Court to Balsillie: GTFO

Everything's coming up Bettman, but this isn't a surprise:

The Coyotes are staying in Phoenix.

A bankruptcy judge has rejected the proposed sale of the team to Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie, who would have moved the team to Hamilton, Ontario.

Judge Redfield T. Baum issued a 21-page ruling late Monday afternoon, concluding that the June 29 deadline imposed by Balsillie did not allow enough time to resolve the complex case.

"Simply put, the court does not think there is sufficient time (14 days) for all of these issues to be fairly presented to the court given that deadline," the judge wrote.

If this shocks you that the court didn't approve the sale to an owner looking to supersede the rules of the NHL, then you need to go back to school.

I've said from the get-go of this drama party that there's no way the courts would see things Balsillie's way, especially after he put a deadline on getting a sale done when it was clearly out of his, Jerry Moyes and even the NHLs hands.


Not coming to a Jobing.Com Arena near Glendale.



Of course, this is all just window dressing on the larger problem at hand for the NHL in that they have a franchise that is bleeding money yearly and something needs to be done to rectify that situation sooner than later. In this situation, however, it appears that Jim Balsillie and his moving van won't be coming to Phoenix to take them away.

What happens with the Coyotes next will be very important to see how dedicated Herr Bettman is to actually keeping the Coyotes in Phoenix or if all of his talk about keeping the team there was just that.