Gothamite

That's not a smoke screen you smell. It's pure old-fashioned bull .

C'mon, Glendale. Your fantasy plan has to at least pass a cursory examination. You're not trying hard enough.

A small city with a very large ego. Which was the problem.

I feel no sympathy for the politicians who funneled millions upon millions of public dollars to a team that their city didn't even want. To now cry that they have been taken advantage of is laughable at best.

Riiight.

Is it possible that there's spmeone involved with this mess who is actually less trustworthy than Bettman?

Come on, Glendale...please, please just pay the money. I want them out here still. It's a decent team we have here, and it'd just be another blow to our civic pride.

I think "we close libraries and swimming pools to subsidize a failing sports team" is a blow to civic pride. Or it should be. I don't know. All those teabaggers in the desert really cherry-pick which socialism they like and which socialism they don't like.

Sad but true. But are these particular politicians teabagger darlings? I honestly don't know the political scene in Glendale, beyond the car-crash aspects.

So are you afraid that they'll move, or that they won't?

That's it - they've been knocking down the design in order to get the thing built.

At some point, it was a choice between hockey rink or no building.

I think the hockey-capable arena was pitched when Rattner was forced to downsize his proposal. I don't think it was a conscious choice, but rather what he had to do to get his project built.

That would be nice. Much better than the Packers' last ring.

MSG's existence doesn't mean you have to build a tennis stadium with a roof. Hell, Columbus Ohio has two full-size arenas. There's no reason not to open yourself to the possibility that maybe one day down the road you'd like to host something other than basketball.

Yeah, I don't follow that train of thought, either.

The Coyotes' problem is that they probably could win the Stanley Cup this season and still have trouble selling out games next season, should they somehow still be there next season.

and on the way to that Stanley Cup, most of their home games will have road crowds.

I'll be sad if they leave, but only for the same reason most hockey fans out here would be: i don't get to see my favorite team play the Coyotes live 2-3 times a year.

And that, in a nutshell, is the real problem.

I never noticed that before, but now whenever I see this logo, it is all I am going to be able to think about.

They had a reversible-version of the wordmark on all their home jerseys until relatively recently.

I really miss that. The current vertically-arched wordmark just doesn't have the same zip.

They still use it on their "not-really-our-primary-logo" primary logo:

But that's not the same thing.

Bingo.

like the old Phoenix Suns wordmark.

now where did I leave that "mind-blown" emoticon?

I agree Brooklyn is always an option, but only for the short-term. They'd need to have the arena deal in place before moving in to a facility with such a limited capacity, lest they be stuck there.

The Coyotes.

At least the Islanders have an owner, lousy as many think he is.

The league can't find a single legitimate party interested in buying the Coyotes and keeping them in Arizona.

I personally think Milwaukee could be a good home for an NHL team, miles better than some of the ridiculous locations thrown around for the past 3 years :coughcough: Kansas City and Las Vegas.

I also think Seattle would jump at the chance of having the Bucks over a new expansion/relocated NHL team. The Bucks most probably have to be out of Milwaukee, way before anyone can realistically think of Milwaukee as a potential NHL home.

But for speculation purposes I would say Milwaukee is definitely a good home for a team.

I agree with all of this.

If the Bucks go away, then the city could be considered for hockey. But not until then.

Oh, crap.

Please hold off until the Coyotes have moved, please hold off until the Coyotes have moved, please hold off until the Coyotes have moved...

I recall that too, but it looks like that well is dry.

Exactly. From the article:

But what do you expect the NHL to say on the record? The Coyotes situation has been an embarrassment for quite some time, and the timing would be foolish for the league to even give a hint about the latest developments or non developments in the franchise's ownership situation.

Dogs count double.

They record their patrons by pair of legs.

Question for Gothamite: with the renaissance of Brooklyn, is suburban Long Island, in some sense, dying? All I read is that the high taxes and NIMBYism/BANANAism are sending everyone out of there. I mean, it's not that people won't live there anymore, just that maybe there won't be that sort of enormous middle class that would justify building a 17,000-seat arena outside of New York City.

The city is more and more attractive, but I'm not sure that I would categorize LI as dying in any sense.

The Long Island Rail Road is expanding, making Nassau an even better location for suburban commuters. That will help secure that middle class. I think the tax thing is a bit overblown - we keep hearing the same thing about the city, with our added income tax, but that hasn't stopped people from flocking to Gotham.

And I also think that Brooklyn's main growth has come in the more urban areas rather than the more suburban ones on the eastern edge of the borough, and is therefore largely irrelevant to Long Island's situation. I don't think Fort Greene is attracting the sort of people who would otherwise live in Hicksville.

Also you've got to think if the tables were turned and Phoenix did move to Winnipeg, would we be speculating weather Atlanta would move to QC? Probably not...

I think we would.

Atlanta was a terrible market. They would have lost that team, if not to Winnipeg than to the next ownership-ready city willing and able to build an arena.

Again, damn shame.

Still, 14,500 would be better than they draw in Nassau. And they'd remain accessible to their historical fanbase.

Stupid short-sightedness. Would have been a perfect solution.

And then I could have walked to the games.