NHL Anti-Thread: Bad Business Decision Aggregator

[Dilbert]

So the Coyotes appear bound for Salt Lake, their farm club Tucson Roadrunners appear bound for Tempe. Anyone hear anything on the Utah Grizzlies? I know they are in a different arena in the suburbs but I cant imagine them staying to compete with the NHL. Should they go to Tucson to complete the circle of life?

[GDAWG]

17 minutes ago, Dilbert said:

So the Coyotes appear bound for Salt Lake, their farm club Tucson Roadrunners appear bound for Tempe. Anyone hear anything on the Utah Grizzlies? I know they are in a different arena in the suburbs but I cant imagine them staying to compete with the NHL. Should they go to Tucson to complete the circle of life?

 

It's going to cause a domino effect in minor league hockey since the Grizzlies are the ECHL affiliate of the Avalanche.  

[OnWis97]

We’re going to get a Cleveland Deal combined with a Hornets/Pelicans/Bobcats/Hornets deal, aren’t we?

 

Cleveland Deal for Phoenix; Charlotte Deal for Winnipeg; Defunct Thrashers. On-hold Coyotes.  It all makes me wish they’d just moved back to Winning in 2010 or whatever.

 

I don’t really understand holding the name (and, I assume, history) for Phoenix given the franchise’s history.

[The_Admiral]

If you understand it as a convoluted legal plot to make this deadbeat stop embarrassing them by giving him a series of unattainable goals, it makes perfect sense. The "Coyotes history" will be consigned to the same basement file cabinet as the Thrashers' history; the only question is whether they sort out the Jets' lineage while they're at it now that nothing matters anymore.

[Sykotyk]

2 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

If you understand it as a convoluted legal plot to make this deadbeat stop embarrassing them by giving him a series of unattainable goals, it makes perfect sense. The "Coyotes history" will be consigned to the same basement file cabinet as the Thrashers' history; the only question is whether they sort out the Jets' lineage while they're at it now that nothing matters anymore.

Now would be the time to give Winnipeg back their history. Does the Utah group really want that history if they're not even getting the Coyotes history?

On 4/13/2024 at 1:11 AM, MDGP said:

 

 

[mcj882000]

Over the last month or so I've had a friend insist to me that it could have worked in Phoenix if they only had a good owner, and to be fair yeah, they're probably not wrong; a hypothetical guy who had both the money to buy the team and the competence to hire the right people to run things probably would have helped fix the ship. 

Unfortunately, that's not the world we live in, and that remains a hypothetical. Even more unfortunately, I'm not sure that ever could have been in play to begin with. Even just to start off, "good" sports team owners (relatively speaking) are already hard to come by; for every Mike Illitch it feels like there's a half-dozen Jeff Fishers, Jeff Lorias, Harold Ballards, Donald Sterlings, Dan Snyders, etc. But even within that range of "good" would-be owners, I'm not sure if the Coyotes ever could have been bought by one, especially post-2009 - I think it's safe to assume that anyone who could have stepped up probably saw a team that's never turned a profit in Arizona, couldn't routinely sell out even the awkward 16k-seat arena in downtown Phoenix when they were good, let alone the 17k-seat arena in Glendale when they were mostly-mediocre, and with a history of bankruptcy, ownership turnover and political haggling over new arenas, and "nope'd" right out of the conversation; they would have seen that the attempt just wasn't worth it. 

And so what does that leave us with? The weird opportunists like George Gosbee just looking for a quick pump-and-dump opportunity, or the out-and-out con artists like Matt Hulsizer probably was, looking to just defraud their way into the league without any actual money. At best, you get a naïve optimist who thinks he can save the team but quickly realizes how in-over-his-head he is and bails after a season or two.

The kind of owner they needed to turn things around would have been the kind of person smart enough to see what a waste of time, money and effort it would be to try.

[The_Admiral]

I think Phoenix would have had to have been an expansion for it to work. Acknowledge that there's not an NHL arena and build one. Take time to assemble a decent hockey-ops staff and business staff (whatever they inherited from the Jets was not it) and most of all, an owner who knows exactly what he's getting into. Not Minnesota guys who got derped by the worthless goddamn Timberwolves, not real estate speculators trying to get rich off a strip mall, not Wayne Gretzky, and not the parade of dopes who came in after the league. It needed to be a conscientious, from-the-ground-up project, but it wasn't, so it failed.

[who do you think]

The fact that this is how the saga ends - with :censored:ing Utah just sort of gliding in and taking it with little resistance, after multiple better options (Hamilton, Winnipeg, Seattle, Quebec City) were swatted away over the years - leaves a funky taste in my mouth.

[The_Admiral]

On 2/16/2021 at 10:53 AM, SFGiants58 said:

Contract the Coyotes. It is the only way to make sure the demon is truly dead.

When you're right, you're right.

[The_Admiral]

10 minutes ago, who do you think said:

The fact that this is how the saga ends - with :censored:ing Utah just sort of gliding in and taking it with little resistance, after multiple better options (Hamilton, Winnipeg, Seattle, Quebec City) were swatted away over the years - leaves a funky taste in my mouth.

 

The best situation would have been the Coyotes to Winnipeg and Thrashers to Quebec City both in 2011. A Hamilton '09/Winnipeg  '11 scenario would have been okay too but my heart was never really in it for Hamilton, more of just a "hey what if." Seattle should have been expanded to long ago.

[GDAWG]

Wasn't there a guy trying to bring the NHL to Hamilton a long time ago, only for the NHL to stop him?

[SFGiants58]

Just now, The_Admiral said:

When you're right, you're right.

 

 

 

Well, contraction-in-all-but-name is just as good as contraction.

[BeerGuyJordan]

10 hours ago, Dilbert said:

So the Coyotes appear bound for Salt Lake, their farm club Tucson Roadrunners appear bound for Tempe. Anyone hear anything on the Utah Grizzlies? I know they are in a different arena in the suburbs but I cant imagine them staying to compete with the NHL. Should they go to Tucson to complete the circle of life?

The TCC management has already said they'd be interested in filling the vacancy, since they spent the money to get the space up to AHL standards from 2016 to 2018.

 

I don't know that the attendance numbers in Tucson are good enough to attract even the ECHL. The only reason it made sense was because the Coyotes owned them and wanted the proximity.

 

I live in Tucson. As much as I'd love to have a team, I'm not blind to the reality.

 

10 hours ago, GDAWG said:

 

It's going to cause a domino effect in minor league hockey since the Grizzlies are the ECHL affiliate of the Avalanche.  

I mean, dominoes in the minors is part of the lay of the land, especially when you consider SPHL and FPHL. 

 

40 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

Wasn't there a guy trying to bring the NHL to Hamilton a long time ago, only for the NHL to stop him?

Jim Balsillie came close to relocating the Predators to Hamilton back in like the early 2010's. He wasn't as close as he believed, and started operating as if it were a done deal. That passed off the league and killed the deal.

 

I'm not certain he would have gotten it done even if he hadn't shot himself in the foot, but given the fact that the Isles debacle seemed to teach the League almost nothing, who knows?

[Fowler2]

1 hour ago, The_Admiral said:

 

The best situation would have been the Coyotes to Winnipeg and Thrashers to Quebec City both in 2011. A Hamilton '09/Winnipeg  '11 scenario would have been okay too but my heart was never really in it for Hamilton, more of just a "hey what if." Seattle should have been expanded to long ago.

 

Seattle should've joined in the early 90's, but Sonics owner Barry Ackerley walked out on the other investors, on purpose mind you, so the Seattle bid would fail. Dick. The Leafs ownership would rather be kicked in the balls 1000 times then allow Hamilton in.

[GDAWG]

31 minutes ago, BeerGuyJordan said:

Jim Balsillie came close to relocating the Predators to Hamilton back in like the early 2010's. He wasn't as close as he believed, and started operating as if it were a done deal. That passed off the league and killed the deal.

 

I'm not certain he would have gotten it done even if he hadn't shot himself in the foot, but given the fact that the Isles debacle seemed to teach the League almost nothing, who knows?

 

So according to his Wiki, he tried three times, one of them the Coyotes in 2009.  Each time the NHL said no.

[who do you think]

1 hour ago, The_Admiral said:

 

The best situation would have been the Coyotes to Winnipeg and Thrashers to Quebec City both in 2011. A Hamilton '09/Winnipeg  '11 scenario would have been okay too but my heart was never really in it for Hamilton, more of just a "hey what if." Seattle should have been expanded to long ago.

 

Hamilton probably would have made bank for at least a few years; that was the teeth of the Canadian dollar being pretty strong relative to the US, and reading back it seems like there was just a lot of general hype around the possibility of an NHL team coming back north instead of going the other way. There might have been some issues down the road with Blackberry going down and the Hamilton-Buffalo corridor suddenly being a bit crowded with NHL hockey, but surely nothing as bad as what actually transpired in Glendale and then ASU's clarinet storage room.

 

1 hour ago, GDAWG said:

Wasn't there a guy trying to bring the NHL to Hamilton a long time ago, only for the NHL to stop him?

 

Yeah, Jim Balsillie. He loved to run his mouth and go off half-cocked and do things like hold a season ticket drive for a Hamilton team that he didn't actually own yet, then he tried to buy the Coyotes out of bankruptcy with the goal of loopholing them up to Hamilton somehow. I should read The Instigator again.

[TBGKon]

On 4/13/2024 at 7:18 PM, The_Admiral said:

What in the WordArt is going on with that header? Is that italic and an arch at the same time?

It gives off these vibes

[The_Admiral]

7 hours ago, GDAWG said:

Wasn't there a guy trying to bring the NHL to Hamilton a long time ago, only for the NHL to stop him?

 

 

That was the origin of the NHL owning and operating the Coyotes for four years. They went to court to stop Jerry Moyes from allowing Balsillie to buy the Coyotes out of bankruptcy court. The league said this was to protect their right to decide who owns which teams where, but if someone had bought the Senators out of bankruptcy to put them in San Diego, they wouldn't have lifted a finger. Mostly it was about protecting the Sabres (play in Buffalo) and Jeremy Jacobs (does business in Buffalo).

 

The NHL even said in court that a Hamilton/Southern Ontario team would have been among their most profitable, they just weren't going to allow it. I think the Hamilton Tigers would've been kinda neat if they had loud barberpole sweaters and stuff.

[BBTV]

 

 

 

apropos of nothing, found this while going back to the thread.  Someone predicting the future?

 

EDIT: post didn't copy as expected due to http link, but basically about predicting coronavirus is coming in 2013.

 

On 7/3/2013 at 1:33 AM, nash61 said:

http://cdn0.meme.li/instances/300x300/39377843.jpg

[zubazpirate]

38 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

 

 

The NHL even said in court that a Hamilton/Southern Ontario team would have been among their most profitable, they just weren't going to allow it. I think the Hamilton Tigers would've been kinda neat if they had loud barberpole sweaters and stuff.

 

The NHL leaves a lot of money on the table by having only one NHL team in all of southern/southwestern Ontario. (Well, Buffalo has a  presence in the Niagara Peninsula and Detroit is Windsor's NHL team, but those barely move the needle relative to the GTHA and what a second NHL team would be able to pull off there.) In some respects it's amazing that the league hasn't been able to broker a deal with MLSE for a second GTHA team.