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Up And Up It Goes
by Paul on 06/26/08 at 04:15 PM ET
Comments (4)
from Eric Duhatschek of the Globe and Mail,
Things sure changed in a hurry – and you wonder if the hard salary cap of $42.5 million offered by the players association just before commissioner Gary Bettman pulled the plug on the 2004-05 season wouldn’t look good to half-a-dozen teams, who now see the gap between haves and have-nots rising again every day.
In four years, the ceiling has grown from $39 million to $44 million to $50.3 million to $56.7 million, the figure jointly announced by the NHL and the players association Thursday. Not many teams want to disclose their bottom lines, but you can be sure based on all those empty seats in Phoenix and Nashville and elsewhere in the southern United States, a lot of teams in non-traditional markets are still operating in the red, even though they achieved their much-vaunted “cost certainty” in the bitter negotiations that characterized this current labor agreement.
Filed in: NHL Talk, NHL Business of Hockey | KK Hockey | Permalink
Comments
The other (unstated) goal of the CBA, to drag down teams like Detroit, did not work, either. Take that, little Gary! 
Posted by w2j2 on 06/26/08 at 05:13 PM ET
Thanks for that Terry. Well, it looks like Phoenix is going to stick around for another 10 awful years at least; hopefully Glendale will just ask them to leave.
Posted by Osrt on 06/26/08 at 08:34 PM ET
Thanks for that Terry. Well, it looks like Phoenix is going to stick around for another 10 awful years at least; hopefully Glendale will just ask them to leave.
I get it, you’re biased because you have a great team to follow. But please consider, Phoenix is doing much more than teams like Atlanta, Florida, or Ottawa to stay competitive.
They only challenge to Phoenix now in the West is Anaheim, whom no one would say is weak, or San Jose (who may or may not self destruct next year) You can laugh at any team you want, but just remember the Wings organization “couldn’t win it” through the early 90s. I wouldn’t count any team out - except Toronto. 
Posted by JAMESinMI on 06/26/08 at 08:57 PM ET
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The following appeared in the Arizona Republic newspaper in early June:
This is from the Arizona Republic…
The Coyotes, who lost about $30 million two seasons ago, showed an improvement of about 20 percent in 2007-08, according to Chief Executive Officer Jeff Shumway.
The better financials were attributed to several factors, he said Wednesday. Those included a rise in corporate sales and advertising, cutting expenses, a more efficient operation and the savings associated with not operating the Arizona Sting indoor lacrosse franchise.
Speculation has swirled the past couple of seasons that the Coyotes might be sold, and Shumway said that although there has been a handful of interested buyers, “We really have not looked at selling the franchise.”
The Coyotes signed a 30-year lease with the city of Glendale, and there is a sliding penalty scale should they break that agreement. If they would leave at this point, for example, the penalty would be $750 million.
The city of Glendale invested $180 million when the team moved from Phoenix. The Coyotes played their first game at Jobing.com Arena on Dec. 27, 2003.
Posted by Terry McAndrew from Phoenix on 06/26/08 at 04:11 PM ET