A Further Example of the Greatness Found Here

It was great to see a newly revamped look over at what is easily the best collection of hockey information on the Internet at Kukla's Korner. They've razzle-dazzled their appearance and added a few new bloggers to the fold.

It was also pleasing to read that I've proven myself to be a huge inspiration on one of the old bloggers in a new location there.

For those not clicking on links out of fear of Internet madness, The Puck Stops Here's post is titled:

How Much Power Does The Anschutz Group Have In The NHL?

To go a little Troy McClure on your asses - you might remember these storylines when I was writing about them last month. Your refresher course can be found here and more of it right here. Click away, I'll wait for you.

I'm glad that my scribblings about a month ago and making waves through the Internet and others in more prominent Internet locales are snooping around and catching the rumblings we started here a while ago.

Just be sure to say "Hi" when you're here is all.

Paranoid and Mistrusting

Hey, remember when I was spitballing the idea that Phillip Anschutz and Tim Leiweke of the Los Angeles Kings were scheming their way towards finding a way to fill up the Spirit Center Arena in Kansas City, Missouri?

Sure you do, you read it here and you're a loyal reader and enjoy when I get rambling about things that aggravate me.

Apparently the New York Post's Larry Brooks is big enough and important enough (read: writes for a New York City paper) to get a direct explanation from Leiweke himself about what it is that they're up to.

Consider me distrustful of those in great power with great wealth:

"Our interest was in the facility, not in the team," Leiweke said. "The
loan did not come from AEG Sports, but through AEG Facilities.

"We analyzed the situation and concluded that the Predators would be locked
into Nashville for a long time. Our interest had nothing to do with Kansas City,
but rather in getting the long-term management rights to [Sommet Center]."

Basically, all of this speculation and questioning of the situation surrounds Boots Del Biaggio being a lying scumbag who managed to pull one over on everyone involved in the situation. Leiweke, Anschutz, and Craig Leipold were all suckered in by this trickster. Gary Bettman, at least according to Leiweke, carries no blame.

"I'd been assured by Boots that [the loan] had been fully vetted with Gary,
but believing that is just one of the mistakes I made that I regret," Leiweke
said. "I should have disclosed the information myself.

"The loan was through AEG Facilities and not the corporate ownership of the
Los Angeles Kings. We had nothing to hide. The commissioner not knowing about it
makes it looks worse than it is, but we have nobody to blame for that but
ourselves."

OK so Gary is blameless and knew nothing about the financial dealings of his friends (possible) and in the financial dealings that affect the teams in the league that he runs (highly doubtful).

Pardon me if I feel the slightest bit skeptical about this.

Also pardon me if I feel really skeptical about what Leiweke is dealing out about how there's no plans and that there's nothing actually going on and that AEG's involvement is strictly with the building and not with the team that inhabits it.

Obviously with such entangling alliances between businesses this can make everything look very convoluted (which, it is) and it allows for this kind of admittedly asinine speculation - but sometimes, real life likes to interject a little fun into things to feed the fire.

Case in point, the NHL preseason schedule offers this fodder for further Mel Gibson in "Conspiracy Theory" type of overreacting:

Monday September 22nd

Los Angeles (split squad) vs. St. Louis, at Kansas City, Mo.
(Sprint Center), 8 p.m.

You know, I get it that it's likely AEG doing their part to throw a bone to one of their other arenas, especially one that they're trying to fill up with a team or two since, you know, that helps these arenas and their owners make a lot of money. Generally what happens (although not so much) is they send the big team to play a game in preseason at the home of their minor league affiliate.

Sure, that would seem like a hiccup and AEG is just looking to audition, right?

Not so fast! More rampant speculation ahead!

Saturday September 27th

Colorado vs. Los Angeles, at Las Vegas, Nev. (MGM
Grand), 10 p.m.

So now the Kings are playing two games away from Los Angeles and they just happen to be playing one of them in an AEG owned arena in Kansas City, a city and arena desperate to add an NHL or NBA team and they're playing a game in Las Vegas, a city that many have been pushing to add an NHL team and to break the stigma of having professional sports in the gambling capital of the United States.

I just wonder if we'll spot a picture of Phillip Anschutz cozying up to Jerry Bruckheimer at the game in Vegas. Why? Oh, I don't know... seems like they could be good friends too.

A group led by Bruckheimer, an avid hockey fan, is the front-runner for the Las
Vegas expansion and has been in talks with NHL officials for months, sources
said. Additionally, Bruckheimer has had discussions with AEG officials about
that group potentially building and/or operating an NHL arena in Las Vegas. AEG
President & CEO Tim Leiweke would not comment on that, but said in a
statement, "Jerry is like a brother. I will be there to support him anywhere he
wants to go." Bruckheimer is said to be the leader of a group of entertainment
execs, including MGM Studios Chair & CEO Harry Evans Sloan, who want to own
the Las Vegas team.

I can't imagine where I'd get such crazy conspiracy ideas from that maybe, just maybe, Phil Anschutz and AEG don't have the best of intentions for the L.A. Kings and that they're scouting out other locations to see what works best.

I must be crazy!

Even Larry Brooks Gets It!

Larry Brooks of the New York Post is a guy who doesn't often get things right and he's hell-bent on sticking up for the Players Association which, by default, makes him an enemy of Gary Bettman's state. This is something we appreciate - it's what I do here after all.

Apparently someone told Larry that there is hockey news going on in the offseason and a lot of it circles around Gary Bettman being a bumbling idiot who looks the other ways when his ownership buddies get involved in floating loans to broke other ownership buddies.

No, really, Larry noticed - have a look here.

One thing of note here that Brooks or the interns and bloggers he's getting his information and creativity from, to which I didn't even think of and my slant isn't exactly hidden here, is that Phillip Anschutz, the owner of the Los Angeles Kings and one of the guys propping up Boots Del Biaggio, might be working an angle of his own to get a team to Kansas City. Their plan to get the Penguins fell through, Boots Del Biaggio went broke so there went the Predators. Now what?

How about his team.

The Los Angeles Kings.

Say what?!

Tell it to us Larry:

The NHL may have looked the other way during the first week of 2007, when
Kings governor Tim Leiweke visited Kansas City and did his AEG ownership's
bidding by lobbying for the Penguins to move to the AEG-owned and operated arena
in KC should things have fallen through in Pittsburgh, but the league doesn't
appear to be looking away now.

It isn't looking away at what from the outside appears to be a blatant
conflict of interest and from the inside might be violations of the NHL
Constitution and League By-Laws by AEG, which secretly agreed to loan the
now-indicted "Boots" Del Baggio $7 million for use toward becoming part of the
ownership group of the Predators, coincidentally enough another candidate to
move to Kansas City.

Oh really?! Well what in the world would one of the big wigs with the Los Angeles Kings be doing in Kansas City? The Kings are doing fine in Los Angeles. Clearly this is just a case of Tim Leiweke trying to help his other business arrangements make more money, right?

Preach on Larry:

But AEG, LA owner Phil Anschutz and Leiweke have somehow amassed real power
within the league despite running one of the NHL's eyesore franchises. The Kings
have missed the playoffs five straight seasons and in eight of the 12 seasons
Anschutz has owned the team. They have won one playoff round (in 2001) since
their 1993 trip to the Cup Finals.

They are likely to have the league's lowest payroll this season while GM
Dean Lombardi sheds anyone with market value over the age of 25, yet have raised
prices this offseason while promising to do so again next summer.

Ownership could not care less about putting a winning product on the ice,
instead it's consumed with manufacturing a scheme that will place an NHL team in
AEG's arena in Kansas City.

Well, my mistake then.

So let me play the role here of the junior detective in this game of Clue:

Tim Leiweke and Phillip Anschultz are both financially involved with the L.A. Kings as owners.

Leiweke works for AEG Entertainment.

Phillip Anschultz is the "A" in AEG Entertainment.

Leiweke and Anschultz supported the sale of the Penguins to a group ready to move the Pens to Kansas City in an AEG owned and built arena.

Anschultz floated money to his friend Boots Del Biaggio to help him buy a stake in the Nashville Predators.

Del Biaggio apparently had plans in place ready to both buy the majority share of the Predators and then have the team bolt town for Kansas City to the AEG owned arena - an arena owned by the group once the Predators, presumably, fell short of ticket sale commitments and broke the lease with the Metro Group of Nashville.

Anschultz is currently running an L.A. Kings team that is, as of this writing, $12.3 million dollars under the NHL salary floor ($27.7 million in salaries, the floor is $40 million).

Anschultz raised ticket prices for Kings games this year despite the team being one of the worst in the league last season and doing so under the promise of bringing a winner to the Staples Center in the coming seasons.

Anschultz Entertainment Group has a stake in ownership of the Staples Center and makes plenty of money from ticket sales of the NBA's Lakers and Clippers as well as the Kings and other events held there.

Anschultz Entertainment Group also owns the Sprint Center Arena in Kansas City, Missouri which currently has zero major professional sports tenants.

Now, I don't have to be a genius here to see that adding a professional sports team to the Sprint Center Arena would help fill up a lot more dates (about 41, maybe more depending on playoff success) on the schedule. The Staples Center currently hosts 80+ NBA games a season with the Lakers and Kings as well as numerous large arena rock concerts and whatever else they want to come to Los Angeles.

In short, the Staples Center won't lose out at all if the Kings were to go away. The Anschultz Entertainment Group would help line their pockets a lot more by bringing a professional team to Kansas City and filling up their spanking new 18,000 seat arena.

Interestingly enough, part of the agreement AEG signed with Kansas City to build the Sprint Center Arena was this:

Anschutz Entertainment Group of Los Angeles has signed an agreement to
contribute $50-million of the $250-million cost of the project, which will
replace Kemper Arena as the city's main indoor sports center.

The agreement calls for Anschutz to cover any cost overruns AND operating deficits,
manage the arena for 35-years and work to attract both an NHL and an NBA teams.

And lookee what we have here... two failed bids to bring previously floundering NHL franchises to Kansas City and now the guy who has a binding agreement with a city to fill up his new arena with a professional franchise who has a majority stake in a current franchise that he's running into the ground.

And, amazingly, out of all of this - with guys like Anschultz and Craig Leipold (who is as guilty as sin in this as well for floating loans to Del Biaggio) who are great friends of Gary Bettman - Bettman knew NOTHING of his friends sending money to a broke loser to help keep the dream alive of sending the Predators to Kansas City so Anschultz wouldn't have to fill his new arena himself.

Right.

Who wants to start crafting the Kansas City Kings logos now?

Hockey Christmas Eve - And I'm The Grinch

All through the NHL houses, visions of Sundin and Rolston and Campbell are dancing through many GM's heads and here I am ready to tip over the tree, set it on fire and set to pee on the train set because the engineer is a real creep.

No, seriously - this guy needs to get thrown out of office, and fast.

You're probably wondering where my analysis of which free agents are going where and why I think they're going to these places. That's all well and good, but I know just about as much as every other yokel on the internet who writes about hockey.

OK maybe I know more than that guy, but that's not saying much at all. After all, I'm convinced he comes up with his super-secret rumors and sources by using one of these.

That's all besides the point here. Back when I started this silly enterprise last year, the hot story that I jumped on was that of the yellow-journalism PR machine victim Jim Balsillie. At the time, all we knew about this guy was that he once wanted the Penguins, but he dared to say that he would think about moving them closer to his Research In Motion home of Hamilton, Ontario. Then he stepped up with an asinine bid for the Nashville Predators, something I said the NHL and the Board of Governors would be crazy to not approve.

After all, Balsillie is a Canadian awash in money as the inventor of the greatest technological marvel this side of the iPod and all he wants to do is bring even more hockey home to Canada...and isn't afraid to tell everyone and their family about how he wants to do it. Balsillie's problem, however, is that he was too brash. He was too obvious about his plans for the Predators and his wont to move them to Hamilton, even going so far as to start taking advance season ticket sales at the Copps Coliseum for the eventual Hamilton Predators. After all, how was the NHL going to turn down that much money for what for all intents and purposes is a loser franchise?

Easy. He wants to move them to Canada and he wants to be very hands on with the operation which goes against most of the current NHL "standards" of operating a team like an absentee landlord. The NHL and Balsillie were being tempted by the people in Kansas City offering up a brand new mega-super-amenity-filled arena and 18,000+ seats to fill, an avenue I've no doubt Bettman is keeping in his back pocket for another loser team. Balsillie resisted and started figuring out what he could do about building a new facility in Hamilton, how long it would take, what the costs would be - all of it.

This kind of forward thinking and action is something that upsets the NHL Suits, especially Bettman - a man best known for his ability to hold a grudge and to be petulant at the drop of a hat. He didn't appreciate Balsillie or anything that he was doing all without the go-ahead from the Board of Governors or himself. He claimed there were issues with Balsillie's bid and that they were "skeptical" of Balsillie's plans for the team. Talk about foolish.

It's foolish considering Balsillie couldn't hold back from tipping his hand about what he wanted to do. Foolish in that the league and the other owners would ultimately turn down that much money from a legitimate source all because he wants to rain on Herr Bettman's Sun Belt U.S.A. Road Show. Remember that?

Turns out that the Board and Herr Bettman are still hanging on to that dream. Why? Because they trusted that a guy with no money. Oh sure, he claimed to be worth multiple millions of dollars and was even good enough to at one time have a stake in the San Jose Sharks as well but the problem is, he claimed a team that loses money annually and partakes heavily in the NHL Revenue Sharing to help stay afloat was his top asset.

Oops.

If there's anything that will attract the attention of the IRS and the FBI, it's claiming something in the red as your top earning point. In fact, one could argue that perhaps Boots Del Biaggio thought he was escaping to a different country by moving from California to Tennessee. How else can you explain this:

Del Biaggio lists $88.43 million due to creditors, including $10 million to former Preds owner Craig Leipold, according to a summary of his assets and liabilities filed in federal bankruptcy court in Northern California on Monday. He lists $53.9 million in assets, including $12.1 million in real property, all in California.

He still owes money to the guy he bought his stake in the team from, he's filed for bankruptcy and the Feds are still snooping around on him.

All of that and he is still a better option for Bettman and Co. Why? Because Boots guaranteed the team would stay in the good ole U.S. of A! Whether it was in Nashville, if the lease thing came apart, or in Kansas City or Las Vegas or wherever else - Del Biaggio getting a piece of the action meant the team was staying put because Del Biaggio made sure to make that the case.

What's all the more concerning with this situation is the fact that two very close Bettman confidantes floated Boots big-time loans. Kings owner Phillip Anschutz and Wild owner Craig Leipold, the same guy Boots bought his stake in the Predators from, floated Del Biaggio a $17 million loan to help him buy his stake in the Predators.

I repeat the important part of this story and cannot stress this enough:

"Anschutz and Leipold are on Gary's executive committee," says one
high-ranking NHL source. "These are guys who are at the power centre of the
league, close to Gary, and supposed to be his best allies. And here they were
lending Del Biaggio money, and not telling Gary, at a time when they were
supposed to be reviewing his offer to become an owner.

"It stinks."

Take what you will that this comes from the ever-mistifying anonymous source, but my cynicism lends me to believe it. Take that for what it's worth.

What's the cake topper of all of this, the part that screams to me that Gary is the most crooked and spiteful of all. No, its not his good friends helping bail out a broke scam artist. No, it's not Gary looking the other way and then pretending he knew nothing of what was going on. It's none of that.

It's this:

Del Biaggio attempted to sell his 27% stake in the Predators to none other than Jim Balsillie and it was SHOT DOWN BY THE LEAGUE.

Read and be amazed:

According to sources familiar with the events, a tentative deal was
arranged that would have seen Mr. Del Biaggio's combined one-third minority
interest, with an estimated book value of US$30-million, transferred to Mr.
Balsillie for a "significant premium."

Apparently, the talks held at a San Francisco hotel did not directly
address the possibility of relocating the team, which was sold last year for
US$193-million to a Nashville-based local group of investors, led by David
Freeman.

However when an advisor to Mr. Del Biaggio, who was brought in to bid
against Mr. Balsillie for the Predators last year, informed NHL Commissioner
Gary Bettman of the discussions, sources say the 40-year-old investor was
discouraged from proceeding with a deal. Mr. Del Biaggio and officials at the
NHL were not available for comment yesterday.

Gary and the Board of Governors are so terrified of Jim Balsillie, his money and his ideas that even owning a quarter-share of a team is too frightening to them. Sure, the league PR folks are saying the right things, like no one was discouraged from doing anything but given how Gary and the League Of Extraordinary Geezers works, we know this is not the case.

The sum of all this is that Gary desperately wants to hang on to his dream - a dream of having popular, solvent markets in non-traditional hockey areas. To this degree, there's been success in San Jose, Anaheim and Tampa Bay. The flipside of this is that the teams that are struggling are doing so in terrible ways. Florida, Atlanta, Phoenix and Nashville are bleeding money like crazy and can't sell out their games with any regularity. You know who does do this?

Canada does.

I'm not all for a Canadian revolution in the NHL, but the pillaging that went down in the 90s because Quebec City can't get its head out of its ass, even to this day, and because Winnipeg wasn't winning enough was shameful. That coupled with the move of the North Stars and Whalers was a gut-shot this league hasn't really recovered from from a credibility and novelty standpoint.

I'm also not saying move 'em all back to Canada either. What I am saying is, however, that if you've got a guy swimming in money, actual real money that can be verified by banks and the government, and maybe... just maybe he might want to take a team back to Canada, perhaps taking him up on the offer might not be a bad idea.

This crazy billionaire and his track record of huge success might be a drastic change to all these failed losers on the Board of Governors, but an upstart guy like this that wants desperately to win and be at the helm of a dominating Canadian hockey franchise can't be bad for the game.