Nashville Predators moving to Canada? NOPE! Sorry, Canucks (and KC!)...

Except I can't imagine the Maloofs moving to KC. It's too far away from Vegas. KC doesn't fit their lifestyle.

 

Well well well. It's getting interestinger and interestinger as they say down on West End in Nashville.

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080606/SPORTS02/80606069&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

 

Why is anyone surprised about this?

Bettman would rather get into bed with some sleaze artist in the U.S than deal with, you know, a legitimate business person in Canada.

Oh, I forgot.

A new US TV deal will be the pot at the end of the rainbow.

Incompetent beyond belief.

Where the hell's Smasher?

I'm sure he'll have an uninformed opinion on this.

.

 

A billionaire Canadian owner who loves the game, why ever would you want that.

 

I'm right here, with a hearty summertime "fuck off, hoser" to send north.

Uninformed? You can't see beyond your own maple leaf. I've tried to explain this to you before, but your reading comprehension skills go to shit when you tear up at the thought of kids playing pond hockey.

Personally I don't give a rat's ass about the NHL either way. What I've been saying (on all 827 of these fucking threads) is the NHL has no apparent interest in adding more Canadian teams. What I've been saying is more Canadian content has never been a priority with the NHL, dating to the 1967 expansion. You can get all worked up and argue that Collie Sperm, Sask deserves a team because the hard-working dirt farmers there would buy all the tickets. But the NHL doesn't seem to be interested. So no matter how many times you scream, "Kitchener loves hockey," it doesn't matter if the people who control things aren't interested in Kitchener. The NHL doesn't even exploit Canadian cities for transfer threats, for crissakes.

I assume you have a windmill made of crossed hockey sticks that you continually tilt at.

Look forward to meeting you at the SportsJournalists.com outing in Moose Jaw. You'll be the guy with the name tag that says, "Hello! I'm Irrational."

 

Balsillie screwed himself on the Preds deal. The current group came in to clean up the mess that was left by his horrible management of the potential sale, but their screw ups doesn't mean the team should have gone to Balsille in the first place. And blaming Bettman is stupid. Bettman and the BoG had nothing to do with him selling tickets in Hamilton before he owned the team, let alone got approval to move them. Bettman didn't release private e-mails to the press in a "revenge" tactic.

Balsille'd be Al Davis and Mark Cuban rolled into a little tinfoil ball. Both leagues have had numerous problems with those owners, and the NHL has no interest in dealing with a guy who doesn't know how to at least fake playing by the rules. Balsillie has no one to blame but himself for that issue.

How Balsillie's inept attempt to buy a team becomes "the NHL hates Canada" is something I really, truly don't understand.

 

I'm curious why Smasher, who claims not to give a rat-s ass about hockey, continually shows up on the boards, only to burst a blood vessel and sound more and more like Bettman's personal PR flack.

And it's right out of the Weasel's playbook: two parts condescension and one part ignorance

It's always fun to see someone argue vocifeously in support of an incompetent fool like Bettman. This is a commish who's hooked his star on to a long list of crooks and criminals and puts teams where they have no business being and Smasher thinks it's a "business model"? Absolutely hilarious.

I'll make this simple for Smasher.

You put more teams in Canada because as Willie Sutton said "That's where the money is."

I've only ever argued that point but Smasher thinks bashing Canada's connection to the sport makes him sound all sophisticated when he just comes off as a dumb rube.

The money isn't in Kansas City, it's in SW Ontario.

We can only hope Smasher isn't a business reporter.

 

Talk about unprovoked shots.

Jesus Christ, dude, you take more pot shots at people and then go running to Webby when people take them at you.

God, you are an asshole and believe me, people on this board see that.

 

Have to agree with Hank here ... talk about unprovoked shots.

You could have made the post, then waited to see if he replied. Instead, you called him out for no reason. And you wonder why he came back to this theead ...

 

Balsillie has done nothing but shoot himself in the foot during his pursuit of an NHL team.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=3060706

Of course, all of that was happening while the NHL was trying to get people to pay attention to its end-of-season awards. Good goin', Jimmy!

And Bettman didn't veto the NHL's consideration of Balsillie's half-assed, ham-handed attempt to buy the Predators last summer — Craig Leipold himself issued that directive in writing.

The biggest obstacle blocking Jim Balsillie's attempt to buy a team and move it to Hamilton is Jim Balsillie his ownself. He reminds me of the obnoxious geek in high school who asked 8 different girls to prom on the theory that eventually one of them has to say yes out of pity, if nothing else. He's hurt himself tremendously just by annoying the hell out of the Board of Governors.

He has no relationship with the league hierarchy and he acts like all he wants to do is buy a U.S.-based franchise — any U.S.-based franchise — and pack up the Mayflower trucks. It's safe to act like Al Davis once they like you and you've been admitted into the club, but dead-on ignorant to act like Al Davis when they still aren't sure if they want to grant you membership.

Perhaps the problem isn't Hamilton. Perhaps the problem isn't Canada.

Perhaps the problem is Jim Balsillie.

 

JR never lets facts get in the way of making a post.

 

Huh? I've never taken anything to Webby. Run along, please.

Smasher's well known around the hockey threads. Whenever Canada is mentioned he foams at the mouth and does his little rant about "the NHL business model doesn't care about Canada" And then proceeds to add snarky remarks about Canada which he thinks are witty but only show off his provincialism.

He's like Yawn on the gay threads--he can't stay away.

Oh, and Hank, I don't think Smasher needs you sticking your nose into things. He's a big boy. Stop being another SportsJournalists.com busybody. It's pathetic.