Jim Balsillie: Battling The Curse of the Hamilton Tigers

So the Phoenix Coyotes debacle is being carried on for yet another week.

Jim Balsillie, BlackBerry guru sans any real hockey smarts (in this writer's opinion), continues to fight his battle to ultimately get Gary Bettman's desert rose, the Vegas, I mean Phoenix Coyotes, closer to home.

Everyone by now is aware that this would not be Balsillie's first attempt at bringing a struggling NHL franchise to southern Ontario.

What many are not aware of is that the city of Hamilton, for five years, did have an NHL franchise. From 1920 to 1925, Canada's steel city was home to the Hamilton Tigers.

The Tigers came to Ontario after the Quebec Bulldogs were purchased by the Abso Pure Ice Company.

Sidebar: The Abso Ice Company would cut it's ice blocks for public sale right out of Hamilton Harbour. I don't think the Harbour freezes anymore, and it's not just from global warming.

Hamilton's first season was a dismal one, and unfortunately the next three seasons followed suit. Even the presence of the great Joe Malone (30 goals in 20 games) and the loaning of players by other teams could not help the franchise.

In the 1924-1925 season however, the Tigers coincidentally found both their success as well as their ultimate demise.

With a 19-10-1 record, the Tigers stood atop the NHL standings. The Tigers' players, however, felt they were being ripped off by the league as their salaries remained the same as the previous season, although the number of games had increased by six.

The league stated that the players were under contract until March 30th, regardless of the number of games played. Unsatisfied with the league's response, the Hamilton players went on strike.

With the second and third place teams already completing their playoff series during the Hamilton holdout, league President Frank Calder awarded the league title to the Montreal Canadiens.

The following season, Bill Dwyer was awarded an expansion franchise. He bought the Tigers and moved them to New York, where they became the New York Americans.

Hamilton's NHL era was over.

While most of the players on that team continued to play in the NHL, did the ghosts of the Hamilton Tigers leave a curse on the city's future NHL hopes?

You could argue that they did.

By the late 1970's and early 80s, Hamilton Mayor Jack MacDonald was making  plans to bring an NHL-sized arena to Hamilton.

At the same time, he had made an agreement with Toronto Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard that would allow the fledgling Colorado Rockies to come to Hamilton.

MacDonald was defeated in 1980 as mayor and failed to get re-elected two years later. His successor reportedly nixed the Ballard deal.

Colorado became the New Jersey Devils in 1982.

Two years later, the Pittsburgh Penguins found themselves in trouble.

With Copps Coliseum near completion, several Toronto area investors, including Ballard's son Bill, were interested in acquiring the team.

Unfortunately for Hamilton, the Penguins drafted some kid named Mario Lemieux in 1984 and the team never moved.

In 1991, the League made plans to bring two more teams into the fold.

Hamilton was a front runner and backed by Tim Horton's owner Ron Joyce.

Unfortunately, Mr. Joyce apparently wished to stagger the payments on the $50 million franchise fee that the league requested.

The league chose Tampa Bay and, cross-provincial city, Ottawa instead. I had three roommates from Hamilton at this time. Suffice to say they were not amused.

The new expansion teams were shortly followed by a splinter team to San Jose as well as new teams in Anaheim, Florida, Nashville, Columbus, as well as second kicks at the can for Minnesota and Atlanta.

Hamiltonians were outraged. Then to add salt to the wound, the Winnipeg Jets moved to that hockey "hot" bed of Phoenix, Arizona.

A potential back door opened in 2003 when the Ottawa Senators filed for temporary bankruptcy protection.

Alas, new ownership would keep the team in Canada's capital and it looks yet again like the NHL will never return to Steeltown.

But on the horizon, Jim Balsillie is seen riding in on a white BlackBerry with a chance to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2006.

The deal is apparently done, but then withdrawn by Balsillie when he is not allowed to move the team from Pittsburgh.

The next year, Hamilton's white knight makes a deal to purchase the Nashville Predators.

This time, Balsillie reportedly has a lease in place on Copps Coliseum and is even taking season ticket deposits. However, then-Predators owner Craig Leipold withdraws from the deal and sells to a local group.

Allegations abound that the NHL pressure Leipold to keep the team in Nashville.

Many Hamiltonians are putting the blame on Commissioner Bettman, and his anti-Canadian stance.

But, there have been at least three other times that the city of Hamilton has had the NHL rug pulled from under them, all prior to Bettman's tenure as NHL boss. So the question is, who's really yanking out the proverbial rug??

Are the disgruntled spirits of Billy Burch, Red Green, Jake Forbes, etc. holding a shadow over Hamilton's NHL dreams?

I guess we will have to wait another week to find out.