Globe and Mail reports that NHL may be loaning money to Phoenix Coyotes

What a mess.

FB, no, they won't vacate immediately. The deadline is strictly for a new lease agreement Jamison reached before buying the team. He made the agreement, but hasn't bought the team. I'm not sure exactly what the current lease terms are, but there's no urgency to leave -- outside of the NHL's desire to shed itself of the team.

For what it's worth, a friend who's fairly well connected in the Phoenix hockey community has been told the problem isn't with a lack of money, but instead that the NHL doesn't like the structure of the ownership group. I'm skeptical, but if it's true, I think the deal gets done.

He also brought up an intriguing possibility that is apparently more serious than I would have guessed: the team could actually move to a new arena on tribal land adjacent to Scottsdale, near the Diamondbacks' new spring training site. Again, I'm skeptical that the tribe would dump the money into an arena. He's not. If it really is workable, the location is infinitely better than where they are now.

If I were a betting man I'd say the team is in Quebec next season, but I'm not sure what to think at this point.

On a side note -- and I know I've made similar points in the past -- this is the most shoddily-reported story I've ever seen. Few reporters in Arizona are tracking it, and for the most part they're just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. The Canadian press has been shockingly bad, with just a load of dishonest cheerleading for the team to move to Canada.

 

Been in the Valley of the Sun a few times since this thread was last active and I was glad to see Minder Binders still stands, altho for how much longer, who knows.

Mothballed, like the Queen.

Carry on.

 

A question I do have is how much of a role did the Goldwater Institute play in derailing the Hulsizer Group's attempt to purchase the team. From the article linked by Johnny Chase:

The league thought it had an owner in place when Chicago businessman Matthew Hulsizer stepped forward, but his bid fell through when the conservative watchdog group Goldwater Institute inserted itself into the process and warned potential bond buyers to stay away from the Glendale offering because of a looming lawsuit.

Do they have that kind of pull, or was it a matter of the group just not being able to put it all together? Honest question.

 

If that arena involves a casino I could absolutely see whatever tribe you're talking about doing that deal.

 

Can Seattle support both the NHL and NBA? Only three top-40 markets smaller than Seattle have both and one of them is Phoenix (M/StP, Denver the others).

 

There's gotta be a way to do a deal to get the Queen in the complex somewhere. Use it as a marketing tool to attract snowbird Canucks. Place her in the arena, casino, parking lot, wherever.

 

In the end I don't think it had much. The issue, as I recall, was an inability to reach an agreement with the city. The Goldwater Institute has generally been taken a lot more seriously by people outside of the area. They make a lot of threats over anything tax-related, but I don't think they ever posed that big an obstacle.

 

That's what I thought, but was wondering after I read that. Thank you.

 

They already have two in the area, just a few miles apart from each other. They could easily put an arena right next to one of them if they wanted to.

 

Honestly, I've never thought Seattle could or would support an NHL team.

Minor league attendance is an imperfect measure of major-league potential, but consider this: the Seattle Thunderbirds averaged 4,206 last season. That put them 12th in the WHL, behind such teeming metropolises as Spokane, Kelowna, Victoria, Everett, Saskatoon, Red Deer and Tri-Cities.

 

A second team in Ontario or Quebec are the places that make sense.

No arena in Ontario, but doesn't Quebec have something going?

 

We need CanuckistaniSportsJournalists.com to chime in here.