Gothamite

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...

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. 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.

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?

bingo.

This seems an incontrovertible fact.

Still not going to happen. Now that the deal is done, Goldwater can sue.

what makes you say that?

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.

"What treasure, Uncle?"

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.

Lost in all the news about the awful deal Glendale is trying to push for the future is this gem about the bad deal they have now: $25 million NHL payment will come from Glendale utility fund It gets better: So not only are they committing to spend money they don't have in the future, they're already on the hook for repaying in the future money they don't have to cover bills they can't pay today. This is beyond farce. Time to move the team.

If the team moves, then Glendale can use the arena for concerts etc without having to pay the exorbitant hockey subsidy. I've seen reports that the city could actually make money on the arena if they didn't have to support the Coyotes. Having lived 10 minutes from the arena and based on the number and type of non-Coyotes events that roll through the Jobber, I have a hard time believing that. Unless they make money by simply not turning things on. Most of the higher profile events go on at the Univervisty of Phoenix Stadium, US Airways Arena, and even the Ashley Furninture Pavilion. I don't know how many more of those events would transfer to the Jobber, but I just don't see that. I can believe it. "Arena management" fees would be greatly reduced in that case. They wouldn't need to fill it every night. And you have to remember that $25M of what the city has been losing every season would melt away like ice in the desert.

If the team moves, then Glendale can use the arena for concerts etc without having to pay the exorbitant hockey subsidy. I've seen reports that the city could actually make money on the arena if they didn't have to support the Coyotes.

I agree it's extremely unlikely. But with him, who knows? Maybe he'll stop funding the Russian national teams since they wouldn't give him the Presidency...

I'm guessing that would be a pretty expensive proposition, even if possible in the first place. But Prokhorov is rich enough, and has apparently been involved in hockey in Russia, so who knows?

Well, it is the Post. So, massive grain of salt. But still, it would be welcome news.

If the sale goes through. And if Goldwater does not sue. And then if the new owner accepts this agreement without changes. And then if he then feels like making the name change is "feasible". So, in other words, not going to happen. "Soon" or any other time. At least, it's no more likely to happen today than it was yesterday.

If the coyotes don't move, there is no justice in the universe. No other team should be sacrificed on the altar of Bettman's ego.

And that's really good news. The NHL likes prospective owners that can play ball and keep their mouths shut.