Gothamite

No, 12 days until the team is finally saved.

I really doubt that the league will do that. The other owners have been losing money on Bettman's vanity project for some time now, and only the city's willingness to underwrite those losses have kept them from forcing the issue. But money to buy the team outright? I don't see them authorizing that. I know, OITGDNHL, but still.

If Thrashers fans had been able to draw more than a dozen people to their "save the team" rally, I might agree with you. Regardless of what was happening in Phoenix, the Thrashers were gone. If not to Winnipeg, than somewhere else. Ownership didn't want the team any more, and there was no real indication that the city was any more interested than they were. Fatal combination.

Well, we can only hope.

Refresh my memory: what's the deadline this time, and why do we think it's a real deadline?

And you still don't have investors? I'm not sure that record of spectacular failure is something you want to admit publicly.

Firings, or layoffs? Layoffs would be standard practice for a team facing a long lockout. Meanwhile, the mayor of Glendale is starting to admit the inevitable: http://www.azcentral.com/community/glendale/articles/20121018glendale-mayor-scruggs-makes-case-letting-coyotes-go.html?nclick_check=1

Two months between events? They and the GDNHL deserve each other.

Here's an opinion that may or may not be unpopular - I really hate it when people take designs they don't personally like and call them "lazy".

It looked terrible on the Dodgers imo. Only because the Dodgers didn't do it right. They kept the same size numbers in the same place, just removing the NoB. Had they increased the number size a little and moved them up to fill the hole across the shoulders, it would have looked great. The Yankees, Giants and Red Sox get this right, the Dodgers blew it.

If Milwaukee loses the Bucks, I could see that as a possible. But the point is well taken; there aren't that many attractive relocation options still lurking out there once Quebec is off the list.

Judging by this one pic, I completely agree.

Now it makes sense - why Bettman is inexplicably driving full-speed to the work stoppage cliff, just when the NHL had recovered from the last disastrous lockout.

Yeah, the title really needs to be changed back. Under the new format, nobody sees the sub-heading any more.

And at the same time, the man who will likely be the city's next mayor is trying to re-work the deals Glendale used to lure the White Sox and Dodgers' spring training camps to town because the city can't afford to keep up those payments. http://www.bizjourna...d.html?page=all Glendale and the NHL. They really do deserve each other.

Not exactly a fair trade, but whatever. Wish they would buy the old Wombles crest - that was gorgeous.

Yeah, but OITGDNHL.

I'm not a huge fan of "citizen veto" votes, but when elected officials do something this stupid, this dangerous, waiting until the next election is an inadequate remedy.

True, but that's a pretty low bar.

I don't think that a lack of interest in this pre-season game necessarily means that KC wouldn't support their own team. But it is a golden opportunity to show that there's interest in the sport.

Steve Ross's 1977 New York Cosmos NASL champions ring just went up for auction: Lucky for me I didn't know about it until after the hammer fell.

Sure, every league has its share of stupid, arrogant, boneheaded owners. If course, in the NHL that stupid, arrogant, boneheaded owner happens to be the league itself, which makes them a special case. OITGDNHL.

Does it really make the league more money? On the one hand, we have a $200M expansion fee. On the other, a $60M relocation fee. But in this case, the NHL also pockets the purchase price of the team, which adds another $170M to the party. So they could let les Quebequois buy the Coyotes (and move 'em) for somewhere around $230M, or they could go through all the trouble of folding the team, dispersing the players, re-working the schedule for an odd number of clubs, holding an expansion draft in two years, and after all that only collect $200M for a new franchise. It says they'll try to collect the $200M from both Quebec City and Seattle, but that doesn't seem to work, either. Setting aside that such a plan still leaves the league with an odd number of teams, adding two new franchises doesn't do anything about leaving $30M on the table from the Coyotes; they could move that team to QC and expand to Seattle and maximize their revenues. What am I missing? Or is this just another OITGDNHL moment?

Okay, fellas. You can now add a Super Bowl XLV ring to your collection. Well, starting in about two weeks, that is.

That, and at the lousy fanbase. If they would actaully come out to watch a playoff-quality team, the Coyotes wouldn't be in this situation. But every single deal becomes precedent for the next. Even if real cities won't knuckle under to this extent, Glendale will still have wrecked the curve, and other cities will suffer for their inferiority complex.