On Tuesday Jim Balsillie offered 212.5 million to the phoenix Coyotes to move to a location somewhere in southern Ontario. The Coyotes general manager Jerry Moyes who has now filed for bankruptcy. The only way that Balsillie will buy the franchise is if he can move it to Canada, there have been other offers but Balsillie's offer is by far the highest, mostly because he wants to move the team north of the boarder. He also said that he would give 17 million USD to keep the Coyotes in operation until he can take over. The NHL board of governors is questionable about this and even more is commissioner Gary Bettman who has shot down Balsillie down twice already, first with the Pittsburgh penguins, second with the Nashville predators.
I think that this is a great thing, first, why should Phoenix even have a team, I don’t think that they ever can fill a arena until it's sold out unless they are in the sanely cup final. Southern Ontario needs a team, Toronto can fill the ACC even with a team that is not eve close to making the playoffs. Intern this will enable more fans, more opportunities to see the games. I think that the commissioner is not doing the right thing, there are plenty of fans in the Hamilton area and there will be a huge area there to make money with a new NHL franchise. I don't see what the conflict is because clearly Phoenix is not making any money if they are filing for bankruptcy.
Reference:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/05/05/spphoenixbalsillie.html
I think that this is right on. Phoenix doesn't even appreciate hockey like we do in Ontario and this is why the team shouldn't have moved in the first place. Gary Bettman has something against Jim Balsille and because of this a new team will never come to southern Ontario until Bettman takes a hike. The Coyotes are costing all franchises money by still operating. The NHL is funding the team to keep it afloat but it will only remian a dead team until they move the franchise.
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