Do NHL's governors have soft spot for Steel City?
May 12, 2009
Steve Milton
The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/564457
From pariah to messiah?
It has become evident that Copps Coliseum is widely perceived as a rescue point for financially struggling NHL franchises.
And even the National Hockey League may be leaning that way, too, albeit behind closed doors.
In recent weeks, some governors, and even one league executive, have told The Spectator with certainty that southern Ontario should get another team within a few years, if not sooner. And without prompting, they mention that the only arena in the area seating 17,000-plus is in Hamilton.
The NHL is taking a strong, and angry, stand against Phoenix Coyotes' owner Jerry Moyes filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Jim Balsillie agreeing to purchase the team if it can be moved to Hamilton.
The NHL must take this public stand in order to prevent what many sports executives regard as the chaos that would accompany any franchise being allowed to move, cart blanche, without league approval. And they want to give Phoenix a try with another owner.
However, it's entirely possible and indeed quite likely that their two-year toe-to-toe with the resolute Balsillie, combined with the current economic crisis, have softened the attitude of not just a few governors but the league itself. Not necessarily toward the Marquis de BlackBerry and his determined methods to force his way into their lodge, but toward Hamilton as a locale.
As recently as two years ago, just before Balsillie agreed to buy the Nashville Predators in the hopes of moving them to Copps Coliseum, no one would discuss in any serious manner the possibility of another team in the Maple Leafs' generally-acknowledged territory.
Within six months, Balsillie's overt actions -- primarily the ticket drive in Hamilton -- had stimulated a massive public debate about whether another team could survive in the Toronto area. And over the ensuing few months, that debate elevated into not "if" a second team could come to the GTA but "where." This shift of emphasis was true not only in the public forum but within the upper reaches of the NHL itself.
Some team executives have told The Spec over recent months that for the past two years, commissioner Gary Bettman has suggested to his owners the need for another team in Canada.
In public, and duly noted by The Spec, Bettman would only mention Winnipeg, never Hamilton unless pressed by media questioners. It's interesting to note, though, that you rarely hear him mention Winnipeg anymore.
And at the all-star game in Montreal in January, Bettman -- the man who has always steadfastly refused to deal with "hypothetical situations" -- talked at length about the possibility of a second team in the southern Ontario area: that the league would investigate it; that it would require a huge investment and that no relocation or expansion to this area would take place without intense market study and due diligence. This was a discussion, don't forget, about a marketplace which is coveted and heavily mined by a current league member. It was a complete and utter departure for the league to engage in such discussions.
What has developed is a sense of inevitability that this market should have and eventually will get a second team. But the NHL, understandably, wants to control that possibility. And from all angles. If the bankruptcy court rules that Jerry Moyes does have the right to Chapter 11 his team, that he can legally sell it to Balsillie, and that Balsillie can move it to Hamilton, then the NHL does not have control of how such a move would affect the league and its members. And it does not have control over which team would come to Hamilton.
An existing arena like Copps already poses a competitive threat in non-hockey revenue to the Air Canada Centre, home of the Leafs. A new arena in the area would only add another major competitor for concerts, conventions and one-off sporting events such as figure skating championships and the Brier.
Additionally, it has been reported in The Spec that Balsillie's group would offer Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd. the contract to manage Copps, the Convention Centre, and Hamilton Place. That would demonstrably help, not hurt, the Leafs' bottom line.
The NHL knows all of this. And through various corporate nudges and tics, an outsider gets the percolating feeling that the league is priming to find a way to accommodate a team here, because it will help with the overall NHL bottom line in horrific economic times.
Other financially-threatened league owners began contacting Balsillie after his failed attempt to purchase Nashville, and that's how the Coyotes' deal sprang to life.
And in the wake of what Balsillie has done, other investors have become emboldened to seek a franchise for the GTA. There have been so many of them, at a time when few, if any, real buyers are surfacing for teams anywhere else in North America, that the league has realized a bidding war is possible for a team to come here. (Balsillie realizes this too, and notes that the Coyotes' legal filings call for an open auction of the team.)
Balsillie is the one who has created this near-miraculous atmosphere and is the only one who has ever said, and probably will ever say, that he'd commit the money -- $160 million by his estimate -- to turn Copps Coliseum into a 21st century NHL rink.
Owners around the league had pretty well let their anger toward Balsillie over the Hamilton ticket-sale campaign drain away and had begun to ask why a guy with this kind of money, hockey love and upscale product image was not in the league.
Last week's bankruptcy and proposed sale has re-ignited much of that anger and concern. It may settle down in time, but the irony is that for now, Balsillie has created a situation where the NHL is much closer to accepting Hamilton than they are to accepting him.
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