Metro officials considered whether to give millions of additional tax dollars to the Nashville Predators’ new owners earlier this year, at least one part-owner was already selling the idea that the team would fail here and could be moved to another city.
William J. “Boots” Del Biaggio III, a California businessman who has filed for bankruptcy and has been accused of fraud by several lenders, was signaling to potential investors that the team had “portability value,” according to a confidential document obtained by The Tennessean.
Filed in: NHL Teams, Nashville Predators | KK Hockey | Permalink
Comments
While this story is certainly interesting, there’s a very juicy tidbit embedded in the Del Biaggio sales pitch that should draw much wider attention; apparently NHL expansion may be on the way for 2011…
Posted by The Forechecker from Tennessee on 07/13/08 at 07:54 AM ET
Nice catch, Forechecker. I’ve felt that is the last thing the NHL needs. The only good thing that might come of it if the teams were indeed KC and LAS would be to move the Red Wings and the CBJ into the Eastern Conference with the other Eastern Time Zone teams, which would save huge dollars on travel and save wear and tear in the playoffs. The Red Wings traveled through 27 time zones in 3 rounds of the 2007 playoffs.
Posted by RWBill from the Old Dominion, waitin for Jan 31 Wings invasion on 07/13/08 at 11:01 AM ET
Not quite. If two teams were added to the western conference (15+2=17), only one team could move east. Otherwise you’d still have a 15 to 17 team imbalance.
Posted by SENShobo from Waterloo, ON on 07/13/08 at 02:46 PM ET
As if moving Nashville is a bad thing.... The real joke is that there are two teams in Fla and two teams in LA when the NHL can’t even be successful with two teams in NY. They need to get rid of Nashville, Florida, Phoenix and Columbus. Put teams in Seattle and Milwaukee and then that’s it for US expansion. They could put another team in Toronto and one in Quebec City. The fact is the NHL is not going to have enough players to expand now that the Russian league is going to be grabbing the elite talent over there.
Posted by kevin from boston on 07/14/08 at 08:15 AM ET
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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.
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Poor Nashville. They’re getting shots from all directions.
I wish someone would start talking about buying some other non-traditional market team (and pick one that is actually pretty bad, like Florida or something) and moving them to Kansas City. Make some other so-called failing team a punching bag for a while and give the Predators a break.
Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 07/13/08 at 07:22 AM ET