Balsillie sets Sept. 14 deadline for Coyotes deal

Does Balsillie really believe he can bully his way into the NHL? His tactics are failing with his Nortel bid because of his contant bullying....

Another bid doomed to failure. Still, I gotta admire his never say never spirit.

Agreed. He never stood a chance against the crooks running the league who've done everything to stop him. He probably figured that he had to go in tough and fight fire with fire but it blew up in his face. As a minimum I think he would have been a colourful owner and probably would have had a Cup in Hamiliton five years after relocation. Which is something the other two Ontario teams probably aren't anywhere near capable of doing.

Goddamn chickenshit NHL hierarchy. Like Don Cherry said, it somehow remains the best game on earth despite the idiots that run it.

The NHL is the worst case of hypocrisy - they've got morally questionable owners, but Balsillie can't get a franchise even though he's overbidding. Bettman is a loser and so, unfortunately is hockey in Canada as a team in Hamilton would be fantastic.

On the positive side this has given the (surprisingly large) group of delusional hold outs in Winnipeg misguided hope that the team may still come back there. Some one please send them a balloon bouquet with a card "Get over it already"

The problem with this is that to move the Yotes out of Phoenix would mean admitting failure for Bettman. His legacy to the league is, as he was hired to do, to open hockey to new markets and this would seriously hurt his credibility in that regard. I mean, the optics of this are really bad for him, a CDN team in a traditional market, moved to the desert and failed miserably.

Other then the one season of success and popularity the Ducks had, all of his Sunbelt teams have crashed and burned. Even now Ducks tickets are a dime a dozen and this team just won a Cup.

Tampa won the Cup too, but in the sunbelt, hockey is not all that popular. Nascar, college football/basketball, and golf are all well ahead of it, nevermind the other three big leagues.

I wonder how long it will be before the NHL finally admits that Sunbelt expansion was a dismal failure. Given the events of the past few months, I'm guessing never.

See even I have already forgotten about Tampa

These teams are popular if they achieve that level of success(and only because of massive PR blitz's in those cities), but as soon as the first month of the next season is done, that's it. Nobody gives a damn. And most of these teams can't reach that level because they dont have the support to afford it. Which, IMO is the entire reason Bettman brought in revenue sharing, to attempt to help his failing legacy and give unpopular teams more cash, but even that hasn't made ANY of them better or more viable.

Even that popularity is peanuts compared to Canadian cities. Tampa Bay had 25,000 or so fans show up for their victory parade, while Calgary had almost 200,000 show up to honour their boys for almost winning the Cup.

"The league wants a new owner who would keep the team in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, where it has lost more than $30 million each of the last three seasons. The NHL contends that with better management and an improved product on the ice, the Coyotes can be successful."

So could have Winnipeg if Rattman wasn't so concerned about moving the team to a fucking desert, in a city with ZERO hockey tradition.
Just his irrational need to keep the team in Phoenix shows he's either fucked in the head, or someone in Glendale is blowing him.
Either that of the Rat prefers the company of crooks that only pretend to have the money for a franchise. Let me rephrase that. American crooks that won't move teams to Canada.

The truly ironic thing about the Jets moving was that nobody was willing to pay for a new arena.

Yet less than a decade after they moved, a beautiful new arena was built. It's probably too small by NHL standards, but had the NHL stayed as committed to the Jets as they are to the Coyotes, the MTS Centre would now likely hold 20,000 seats instead of the current 15,000 and change.

Here's an idea. Since Bettman is so intent on keeping hockey in a climate that has a tough time supporting weeds, not to mention hockey fans, why doesn't Winnipeg sell the MTS center to Phoenix. A 15000 seat arena is about 14000 more seats than they'll ever need.

Then with the money they garner from the sale they could build a new 20000 seat arena and purchase an NHL franchise that would actually have a fan base larger than 12 iquana's and a hooker named Chastity.