How Badly Does Canada Really Want Another NHL Team?

There are stories being reported, that the Phoenix Coyotes soap opera will finally be resolved with a new American owner from Chicago keeping the team in Phoenix for good.

If that is true, where does that leave Canada and its four prominent NHL franchise bidders who want to increase the number of Canadian teams in the league either by relocation or expansion?  When one looks, one sees a sorry, divided mess. 

Let's review the current status of the failed candidates.

Jim Balsillie

The billionaire owner of Blackberry is completely out of the picture as far as being an NHL owner, unless Gary Bettman is replaced or has brain surgery. 

An NHL team would have to be in absolute dire straits, on its deathbed for the NHL to ever consider him, particularly if he tries to place a team anywhere in southern Ontario, which Buffalo and Toronto consider to be their monopoly preserve.

Thus the city most deserving of a franchise, Hamilton—which already possesses a small NHL arena that can be expanded to a competitive 18,500 seats and can join the NHL immediately—will continue to be shut out.

The official NHL lie is that the league has to go back to Quebec and Winnipeg first, thus covering up the background activities of Buffalo and Toronto, knowing full well that Winnipeg's "official" bidders, Dave Thomson and Mark Chipman, have never formally fronted a bid for a team.  Thomson and Chipman were hoping the Phoenix mess would not be resolved so that they could buy the Coyotes, and also that Quebec wouldn't have a proper NHL arena and be waiting for indefinite government grants to build one.

The NHL could go into Hamilton tomorrow with open arms and all its conditions met.  So much for its commitment to Canada.

Quebecor (Pierre Karl Peladeau) & Mayor Regis Labeaume

If any city seemed poised to become Canada's seventh NHL team, Quebec was that city.  They got the support of the municipal and provincial governments and failed Montreal Canadiens purchaser, Pierre Karl Peladeau announced that his Canadian media giant, Quebecor, would turn its attention to fronting a formal bid to bring back the Quebec Nordiques.

Peladeau and Labeaume then held discussions with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman who stipulated that a returned Quebec team must play in a modern NHL-size arena.

To their credit, Peladeau and Labeaume willingly faced up to the arena problem, recognizing that it was the major reason Quebec lost the Nordiques in 1995.

Unfortunately, it became clear that Quebecor could not front a franchise bid and build a new arena.

Labeaume and Peladeau then decided to go the traditional Quebec route for the added money, seeking senior government handouts for their project.

But Canadians all across Canada, including Quebec, have traditionally opposed spending taxpayer money for private rich owners.

They point to all the conflicts in the United States where ungrateful, greedy owners have pulled franchises from their traditional homes in order to make money elsewhere.

In Canada, only national projects such as the Olympics, Commonwealth or Pan Am Games are considered worthy of taxpayer money.

Peladeau and Labeaume managed to get Quebec Premier Jean Charest to climb aboard and offer up provincial money in a way to get votes for the Liberal party in a non-traditional area of support in a future Quebec election.

But it's a long shot to get the Federal Government to ante up the missing amount. 

The Federal Government cannot agree to such a measure without angering the rest of Canada, or facing a hoard of suppliants demanding money for their own sports projects.

Also many Canadians are bitterly opposed to spending any tax dollars on the NHL, which they view as anti-Canadian.

Labeaume and Peladeau have tried disguising their scheme as an attempt to bring the Winter Olympics to Quebec, but nobody in the rest of Canada is buying it.

What ought to have been done is to front a bid and build an arena with enough private investors and capital like the rest of the Canadian NHL teams.

But foolish Peladeau and Labeaume have done little, if anything, to recruit more partners.  Trying to be everything themselves, they may end up with nothing at all.

Dave Thomson and Mark Chipman

Between them, Thomson and Chipman have enough money to front a bid and build an NHL-size arena, but they have done neither.

Instead they are content to be emergency bailout boys if the NHL can't find a local owner for the Phoenix Coyotes by the December 31 deadline.

If the Phoenix Coyote situation gets resolved, what will they do?

So far, they've committed little money to their so-called NHL project.

They have refused to face up to the arena problem, even though the new Winnipeg arena is over 1,500 seats smaller than the smallest NHL arena, of the New York Islanders, which has been deemed too small and obsolete by both its owner and commissioner Bettman.

Yet the same Bettman claims that Winnipeg's arena is acceptable.

But even if the Coyotes fold, other bidders from other cities with better arenas than Winnipeg may appear.  It is by no means certain that Thomson and Chipman would get the Coyotes on a platter.

If the Coyotes stay in Phoenix what will Chipman and Thomson do?

Finally front a formal expansion bid?

Hope another American franchise goes down the tube?  But they won't get a better situation than Phoenix and if it doesn't fold, what's the likelihood of any other American franchise doing it soon?

And in any expansion bid, they would face bidders with better arenas and bigger markets than Winnipeg.

They could also drop out of the picture all together.

How serious are Thomson and Chipman?

Why are they content to be emergency background bidders?

Why don't they strengthen Winnipeg's chances by doing something about the arena problem?

And if the NHL wants to go back to Winnipeg like Bettman claims they do, and finds Thomson and Chipman acceptable owners, and the Winnipeg arena up to par, why don't they grant them an expansion franchise now, instead of waiting for the Coyotes to fold?

Ice Edge

It's over for this group.  They were willing to keep the Coyotes in Phoenix so long as they could play some of their games in Saskatoon to offset their losses, but the sad truth is they were completely out of their depth.

They simply don't have the capital necessary to run an NHL franchise by themselves. 

The NHL knew this, but crafty Bettman needed someone credible enough to keep the hopes of a Phoenix franchise alive, until a real bidder would surface.

It still might not happen, but Bettman and the NHL have played a cagey game, risking the folding of the Coyotes, by barring Balsillie, and playing for time for a rich enough bidder to appear.

So they encouraged Ice Edge to keep talking to Glendale until someone better came along.

Ice Edge still claims they want to own an NHL team, but until they get a boost of capital from more partners, they can forget it.

What To Do

Unless the NHL changes ownership and leadership, Balsillie is completely out of the picture.  He is too much of a maverick for the NHL to stomach.

Even if he is only in the background, any bid with his name in it will be rejected on sight.  Sadly, Hamilton, the Canadian city with the best chance of being a successful NHL franchise goes with him.

The most obvious solution is for the three remaining bidders and anybody else who is interested to unite in some kind of combination and really call the NHL's bluff.

Thomson and Chipman don't seem to have any plan beyond buying the Phoenix Coyotes.

Ice Edge doesn't have the capital to do it alone, but would be a great partner in some kind of combination.

The best solution would be for Peladeau and Labeaume to drop the idea of government handouts and invite Ice Edge to join them.

It still comes down to the same question.  How badly do these bidders really want another Canadian NHL franchise?