Gothamite

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.

Even as the third time, my basic point still stands; competitive games featuring a local team will by their very nature generate way more ticket sales than occasional preseason games between two out of town teams. That's why the OKC Hornets isn't really a valid comparison, they had a full season as the local team, it's apples and oranges.

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.

That article offers an intriguing alternative that I haven't seen being discussed here (probably): Folding the Coyotes, and collect an expansion fee from either Quebec City or Seattle (although the SODO Arena has hit a snag.) It obviously makes the NHL more money, and it means that whoever (more than likely Quebec City) can bide their time until their new arena is running.

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.

So let me get this straight - Glendale would rather mortage the very skeleton of their city's infrastructure in order to keep the Phoenix Coyotes around?

I just don't get it. I don't understand how any Coyotes fan can defend this.

"Without our hockey team, how will we show the rest of Arizona that Glendale is a virbrant metropolis, the equal of Paris or New York?"

They'd have been better spent building an Eiffel Tower if that was their intention.

I just figured, if we were going to start pulling out Futurama references...

So let me get this straight - Glendale would rather mortage the very skeleton of their city's infrastructure in order to keep the Phoenix Coyotes around?

I just don't get it. I don't understand how any Coyotes fan can defend this.

"Without our hockey team, how will we show the rest of Arizona that Glendale is a virbrant metropolis, the equal of Paris or New York?"

The judge hasn't yet ruled on the rest of the deal. Using the emergency clause was just so egregious that it needed to be struck down right away.

Actually, the judge struck down their use of the state's "emergency clause" which made the deal immediately effective. He didn't strike down the entire deal.

Now the deal can go before the voters, if opponents can get 1800 signatures. And that could kill it altogether, but would at the very least stall it for months. Which would, I suspect, guarantee another year of failure in the desert.

Even if that was true in 2004, that was eight years ago. Might not still be true. MLB had only recently taken over the individual team websites a couple years before, after abolishing the independent league presidents before that, and was consolidating centralized control over all of baseball.

i just checked the canadian trademark office and the nhl still owns the name quebec nordiques. if something would to happen with selling the team, that would be one of the first things to check before the coyotes move.

The NHL didn't sell the rights to the Jets to TNSE until after they purchased and moved the Thrashers.

TNSE didn't want the rights to "Jets" at first, though.

the Rangers still own the "Washington Senators" name

I know that's the common wisdom, but do we actually know that to be a fact?

Doesn't the NHL retain the rights to all former team trademarks? Except the Whalers, because of a deal when the team moved?

I wonder why Jamison, who said himself he's short on money, wouldn't cash out of the Sharks, of which he owns something like maybe 10% at most. Gotta figure that's at least $20 million right there, and if he's to be the managing partner of Taxpayer Shakedown LLC or whatever, he can't have that other ownership stake, anyway. Surely it couldn't be that he has no confidence in this plan and is hedging against its failure, because he said he Believes In The Market. Money, mouth?

bingo.

Brooklyn stands as the Isles' best (only?) option in the New York area if they leave Nassau.

This seems an incontrovertible fact.

Still not going to happen.

Now that the deal is done, Goldwater can sue.

So, it's over, right?

Judging by the last couple reactions, sounds like Goldwater is leaving the CoG alone.

what makes you say that?

Team accounting works in their favor. Example, the Heat have never paid rent to Miami-Dade County in all their seasons playing at the AmericanAirlines Arena (1997).

Except that Miami only pays the Heat 6.8 million per year to manage their arena. Glendale is suggesting the market rate is several times that, as the cover for funneling county cash to the team.

Tennis balls. Always with the tennis balls.

"What treasure, Uncle?"

Calling Barry Goldwater a real American, Devils avitar I think Icecap is turning into me

I don't know about that; you were defending these subsidies not that many pages back...

That meeting might outdraw actual Coyotes games.

I don't know for a fact that they made money on the arena in the lockout season.

But we do know that they're bankrupting themselves to keep a team the city doesn't actually like very much. We do know that they are cutting back on city services to do so. We do know that they're proposing to break Arizona law in the process.