[Newsbot]

Title: Glendale taxpayers threaten to torpedo Coyotes sale
Category: Sports
Posted By: Regina
Date: 2012-07-06 08:06:07
Canadian

[RUEZ]

The jerk in me wants this sale to fall through because I can't stand Gary Bettman.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Ya know, it would'a been nice to see Rattman and the NHL fight that hard to keep the team in The 'Peg in the first place.

Let's face it, the people of Phoenix are not interested in an NHL franchise, especially one that would be propped up with a tax increase. Last season, the Coyotes barely filled 70% of their seating capacity for the regular season. That put them at 30th in the league.
For at least the previous 4 seasons, they have consistently been in the bottom 3 when it comes to percentage of seating capacity sold.
Even if the team doesn't come back to Canada, it seems that Milwaukee or Seattle would be cities worth taking a crack at. That way too, the team would remain in the Western conference. In Milwaukee, I could see instant rivalries with Chicago and/or Minnesota, and in Seattle there's no doubt there'd be an instant rivalry with Vancouver, which I think would certainly help to generate interest in an NHL franchise there.

You can only flog a dead horse for so long before it becomes just a pile of goo.

[QBall]

You read crap like this and wonder how Bettman still has a job. No wonder the Yanks can't take hockey seriously!

[Regina]

Bettman only carries out the wishes of the majority owners. They say jump....he says how high? It's their money not his so the blame of any league decission lands squarely at the feet of owners.

[CanadianODST]

Quebec City deserves a team. Fuck Seattle, Battle of Quebec.
Go! Habs Go!

[Freakinoldguy]

QBall QBall:

You read crap like this and wonder how Bettman still has a job. No wonder the Yanks can't take hockey seriously!

Buttman's hold on power may be more tenious than we thought. I read an article in the Province about it and from what the article said he's being proped up by the poorer owners in the league, who in turn are using money from the equalization payments to outbid the teams who are paying those same payments for free agent superstars/

Example a franchise like Carolina going after both Parise and Suter.

I'll see if I can find the article and post it here.

Found it.

http://www.theprovince.com/sports/Teams ... story.html

$1:

And while Bettman has this cadre of poor sister owners who form his support group among the owners, he can only push the guys that really make the money for this league so far before they start looking for alternatives to financing the destruction of their own bottom line.

[JaredMilne]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Ya know, it would'a been nice to see Rattman and the NHL fight that hard to keep the team in The 'Peg in the first place.

Let's face it, the people of Phoenix are not interested in an NHL franchise, especially one that would be propped up with a tax increase. Last season, the Coyotes barely filled 70% of their seating capacity for the regular season. That put them at 30th in the league.
For at least the previous 4 seasons, they have consistently been in the bottom 3 when it comes to percentage of seating capacity sold.
Even if the team doesn't come back to Canada, it seems that Milwaukee or Seattle would be cities worth taking a crack at. That way too, the team would remain in the Western conference. In Milwaukee, I could see instant rivalries with Chicago and/or Minnesota, and in Seattle there's no doubt there'd be an instant rivalry with Vancouver, which I think would certainly help to generate interest in an NHL franchise there.

You can only flog a dead horse for so long before it becomes just a pile of goo.

I think a lot of this stems from Gary Bettman being obsessed with trying to prove that his expansion of the NHL into the southern U.S. isn't a great big pile of fail.

Just look at how much effort he put into stopping Jim Balsillie from buying the Coyotes and moving them to a Canadian market where they'd be guaranteed to put butts in the seats.

It's not so much about profitability as Bettman trying to prove he's not a completely and totally incompetent boob.