So here is my early take on the Balsillie Coyotes “thing”…. Balsillie blew it, yet again. I fail to understand why he went down the road that he did. As I have said before, he should have let the team go into bankruptcy, then make an UNCONDITIONAL offer to buy them and force the league to either reject him as an owner or try to impose restrictions/qualifications on his offer. The only thing he would have lost in that scenario is the ability to walk about scott free from the lease.

The judge in this case in essence punted. If you read his decision he says, 1. The NHL can’t simply reject Balsillie as an owner. 2. There is no antitrust issue in this case yet; the league hasn’t ruled on relocation yet, therefore the relocation/antitrust issue isn’t a dispute yet- in legalease- the judge is saying that the issue isn’t ripe yet. 3. There isn’t enough time to settle all the issues that would need to be settled before Balsillie’s self imposed June 29th deadline.

Now, what does that mean? Balsillie should go back in to court, and offer up his money UNCONDITIONALLY. He would then force the league to reject him as an owner (which the court has already said they can’t do) OR try to impose the Pittsburgh restrictions on him. When the league tried to impose those restrictions on him, and one would be that he can’t move the team, then the issue of relocation/anti-trust would be a dispute and the Judge would rule on them. Lastly, this whole shotgun approach, trying to shove things down people throats, rarely ever works. What did Balsillie really care if this happened in September or November for that matter? It’s only cash, and by his own admission, he has more of that than he knows what to do with – or was it that he can’t spend it fast enough???

For those following along at home to the judge’s ruling which can be found here here are some points to review:

The good stuff doesn’t start until page 7.

On Page 9, at the end of the first paragraph, the jude says that the NHL can’t simply reject Balsillie as an owner absent material changes to him since his approval in 2006.

You can skip all the legalease through to page 13.

“The fundamental problem with Balsillie’s assertions is that the NHL has never made any decision about the relocation of the Phoenix Coyotes to any site, be it Ontario, Canada or anywhere else,”

The Judge in essence punts on the whole Oakland Raider case that you heard so much about and instead takes the view that because the NHL hasn’t ruled on the issue of relocation yet, there is no dispute on that issue! Classic. The judge sites a case called Vortex for establishing the test as to whether there is an actual “dispute” necessary deciding. The judge relies on the Vortex case to say that the mere existence of potential litigation is NOT enough to make a dispute. In other words, there has to be an actual disagreement on the books in order for their to be an anti-trust case. You can’t ask a judge to settle something that hasn’t actually happened yet. It would be like asking a judge to answer who was at fault in accident that hasn’t yet occurred. The judge says, at the bottom of page 14 that the fundamental problem for Balsillie here is that there is no dispute on the relocation issue because…..drum roll please…..the league hasn’t said to anyone you can’t move this team! The issue isn’t ripe yet, therefore the judge won’t rule on it.

So what does the judge do? He says that you brought this action at the worst time for the league, the playoffs and finals and then you try to insist that the case be decided quickly by the end of the month. We can’t possible handle all these issues by then so therefore because we can’t easily say that Balsillie is right, we will rule in favour of the NHL. That last part can be found on the bottom of page 15 and the top of page 16.

There is no need to read the rest of the ruling.

So what happens now? Well, the team still sits in bankruptcy. The trustee does have an obligation to the creditors to get this asset sold as quickly as possible and for the highest amount possible. Also, Balsillie does have the ability to appeal the judge’s ruling. HOWEVER, the appeal has to be on the judge’s application of the law. You can’t appeal it simply because you don’t like the ruling. Balsillie’s lawyers will have to point to certain decisions and cases that the judge has based his decision on and argue that the Judge got it wrong.

Jim Balsillie issued the following statement after the news came from the court:

“Jim Balsillie’s bid to bring a seventh NHL team to Canada continues. We’re still here. The Phoenix court confirmed Mr. Balsillie was approved as an NHL owner in 2006 and remains so. We believe he has made the best offer and Hamilton remains the best location for this team. The court did not approve either our approach or the NHL’s. Judge Baum did state he does not have time to decide all the relocation issues. But the court still controls the sale process. As a result, we look forward to hearing from the NHL soon on its view of our relocation application and an appropriate relocation fee, so as to allow the court to determine if that fee is reasonable. We still think there is enough time for the NHL to approve Mr. Balsillie’s application and move the team to Hamilton by September. The court invited mediation on these issues and Mr. Balsillie is willing to participate in such mediation if the NHL is also willing to do so.”

The NHL: through Bill Daly issued the following statement after the news came from the court:

“We’re pleased the Court recognized the validity of League rules and our ability to apply them in a reasonable fashion. We will turn our attention now toward helping to facilitate an orderly sales process that will produce a local buyer who is committed to making the Coyotes’ franchise viable and successful in the Phoenix/Glendale area. We are confident that we will be able to find such a buyer for the Coyotes and that the claims of legitimate creditors will be addressed.”

Does this guarantee that the Coyotes will play in Phoenix next year? No. It is possible that the Coyotes could be folded. We will now see who really has interest in buying this team. We will also see how willing the other owners are to keeping the team afloat in this current economic condition. On the sidelines during all of this, of course the players and the fans.

Kudos to the folks in the newspaper industry in this town. Two enthusiastic thumbs down to the radio and tv folks in the sports industry. The coverage as this news broke was pitiful. How brutal that the CBC, which was in the middle of it’s newscast didn’t break in with the news! Anyone want evidence that the news is pre-recorded????? I present exhibit A. On 640 Toronto, a Toronto School Trustee was talking calls on the subject!!! On the Fan, Erik Thomas mentioned and went back to raceline radio! On the tv side – nadda until sportscenter time. This didn’t happen at 4am folks! I got the TSN alert on my mobile phone at 8:37pm. Shameful stuff in my opinion.

TSM

 Editors note- Another interesting column from our new writer Lilly

Canada has hockey, the United States has football.

In my opinion,the NFL doesn’t have a chance of surviving in Canada. First of all we have our own league, the Canadian Football League. Why mess with that? The whole fiasco around the Buffalo Bills and having eight regular season games over the next five years is so far, a waste of time.

When the Miami Dolphins were here to play the Bills last season, Toronto tried to put on “a tailgate party”. It didn’t work. It’s not part of our culture. It’s just not the same here as in the United States. I’ve walked by a so called tailgate party for the Argo’s and thought to myself, what is that supposed to be? Oh it’s a tailgate party. Five cars with a few people standing around drinking. It wasn’t like what the Americans do at all. It seems like such a silly little detail but it’s a huge part of experiencing an NFL game in the States.

The crowd was a sad excuse for a crowd. No noise, no craziness and where were all the people? What’s a game without the crowd? Boring!.

The Buffalo Bills aren’t Toronto’s team. So I think there was some confusion as to whom we were supposed to cheer for as the “home team”. There are fans for different NFL teams here in Toronto. NFL fans in Canada, we have the choice of which team to cheer for, for different reasons. Everyone has their own team. There is always a story behind the choice. It was their dad’s team, or it was the first game they ever went to. Stuff like that.

The entire experience was like tempting a squirrel to eat from your hand. In this case, the NFL and Rogers Communications was the giant hand trying to feed us, the fans. Do we like them or not? How are we supposed to act? Fans in general seemed to be very hesitant and confused as to why they are giving us this so called” treat”. Who was getting the benefit, us the fans or them, the coroporate citizens? Perhaps like so many other things, it was just too good to be true.

Canadians are not and never will be Americans. We share a continent, but that’s about it when it comes to sports. We are just fine the way we are when it comes to football.

For this particular experiment our “Canadiana” was showing.

LLG

More to follow as it comes in…

check out tsn.ca for news

Let the rumors begin

Apparently he has resigned from the ducks. Peddie is on the trip with the leafs and was apparently “clueless” about this happening.

Also apparently Blake has just about had it with the Leafs, as I have with paying income tax. I have about as much chance of dealing with my complaint as Jason does with his!

By: Neil Smith

One of the many parts of the role of the General Manager, Coach or player for a National Hockey League team is dealing with the daily beat writers, electronic journalists covering your team.  Some teams have only a couple of daily writers, LA for example, some have more than five, say hello to Toronto and New York.  It’s a part of the job that you can either embrace and enjoy or reject and let torment you.

For me, I always looked on the media guys as an important part of the daily soap opera that I had undertaken as my career.  I actually liked everybody on the beat, and believe that I had a good if not great relationship with all that would allow it.  But whether you like them or hate them, they’re not going away.  The media is as important to the business of sports as you are yourself as the GM.  Yes that’s right, the media is very, very important.  What other business gets free advertising every day at least throughout the season?  What other business get articles and columns and editorials and fan mail published free of charge?  What other private non charitable business gets endless hours of free television and radio time?  How would we get the message out to the fans if we had to pay for it?  The answer:  we couldn’t.

So you better learn early and learn often that the media has a place in your business, so get used to it.  Now that’s not to say you have to like or respect every media member and what they say or write.  It’s hard for a real hockey, basketball, football, baseball, etc person to have the same amount of respect for a media member’s opinion on the sport as a peer within the business.  But it’s important that you do respect that the writer or electronic media guy has a job to do and is trying to do it as best they can.  You may not agree with what they say, you may not like what they say, but you must acknowledge that they’re simply trying to do their job.

Some of the media do at times cross the line of being personal.  This can happen when the team is not going good and an attack is launched by a media member or the media in general.  Now you are really tested.  Are you going to show the media guys that they’ve got you angry?  Are you going to let them know you read or listen to what they have to say?  If you react and cut somebody off from communicatiing with them because of what they’ve said, haven’t you actually proven that they must have been at least partially right?  Because if they were way off base you wouldn’t care or react.

Listen it’s not easy dealing with these guys every day.  Especially if you think that one of them is trying to get you fired and it’s eating away not only at you, but also your wife, kids, mother, father, etc.  But it is your job.  You’re paid alot of money to deal with it.  My answer to it is to have fun with it.  Never let them see you sweat.