Jim Balsillie: A Good Example Of How Not To Get an NHL Team

(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Jim Balsillie has proven that he is a very good businessman, but clearly he doesn’t have very good manners and isn’t very good at getting into clubs.

I like Jim Balsillies vision to bring another team to Canada. I think it’s a great idea and will happen in the next three to five years. However Jim Balsillie’s approach is all wrong.

When trying to get into a club it’s usually best not to piss off all members of the club.

Jim Balsillie has gotten a progressively worse reputation with the NHL in every attempt he has made to get into the NHL and I’m more than certain that in 16 months when the Phoenix Coyotes are still the Phoenix Coyotes and Charles Wang puts the New York Islanders are up for sale Jim Balsillie will be right there once a gain trying to get into the NHL.

Then once again he will be denied.

Jim Balsillie won’t get an NHL team because of his terrible way of going about it.

Here is a list of things he has done to piss of the NHL: sell season tickets in Hamilton before even owning the team or a lease to the arena, start a website which was essentially his way of getting 180,000 hired PR guns for free, get a building lease for Copps Coliseum and do everything but bring in the cranes to begin renovations, and most recently launch a probe into why the NHL rejected him.

This is no manner to conduct yourself if trying to get an NHL team and I hope people realise this

Look, I hate the idea of hockey in the desert as much as everyone else and I am not a Phoenix fan, I’m a Detroit fan. If were going to get hockey out of stupid places like Florida, Phoenix and Atlanta, I sure hope Balsillie isn’t the only option.

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