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.
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.
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.
OK sure there's lots of talk about the Olympics right now. After all, a lot of the best athletes in the world are in China to see who can perform the best under environmental and political duress in games that occur when the weather is normally warm and pleasant.
These Olympics are, of course, inferior to those that will occur in two years in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
What will stay similar between these games and the Winter Games in 2010 is how the United States will fare in the glamour team sports.
I've no doubt in my mind that the fretting and worrying and kvetching going on about the Team USA basketball team will again pay off because, frankly, the rest of the world figured out how to play great basketball by watching the same players that made basketball great during the 1980s. The U.S. players, of course, got too enamored with how well Michael Jordan played basketball and everyone from my generation and onwards has been doing a really, really terrible impersonation of him thus eliminating team play in the sport.
You know the kind of play I'm talking about. The kind that Larry Bird and Magic Johnson made absolutely dominant during the 1980s. Those guys made everyone else on the floor with them better and it showed. The same style of ball the Europeans like Spain, Greece and Italy as well as the Argentinians and Brazilians play now. The kind of ball that got the U.S.A. a "lowly" bronze medal in 2004 in basketball.
Given how woefully me-first many of the players on this year's Team USA are I can't help but buy into the media fretting and think that the doom and gloom forecast will hold up. These Euro and South American guys can ball and they do it old school style.
Getting owned by Euros is something Team USA is going to have to get accustomed to though. Come 2010 and the Vancouver games, despite the onslaught of young and up and coming scoring talent for the hockey playing Americans, this is a bad time to be gunning for gold.
The host Canadians are going to be very, very good. That goes without saying. Thankfully, in terms of world hockey, Canada gets the Maple Leafs treatment in Canada. They get all the media hype, worrying and coverage one could imagine is possible coming from three major metropolitan media markets (Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver) and then the rest of the world knows that they're loaded as well and follow suit.
Adding to the circus this time around is, of course, Sidney Crosby - hated by bloggers everywhere outside of Pittsburgh, mocked for not being able to grow anything resembling respectable facial hair and the newest icon of the NHL. Team Canada will be the favorites because they'll have a maniacal and idiotically rabid home crowd for every game.
I warn you now, if you're an American get ready for booing. Booing of the team, booing of the players, a whole lot of booing of Jack Johnson - all because during the 2006 World Junior Championships he tried to do the world a favor and send super NHL scumbag and Philadelphia Flyer (pardon the redundancy) Steve Downie a message. He didn't exactly connect on his message, but if you're a psychotic Canadian hockey fan, chances are you're still holding a ridiculous grudge against Johnson. Judge for yourself here:
This was hailed by Canadians as the dirtiest hit in the history of hockey.
And you think they won't be ready to tear the building down to win gold at home? Oh baby.
Just for reminder's sake - here's some of what you may know Steve Downie from this past season:
What sucks for Canada and the United States alike is that while Canada v. USA will have all the hype of a classic rock 'em, sock 'em championship fight - the USA is the least of the worries for Canada. The Euros have plenty to deal out but there are two teams in particular that will make life absolute hell for anyone that has to play them in the medal round.
No, it won't be Slovakia nor will it be the Czech Republic as they're both aging hard and already a bit thin on all-around talent.
Yeah, I know, we'll be 30 years removed from the Miracle on Ice and still USA v. Russia gets people worked up. What won't be fun for the US is that Russia will break out with Evgeni Nabokov in goal and three of the "other" greatest players in the NHL, maybe you've heard of these guys:
Alexander Ovechkin Evgeni Malkin Pavel Datsyuk
Sure, Canada has the talent to keep up with those guys - but do you really want to be dealing with those three, potentially on a line together, for 25 out of 60 minutes in a game? No thanks.
Meanwhile, there's still guys like Ilya Kovalchuk, Alexander Semin and Maxim Afinogenov who enjoy scoring at will.
The Russians are woefully thin on defense however, but that's OK because Nabokov is used to not having a decent defenseman in front of him. The Russians will be very dangerous and a huge pain in the ass to play. It'd behoove teams to not take penalties because you'll be assured of getting those first three guys out on the ice together to make Brodeur/Luongo/Price/Fleury's life hell in net.
Next up: Finland
Finland stunned everyone and their mother in the Turin games in 2006 by making it to the Gold Medal game. They shutout the Russians in the semis winning 4-0 and their toughest game (aside from the Final) did indeed come against the United States in the first game of the elimination round defeating the Americans 4-3.
What helps the Finns is that they're absolutely stacked in goal. Mikka Kiprusoff, Vesa Toskala, Kari Lehtonen and Nicklas Backstrom all hail from Finland and while its always a question who will say yes to playing for Finland, they're stacked. For what it's worth, Finland won the silver in 2006 with arguably their "C" team goalie tandem of Antero Niittymäki and Fredrik Norrena. While Niittymäki was the sometimes starter for the Flyers at the time, Norrena wasn't even playing in the NHL yet while being property of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
With the talent the Finns have in goal, their scoring prowess is going to, likely, take a big hit in 2010. Saku Koivu will be another year older, Teemu Selanne may or may not play (I'd say he will even if he's not playing in the NHL - he lives for the International competition), and Olli Jokinen will be the only scorer actually in his prime. The Finns are also going to be markedly weaker on defense as well, but something happens in the Olympics that makes the Finns incredible difficult to deal with.
I am not going to discuss sports voodoo like guts, grit, magic, aura or any of that nonsense but know this: Finland has advanced to the medal round in every Olympics since 1980 except for 1984 when they finished just on the outside looking in in third place of their group. The Finns put it together come Olympic time, just don't bet the house on them if they make it to the Finals as they've yet to win Gold ever.
Finally, there's this team: Sweden
You might know most of this team already as the vast majority of the big talent on Sweden was playing for the Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings. That's no slight on the Red Wings nor is it a knock on their style. Sweden won the Gold Medal in 2006 beating their rival Finns for the prize 3-2 in the Gold Medal game.
The Swedes looked lackluster in the preliminary round of the Olympic tournament, finishing third in their group. Little did everyone in the Final Rounds know that Sweden was playing the part of the pool hall hustler. They drew surprising Switzerland in quarterfinals and disposed of them 6-2. They drew the always difficult Czech Republic in the semifinals and destroyed them 7-3.
They were a wrecking ball in the elimination games and notched it up again against Finland to hold them off to win it all.
Worse yet for 2010 - they're even more loaded than before. As this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs showed, there's still talent emerging from Sweden. They'll bring all-world superstars and fellow best players in hockey Nicklas Lidstrom and Henrik Zetterberg. They'll also have Henrik Lundqvist in goal. They'll have Johan Franzen. They might still have Mats Sundin - depending on whether or not the NHL's version of Brett Favre ever decides what he wants to do with his life. The creepy Sedin twins will be there to make the hometown Vancouver fans boo them. Tomas Holmstrom will be there to infuriate all the teams. Daniel Alfredsson might even crack the first line. Hell, Peter Forsberg might even make an appearance too.
Sick. Just absolutely sick.
What's worse for everyone is that even with their "D" team playing in the 2008 World Championships, since most everyone was still playing in the NHL Playoffs, Sweden suited up a bunch of mostly nobodies and still made it to the bronze medal game where they were shutout by Finland. For what it's worth, Canada beat Russia in the finals to win the championship but these results barely register as a barometer for how things might go as all of these teams were mostly suiting up guys that won't even be going to Vancouver.
Sweden is frighteningly good and will be more than equal to the task of the seemingly overloaded Canadians. Don't get me wrong, it's going to be fun to root for Team USA hockey in 2010. There's a lot of talent up front and Ryan Miller is more than a stud in goal - heck, even Rick DiPietro isn't overly terrible, he's certainly better than Robert Esche or Tim Thomas, that's for sure, but Team USA is at best the fourth most talented team going to Vancouver. Canada and Sweden are 1A and 1B. Russia checks in next and then it drops off a bit to Team USA.
Can Ryan Miller steal games? Absolutely. Can Patrick Kane take the baton and be the big scorer? Tough to say.
America will be thin on playmakers and scorers, period. It's probably for the best that NHL idiot Brian Burke was named the General Manager of the 2010 team because he'll have to pick a squad ugly and nasty enough to try to slow down the likes of Canada, Sweden and Russia.
Team USA will have a lot of fun youth on the blue line in the form of Jack and Erik Johnson (not related). Ryan Whitney and Brian Rafalski will help out immensely as well but their jobs are going to be extremely difficult in trying to help contain these ridiculously talented teams.
What's important here is that the USA are going to be underdogs all along. They can play loose, they can play without worry, they can do what they need or want to do because let's face it, all the pressure in the world is on Canada to win gold in their home country. Team Canada in hockey is what Team USA is in basketball - plain and simple.
But let's face facts here, things have to break really, really, really well for the United States to have a shot at even bronze. They're closer in talent to the Czechs, Finns and Slovaks than they are to Russia, Sweden or Canada. That means there's a good chance that two of those teams will be facing each other in the semifinals of the knockout round meaning if Team USA makes it that far, they'll have to get the team lucky enough to miss out on that soireé.
Of those three who would Team USA want to deal with? The choice is simple: Bring on the Russians. A matchup with Russia would render the crowd almost neutral, although its likely that the US and Canada will face each other in the round-robin part of the tournament - hello bad blood! Canada has no love for Russia either. Canadians hates their swagger, they hate their flashiness and most of all they'll have a hate magically built up for Alexander Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin for having the temerity to be as good as or better than Canada's Hockey Savior, Sidney Crosby. The US will have no real flashy superstars on their team and as long as there's no incident to dump gasoline onto the Canadians rabid fire of hate for the US, the Americans could win the crowd - especially if it means a date with Canada in the Finals.
Yeah, I know this forecasting is way too far out and there are far too many things that will change by the time the rosters are filled and February 2010 rolls around - but I love this. The Olympic hockey tournament is perhaps the greatest hockey tournament in the world and when nationalities and pride are on the line... anything goes.
Just remember Americans... we're the underdogs for once.
Big time.
Anything positive is a victory of sorts whether it be real medal-winning victory or just moral. Sure, some folks will try to talk it up like Team USA is loaded, but if they do, chances are they work for ESPN or they're an idiot blowhard blinded by nationalism who still doesn't jack about hockey.
Just keep in mind, if Team USA loses to a team from Europe it won't be the end of the world - in fact, it's probably expected.
Kind of how it should be for Team USA basketball in the coming days.
I'm going for the more appealing approach and while "Violating the Trapezoid" sounded cheeky enough to be avant-garde, it just didn't make a lick of sense.
So, more to the point and hockey related - voila: Gross Misconduct
The mission stays the same and it could mean I'm aiming for bigger and more credentialed things in the future.
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.
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 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.
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?
That's right kids - the magical, mythical and incredible marketing scheme that has made the colored jersey at home the current and ridiculous staple of the NHL is coming back with a vengeance this season.
The third-jersey is back, baby!
Get ready to drop anywhere from $120 to $300 for your new, and quite possibly, horrendously all-time ugly team jersey!
All-time ugly is something yours truly is a great appreciator of, after all, when you're sporting a collection of jerseys that outnumber U.S. states...these things happen. The beauty of this being the off-season and now merely a month away from the start of NHL training camp, that means we're that much closer to getting the official unveiling of these potential atrocities to sports fashion.
While I'm wont to give credit to a certain other blog site, I will say that Howard Berger has managed to finagle a view of all of these new jerseys and he reports on what they're going to look like, and, frankly some of these descriptions have "horror" written all over them.
I can already tell you right now which ones will go down as truly great ones and which ones will be held up in all-time infamy as ugly. I can also tell you that the folks in Toronto are either truly die-hard traditionalists or they're struck with permanent amnesia because their design has held up the test of time since Toe Blake was running around. Either the Leafs ownership group figured what was good before the lockout was good enough or they had this meeting break out:
"So, we need to develop a third jersey for this season. Any ideas?"
"Well, I was thinking... what if we took our logo from the 40s and 50s and made the uniform look like it also came from that era, you know, back when we were always winning the Stanley Cup and could beat the Red Wings and Canadiens with ease?"
"That's brilliant! It'll make everyone forget how poorly we've been for the last....40 years? Huh... how about that. Anyways - I like it! Let's run with that! Also, let's see if we can work out a way to make ticket prices even more ridiculous than they already are! LET'S GO LEAFS! LET'S GO LEAFS! LET'S GO LEAFS!"
Sounds about right, doesn't it?
First of all, big ups to some of the teams for dusting off old favorites (yes, even Toronto). The Blackhawks, Islanders, Oilers, Sabres, Canucks, Flyers and Penguins have all gone back into the vault to break out iconic jerseys from the 70s and 80s. For this guy who grew up on hockey in the 80s in the times of Gretzky, Lemieux, Beaupre and Wreggett it'll be a treat to see these jerseys back out on the ice again.
That said, having to see them up against the ones that will be sported by the Ottawa Senators, Atlanta Thrashers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Dallas Stars and Los Angeles Kings. Out of those four, the Kings jersey has the most potential to look good, but I'm hesitant to be positive on this right now.
The Stars jersey I don't actually mind, I'm just taking points off for them being thoroughly unoriginal as their's is just the white version of their current home jersey. Soft serve I say.
The Thrashers jersey is thoroughly baffling. They're going with a deep red version with script lettering. These ideas aren't bad unto themselves except that the entire Thrashers marketing for their home games is that they're Blueland. "WELCOME TO BLUELAND!" can be found all over Philips Arena and now you're going to have your team come racing out on home ice in red?
Ridiculous and stupid. Typical of a team that still needs their public address announcer to tell the fans what the hell is going on in a game.
The Senators and Lightning jerseys just don't do anything at all for me. I don't generally have a problem with script lettering at all, except that the Senators appear to be doing theirs in the opposite direction from what we've seen with other teams that letter diagonally and the Lightning just don't seem to have a look that's at all good. For shame.
As for new and innovative styles, the Bruins are head and shoulders above all others. The old logo with the current color scheme is perfect. I would buy one of those jerseys. Now if only the Bruins didn't play a dreadfully boring kind of hockey.
The Blues, should their style be correct, will also be big hits. Adopting the style set forth by the Minnesota Wild was a good idea here as was incorporating the St. Louis Arch into the design. Very well done. The Coyotes and Sharks are also coming correct here, although going with a black jersey, while predictable, is a bit of a let down.
The jersey I'm left undecided on is the Hurricanes. There are two designs on that graphic, one inferior to a great degree and the other being head and shoulders superior and in the class with the Bruins and Blues. Should the current shoulder logo be put on the front, that is a big winner for me. Going with the current crest logo and a triangle (meant to stand for the Research Triangle in Raleigh) is an immense bore and a complete loser.
I can't get too down on the black jersey here, but I think going with a red jersey with the shoulder logo would be a huge upgrade.
Now that I've put away my Mr. Blackwell suit and eye for fashion, I'll gear you up with some words of wisdom (yes, wisdom) from Larry Brooks of the New York Post.
Doug Bergeron, a California-based Canadian investor and entrepreneur and president of DGB Investments, was among those to whom Del Biaggio tried to market a share of the Predators. Bergeron said Del Biaggio told him in December that National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman's office had given special permission for Del Biaggio to buy a share of the team without being subjected to all the scrutiny the league usually gives to prospective owners. Del Biaggio told him the commissioner's office did not require him to show audited financial statements before it approved him.
If that wasn't fun enough, here's the verbage straight from Bergeron's mouth.
Boots bragged to me that he was able to convince Bettman's office to overlook the need for his audited financial statements because it was too much work.
Not that I needed to say it but, emphasis mine in that quote.
Too much work? Really? So, let's run down Herr Bettman's magic hit list of wonderment:
Tradition? Hates it.
Canada? Hates it. A little less so now that they make money, but still, not a fan.
Fiesty Canadian billionaire geniuses? Hates them.
Doing his job? Not a big fan.
Finding the easy way out every time?
Oh hell yeah!
I know, I'd rather be writing about fun hockey news, but this nonsense is too much to ignore.
Ladies and gentlemen - your commissioner. The garden variety weasel:
To be somewhat fair to Bettman, the facts unleashed in this story out of The Tennessean are quite damning of Boots Del Biaggio and his terrible management of money and ability to massage other people and glad hand his way into getting involved with the Nashville investment group and making others believe he was awash in cash.
This makes Bettman one of many who got fooled by Del Biaggio and would normally lend itself to feeling bad for him and others, like the Nashville Metropolitan Council, who took it on the chin from this scumbag.
Nashville Metro, however, is only a victim because Gary's backroom dealing with a friend by convenience (convenience in that his name wasn't Jim Balsillie) made it all possible. After all, The Tennessean makes this point as clear as day:
Metro had such confidence in the thoroughness of the NHL's vetting process that it relied heavily on the league and the chief lender, CIT Group, to do the financial vetting of the prospective Predators owners.
This says a lot about what happens when you fish out the work you should be doing for yourself and it's a lesson that isn't lost on the Metro Council now, I'm sure.
The point being here that the NHL goes through a painstaking process to approve new owners and they've got a pretty good recent history of turning down verified big money people that want to buy teams. Jim Balsillie wasn't the first billionaire to get shot down for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban got it too.
Bettman opened the door here though. Do not forget this.
By skirting the process and speed delivering Boots to not only make sure that the Predators didn't go anywhere but also to shut out Balsillie, Bettman nearly commits to the self-fulfilling prophecy in that the Predators may not have much time left in the city of Nashville. Nashville and their investors were at least smart enough to get legally binding assurances and protection from anything that might go wrong in the process, but the fact is, this team is in trouble again and this time, the league and Gary Bettman are doing them no favors by mishandling their dealings.
What a nightmare.
Bettman should be ashamed of himself for this, but he's already put Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly to work spinning the company line that they dotted every "I" and crossed every "T" in the process, but thankfully, we know better thanks to the words from Doug Bergeron.
It's interesting that in this hockey-centric blog that the word "modesty" is being mentioned at all this time of year. NHL general managers can't wait to get rid of the money the owners make and spend it recklessly on players who may, and likely, may not have earned their new paychecks. A statement like that should be linked with articles talking about such insane money-tossing, but those are too numerous to count right now.
Suffice to say, a guy like Jeff Finger, who only two years ago I was watching carve up the ice in Albany for the AHL River Rats, is now making $3.5 million a year for the Maple Leafs and he hasn't even played 100 NHL games yet nor could he crack the starting lineup more often than not for the Avalanche in the playoffs last year.
But I digress.
I'd like to talk about how Herr Bettman's love of all things American could be put to best use, rather than ripping him for doing so ad nauseum, which I've developed a bit of a penchant for doing.
My source for this inspiration actually derives from a miserable failing of Bettman's former boss and role model, David Stern who recently acted as the hitman for the murder of professional basketball in Seattle.
That's right, the city to a former NBA Champion, the Supersonics won the NBA Championship in 1979, you know, when the NBA was a floundering league that had its title games aired in tape delay on CBS and was overwraught with drug problems.
Seattle's only professional sports championship is courtesy of the Sonics. Seattle also is a big time legitimate city in the United States, at least as far as media market rankings go. Seattle/Tacoma is 14th largest in the United States and has been a city without a professional, NHL-level team since 1924.
Hell, the first American Stanley Cup Champions were the Seattle Metropolitans in 1917.
What's most heinous here is that the main beef for the Sonics shuffling off to the wilds of Oklahoma City (Market size 45 according to Nielsen) is the way Stern has basically told Seattle, "If you ever want to see the NBA again, you'll build us a new arena."
It's this sort of attitude that the NHL and Bettman should take advantage of and work with the city to show that they care and are willing to play the role of the white knight.
During the ridiculous Nashville ownership wranglings, writers and speculators made it a point to pick out different U.S. markets that are interested in and would love to take on NHL franchises. Cities like Las Vegas (thanks to Jerry Bruckheimer's interest in owning a team) and Kansas City (due to the availability of a spacious new 18,000 seat arena) were the places picked out as most logical.
Seattle rarely, if ever, entered into the equation.
Why? Well, it's pretty likely that the answer lies in Canada.
A move to Seattle would, almost assuredly, get the dander up of the Vancouver Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini. Seattle sits 140 miles to the south of Vancouver and Vancouver's claim to the region would be highly challenged putting a team in a large, U.S. market that, the Canucks would argue, watches and loves the Canucks.
I'm sure there are many arguments into the validity of this, but let's face it, 140 miles isn't that far away, a two to three hour drive away at most. Such closeness is surely a great argument in favor of the Canucks keeping their hold over the market and them having any fans leeched away from a team being located in Seattle must be valid.
Wait... what's that? Buffalo and Toronto are only 93 miles apart? Both teams sell out their arenas? They have a thriving rivalry? Toronto fans go out of their way to get tickets in Buffalo to see games there because they're cheaper tickets and easier to land than Leafs tickets? All of these things happen and neither team loses anything being so close?
Huh...
Well then.
So, tell me Gary, why wouldn't you want to do this? Why wouldn't you want to ride in and work out a deal with the city of Seattle to move say... the Florida Panthers or Atlanta Thrashers to Seattle with the help of Starbucks owner and champion of all things Seattle, Howard Schultz? After all, Schultz wants to bring a law suit against the NBA and the owner of the now Oklahoma City NBA franchise, Clay Bennett.
Schultz loves pro sports in Seattle so much, you'd like to think he'd be behind a project to bring a floundering NHL franchise to the city, you know, to fill the void. Think of the marketing potential Gary. Starbucks is the biggest brand of coffee in the world now. Their shops are everywhere, and in the western U.S. there is none bigger to compete with them.
You hear that Gary? A product known worldwide and has a foothold stronger than anything in the Western United States! Think of the potential!
It's been pretty clear that hockey in South Florida is a miserable failure. No, I know Gary, they made the Cup Finals in 1996 and leaving a city that's had a taste of success would be tragic.
What about Atlanta then Gary? They're currently a two-time failure at holding the interest of the fans. Nevermind the fact that Atlanta is a brutally awful professional sports market, this is a place that still finds it necessary to point out the most mundane aspects of hockey to its paying customers by announcing them over the public address.
Yes folks, we know the rules to icing are confusing and maybe the rules to offsides might be a bit hard to understand, but don't worry, the Thrashers PA guy will tell you what it is every time it happens. Brilliant move Gary - you should make sure they stick it out in Atlanta.
If Bettman isn't going to find a way to contract franchises and if he wants to make the right move and play the good guy for once, sweet talk Howard Schultz and tell him there's another sport that plays games between October and June. Tell him there's another way to bring fun to the people of Seattle. Tell him you'll work out a way to help pay for a new arena in Seattle and make sure that the people of Seattle don't have to pay for it.
Be the good guy Gary. Save face on one of your failed southern experiments and send them north. No, not to Canada. Send them to Seattle and resurrect the ghosts of the Metropolitans, much like the NHL did in Ottawa with the Senators.
A fan of old time hockey, at least if the kind they played in the 1980s counts at least. A guy who's fed up with watching the game he loves being handled and managed by folks with the intelligence equivalent to that of the common, everyday puckbunny.
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