Still MIGHTY

5-2, Glendale negates the Coyotes' lease

And here... we... go! ...Again! ...Again Again! ...Again Again Again!

If Glendale does vote to end the contract, this still won't be a Thrashers to Winnipeg situation. The Coyotes and the NHL will hold this up in legal hell for as long as they can, and really, as they should. Glendale agreed to the contract. They agreed to the losses and to the payments and to all of it. It's just now that they're living it, they're seeing how bad of a deal it actually was. They have buyer's remorse, but too bad.

Supposedly there's some fine print in Arizona where a city contract can be negated in the first three years, but that looks a little gray.

So no, I don't think the Coyotes are just going to be unceremoniously kicked out on their asses needing a place to play and go to Portland/Vegas/Quebec. I suspect they'll be in Glendale a little while longer while this gets settled. Ultimately, they'll probably leave Arizona, but not on this.

No, 34 is too much for any league.

I think this was reported in an earlier stage but it makes the most sense. Two expansions, one or two relocations. 32 isn't great for the NHL, but it's manageable.

Thought this would get more notice/traction in this thread.

From DarkJourney in the NFL Merry-Go-Round thread:

From Field of Schemes:

San Jose could be about to approve $100m+ in lease breaks for Sharks in exchange for diddly-squat

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Neil deMause

The San Jose city council is set to vote tomorrow on a lease extension for the Sharks on their current arena while talking about whether to build a new one. You can read the proposal here; it’s a bit convoluted and I haven’t made sense of it all yet, but Marc Morris of Better Sense San Jose has sent along his analysis, which is this:

1. The Sharks get immediate relief from previously obligated rent payments (total reduction is $7.25M = $2M for the Arena and $5.25M for the Ice Center, where the Sharks and their new AHL farm team practice).

2. Starting in 2018, the Sharks stop paying any rent at all (that’s $0 per year) for the city owned Arena, down from roughly $5M per year.

3. The City in the short term kicks in $6M and then, starting in 2018, pays $2.6M for ‘capital and modernization needs’ for the Arena. That of course will be financed by the $0 a year rent.

4. The Sharks get to spend a lot of this ‘capital’ money for revenue enhancing improvements; for its efforts, the City gets precisely none of the enhanced revenue.

5. Just to rub it in, the agreement also explicitly prohibits the City from getting any new revenue from its own Arena, like maybe adding a ticket tax.

6. It appears that the City will take on the interest rate risk for the bonds on the Ice Center, making the current ultra-low rates the new baseline for the rent calculation. After all, there’s little to no probability that rates will go up in the next 10 to 20 years.

7. And, although this never gets mentioned, the City will continue to pay over $10M a year in interest on the bonds that paid for construction of the Arena in the first place. In the best case, the net loss to the City from the Arena is over $8M a year.

Like I said, I haven’t done the math on this myself, but if Morris is correct, that could easily be more than $100 million in concessions that the city would be providing to the Sharks — all for a team that doesn’t have an immediate alternative option to play in, and which isn’t even agreeing to a long-term lease deal in exchange. (They’d have to stay put through 2025, but it’s unlikely they could get a new arena built much before then anyway.) That’s the kind of thing you might think you’d want to have a hearing on, or even a financial study, before voting on whether to approve it, but that’s apparently not the way the San Jose city council rolls.

So the Sharks would pull a Red Wings and stop paying rent in 2018, all while essentially getting an extra $100 million out of the city, all the while trying to edge for a NEW arena?

A lot of things wrong with this, most of all that Tank needs a replacement. I mean, I guess they're talking about 10 years down the road. But besides it's sterility and brightness, the Shark Tank is a fine facility.

Seattle and Vegas to the Pacific, Calgary and Edmonton to the central.

So 7/9 division split? I don't think so.

If you do your moves, you'd probably move Colorado to the Pacific as well. (Because you're not going to split Flames/Oilers)

I'm trying to 'mark as read' my notifications, but I get this:

Sorry, but you do not have permission to use this feature. If you are not logged in, you may do so using the form below if available.

What the hell? I've been able to do this before, and the dynamic notification bubble never, ever, ever works.

For the dynamic bubble to work, hover over someone's user name to get the pop-out thing, then click the notification box. It'll pop down.

On the phone, not sure how big this is, but...

It looks like moose froze to death.

How many times have Flordia/Arizona and Portland/San Antonio done this dance now?

Add another to the annals of Gretzky Fantasy Camp history:

I hope to hell that's a temporary banner, or at best a one-night stand.

Anaheim should consider 7:30 starts if the transportation situation is that bad. The Kings start at 7:30, and so do the Blackhawks, after a 1-season experiment with 7:00 starts failed.

The Angels are also 7:00 starts, for what that's worth. The Ducks used to start at 7:30. I forget when they switched to 7:00. (Coming out of the lockout maybe? I really don't remember.) And they do have the occasional 7:30 start. (Usually for the midweek NBCSN games, but there were a couple 7:30 starts on Fridays over the last two seasons for no discernible reason.) I'd be ok with 7:30. Doesn't bother me one way or the other, I just properly appropriate my time. The only time that the start time truly bothers me is when we get into the conference or Cup final with the 5:00 start, but you can't really do anything about that.

And Anaheim just opened a "transportation hub" across the street where they moved the Amtrak/Metrolink station, but people don't really use the Metrolink. We're all so conditioned to car travel out here and our roads/cities are built around that that implementing public transportation is always a major fruitless cluster . They're supposed to get a light rail system going between the transportation thing and the stadiums and the Disney area, but who the hell knows when that thing will get put in.

Anaheim just isn't a Wednesday hockey kind of town, apparently. Real Sunrise kinda vibe to Honda Center tonight. Again.

Also, you always like to point this out right around puck drop or just into the first. The crowd always arrives late. We've been through this dance.

I do care about it, because I've been to a lot more AHL/IHL games than NHL ones, and it's becoming fairly obvious that I'll never be able to afford to go to an NHL game in this city again. I've seen the Wolves raise the Calder Cup in person twice, and the Turner Cup once. I've seen good, fun, competitive hockey. I don't want to lay down $20 plus parking and concessions to see systems implementation where the schedule's made up and the standings points don't matter.

If the NHL really wants to push this direct ownership and development above all model (which, side benefit for them at the next CBA: look at all these additional expenses we have!), then just house practice squads and run intrasquad scrimmages in rinks instead of arenas. Develop on-site with the parent club's staff always within arm's reach. And let the markets and owners that want minor league hockey make a league. Good time to do it, too, since the KHL's new anti-import policy could bring a lot of 4-A guys back to North America.

This shouldn't even be an issue. Minor league baseball is both fully affiliated and independently competitive. Hockey can't be because the never-will-bes in San Jose can't sufficiently untwist their undies?

Minor league baseball is all over the country, too though. It's also two separate leagues (with each league having its own structure) that don't play each other. And hell, it's like the Pacific Coast League is a tight group, but they seem to fare just fine.

Really, the whole thing is a work in progress. I'm sure Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Phoenix would like teams closer, Colorado too. If they eventually get their teams out this way, then the structure will change again. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the structure changed next season. But this is what we have for the minute.

But are you really mad about it? Really?

We've established that the AHL's primary function is development, not really being an internally competitive league. There are some teams that care more about winning than others (See: your own Chicago Wolves), but do you, as a Chicago Blackhawks fan, really care if Rockford wins the Calder Cup or not? Is it a nice gold star for the organization as a top-to-bottom whole? Sure. Or would you rather Rockford grow, hone, and churn out NHL talent without ever making the playoffs? Getting lower-level playoff experience is a nice notch in the belt for any prospect, but I'd exchange the minor team's success for player development every time.

Like it sucks for the minor league team, and I always think about them when a team makes a couple call-ups (like how the Ducks have raided Norfolk's goaltending situation lately and bloated the Admirals with NHL veteran talent in Heatley, Fistric, Steckel, and now Bryzgalov). But if it helps the NHL franchise, I'm always going to be for it.

San Diego will be just fine I think, judging by the crowd for a logo unveiling:

Stockton pretty much screwed the pooch... They could've solidified a future if they stayed in the ECHL.

How does moving up to AHL screw the pooch?

And it's not like they had a choice. The ECHL team is owned by the same guys who now own the AHL team. So it's really just the Oilers playing musical teams with their minor league squads. It's no hair off their backside either way.

He said Stockton. Not Bakersfield.

And yeah, idk what exactly Stockton can do here. If the Flames screw it up again, then it's a Flames problem. Stockton's probably cool with having a hockey team still, and a higher level one at that.

You guys really aren't giving this thing too much of a chance, are you?

San Diego has worked and they'll get the Ducks support. Ontario has worked and they'll get the Kings support. Bakersfield has been a great market for the ECHL, underrated as a hockey city. Stockton has done well for themselves too. The San Jose thing is the only really weird or bad one for me, but hopefully that's short term and they end up in a different rink.

So I say that 3 of the 5 are set up for success, potentially a 4th in Stockton unless the Flames really AHL-Flames it. And despite San Jose's odd situation, I don't think the Sharks will let it fail. Of the five parent organizations, I think San Jose will have to and will do the most to make sure this thing succeeds.

Obviously I'm a California hockey fan and my team is involved, but I don't think you guys are giving this thing enough credit. If it doesn't work out, then it doesn't work out. If they wanted to slapdash this together, they would have done so a long time ago.

Yes, the CalGary Hitmen do play on the CalGary Flames ice in the Saddledome in CalGary.

Speaking of, NBCSN sent their NHL studio crew to their Super Bowl set in downtown Phoenix outside US Airways Center.

A lot of dumb things in that, and whatever else you want to pull out of it.

And my application to work for the Gulls is submitted in 3... 2... 1....

i think there should be a real world cup of hockey have 16 teams in it (with every iihf nation being able to play in it). would have it in the usa and canada (they would qualify automatically) and would have the rest of the top 8 ranked iihf teams (at the time) automatically qualify for it and the rest must qualify for. would be the years of the summer olympics.

First, you basically describes how the Olympics already works. Congratulations.

Second, to the bolded part, that's just it, it's not an IIHF event. It's a NHL/NHLPA event.

Just tried it again and now it's happening every single time I click a topic - and even after I click "back" to go back. It shows me the topic for a second then switches to women's health.

Not only that, but even when I click on forums (which doesn't cause the redirect like topics do) it launches tabs to advertiser sites.

I'm done with this on iPad. If it starts happening on phone i may need to be done all together since that's my primary posting method now.

I totally get the need for ads, but there's a difference between an advertisement and totally hijacking your device. I apologize if this is just a virus or something that's specific to my particular device, and I know that it's not like CC or whoever is sitting there consciously making this happen, but I hope it can stop.

I had the same thing happen to me as well. For me, it was on my laptop. No problems on the phone.

It stopped recently, though. I was finally going to make a post about it too before it stopped. Good to know it wasn't just me.

The NHL wants the game in December, but the Bombers don't want the game that close to the Grey Cup. The Bombers want it in February, but the NHL doesn't want the game too close to the All-Star Game and the two Stadium Series games. And as stated, January is too cold (that's more associated with the costs of keeping the stadium operational in winter, which the Bombers want the NHL to pick up that $500K tab) and probably too close to the Winter Classic and also to the ASG on the front end.

So it's not dead yet, and I'd have to think Winnipeg wants the game too badly to push it back again.

---

Also along with the other outdoor games likely to be announced at the ASG this weekend, TSN is saying that the 2016 World Cup of Hockey will officially be announced as well. The teams would be Canada, United States, Russia, Sweden, Finalnd, Czech Republic, and European All-Star team and North American U-23 team. The European team would be players not from the other four (so Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, etc.) and the North American team would be young players not already selected to Team USA or Canada.

The Euro All-Stars and NA Young Guns... I don't know. What reason would those players actually have to try and win? It's not for pride of country, because, well, those aren't countries. Especially with the young players, though. They grow up wanting to play for Team USA or Team Canada, not against them. I guess the easy answer would be for whatever monetary rewards there are. Also, since this is NHL run, they're going to try and have only NHL players in this thing, so that's why we won't have Latvia or Slovenia qualify on their own.

Well that'll be pretty weird when the Ducks play in Calgary from now on.

To clarify I guess, the Flames let the Hitmen run themselves as a team for the most part, outside of some bureaucratic Flames Organization sponsored events. So the "retirement" and raising a banner was all on the Hitmen.

But it would be weird to see yourself in the rafters of another team's arena.

Right, that's what I meant. You're not going to have that just about anywhere else.

And not just your name/number, but a picture of young you.

Well that'll be pretty weird when the Ducks play in Calgary from now on.