Ice Edge nears purchase of Coyotes
by James Mirtle on Dec 11, 2009 5:54 PM CST
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PrintNational Hockey League Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly issued the following statement today regarding the proposed sale of the Phoenix Coyotes to Ice Edge Holdings:
"The NHL and Ice Edge Holdings announced today that they have entered into a Letter of Intent to proceed in attempting to document and close a proposed transaction pursuant to which Ice Edge would purchase the Phoenix Coyotes' franchise. While much remains to be done, the NHL looks forward to working closely with Ice Edge to bring the sale to conclusion as expeditiously as possible. Ice Edge has committed to keep the Coyotes in Glendale, Arizona.">> league release
A lot of questions here. How much? Are the games in Saskatoon still a go? Will Ice Edge still seek to have Wayne Gretzky involved? Who else is a part of this group and where does the cash come from?
And, finally, will there be an out clause in the lease?
The NHL's board of governors are meeting beginning Tuesday in California, and you better believe this sale will be at the top of the agenda. There will also be at least a handful of Canadian media out there at Pebble Beach, so there'll be plenty of coverage, too.
The Arizona Republic has a little more, but the real flow of information on this is coming after the weekend. Stay tuned.
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You gotta think there is either an out clause or a re-negotiated lease in place. If it’s the latter, it should be around the 10 year mark, if it’s the former, who knows?
by Belligerent Burkie on Dec 11, 2009 6:15 PM CST reply actions
I’m not persuaded that this is all that close, given this one sentence in the article:
“The Glendale City Council will need to approve any modifications in the team’s 30-year lease, including allowing those games in Canada.”
Are there any indications that the city council is positively disposed to making these modifications?
by J. Michael Neal on Dec 11, 2009 7:09 PM CST reply actions
Also:
“Ice Edge would have five majority owners: Daryl Jones, Anthony LeBlanc, John Breslow, Keith McCullough and Todd Jordan. "
How do you have five majority owners?
by J. Michael Neal on Dec 11, 2009 7:12 PM CST up reply actions
Please bear in mind that the “reporters” at the Republic cannot actually write in English…so take everything you see there with about 50 grains of salt…
I read elsewhere that there is an agreement in principle with the CoG, so I’d say if they are making this announcement it is close to being a done deal…
World Ph*cking Champs! That was fun - let's do it again...
by Jordan Ellel on Dec 11, 2009 7:14 PM CST up reply actions
Well, they had an LOI with the city before and were trying to rush to finalize it in late August (until they ran out of time).
One would presume they are working off that deal.
This notion that one should take the City of Glendale’s public no-renegotiation stance as their definitive position was really overplayed in most parts, including around here.
Except that their negotiations were with the city manager, who seems to be estranged from the city council. I haven’t seen anything indicating that anyone has negotiated with the city council at all.
by J. Michael Neal on Dec 11, 2009 11:00 PM CST up reply actions
Estranged? Upon what do you base that statement? I have neither seen nor heard anything to that effect.
THe party with whom you negotiate when you are dealing with a city is the city manager (or equivalent title, depending on the city). In the city of Glendale, the city manager is the equivalent of the CEO, city council is the equivalent of the board of directors and the mayor is the equivalent of the Chairman of the board.
That is what guys like Beasley are hired to do .
I’m not going to dig them up at this point, but over the summer, James posted links to several articles in which the president of the city council basically said that the city manager had conflicts of interests and shouldn’t be conducting the negotiations. I have no sense of who is right, but the implication clearly was that she did not like Beasley, and did not like the way he was negotiating.
by J. Michael Neal on Dec 13, 2009 6:59 PM CST up reply actions
That was based specifically on the Jerry Reinsdorf negotiations, though, right? That he had some sort of connection to Reinsdorf’s kind? I wonder if they still have a problem with him now that Reinsdorf’s out of the equation?
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.
kind = kid.
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.
Generally, you don’t make those sorts of accusations about bad faith negotiating and then just let it go when he’s dealing with someone else.
by J. Michael Neal on Dec 14, 2009 11:35 AM CST up reply actions
A letter of intent can be nothing more than a non-binding agreement based on very vague terms with lots of conditions, to give the purchasing entity time to be the sole negotiating partner. But unless something very unexpected has changed in the last two months, Im skeptical there was a lot of competition for this entity.
My questions: What guaranties might the NHL make to the seller (covering losses over a certain amount?) What rights might the NHL try to include to gain back control if things go bad (badder? more baddest?).
Glen Sather is a Hockey Genius.
http://glensathersucks.com/
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I can’t find the reference, but I saw verbiage indicating that Ice Edge intends to move Phoenix’s AHL team, the San Antonio Rampage to Thunder Bay. If true, this move changes the face of the AHL as well. Can anyone confirm this?
by cubanpuckstopper on Dec 12, 2009 10:10 AM CST reply actions
It was part of their original proposal, along with 5 regular season games in Saskatoon and potentially playoff games. The playoff games were dropped, not sure about the Thunder Bay AHL team.
Thunder Bay is an interesting case… it’s too far away for either a OHL franchise or WHL franchise, but it is a hockey town with 2 (sometimes 3) SIJHL teams (Tier II Junior), and obviously a lot of professional representation from the Staals to Patrick Sharp to Alex Auld (born on the Air Force base in Cold Lake, grew up in Thunder Bay). It is also a decent location for an AHL team… not too far from Milwaukee/Rockford to be ridiculous, and obviously a natural rival for the Manitoba Moose. I don’t know how big their rinks are, though (one is owned by the local First Nations, the other is more in Thunder Bay proper).
Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.
The CIS hockey team is basically their treasured local team, and gets 3,000-plus every game. I think that’s about the size of the rink.
Blogging on hockey at fromtherink.com
by James Mirtle on Dec 12, 2009 1:32 PM CST up reply actions
What’s the attendance requirement for the AHL? 8K? 10K? Can Thunder Bay pull that off?
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.
Glens Falls (the Phantoms’ new home) is 4,800. According to the always accurate Wikipedia, Thunder Bay’s arena is 3,370, which means they would still probably need a new rink.
I drove from Toronto to Calgary a few years ago and the first big city that showed up on our map was Thunder Bay. My buddy and I drove through the wilderness north of Toronto and we kept talking about how glad we would be to get to Thunder Bay, a real city.
We were very disappointed.
The West Coast is the Best Coast.
On top of the four Staals (and their cousins, the Heerema's)
As well as Sharp and Auld, several players call Thunder Bay and the surrounding area, home.
- Taylor Pyatt (Thunder Bay)
- Ryan Johnson (Thunder Bay)
- Pronger (Dryden)
- Mike Richards (Kenora)
- Claude Giroux (Hearst)
OK, so maybe that’s stretching it a bit, but all three of those towns are a much shorter Greyhound ride than the far off Sault.
Northwestern Ontario, represent!
A bit? Hearst is closer to the Quebec border than to T-Bay!
Taylor’s younger bro, Tom, says hi.
Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.
No doubt about that
The completely uninhabited border of Quebec is closer.
Just as Kenora and Dryden are closer to the Manitoba border than to Thunder Bay.
Are you saying that people in Hearst should identify more with a metropolis like Amos, QC than they do with Thunder Bay?
Isn’t Weyburn, SK closer to the borders of Montana and North Dakota, than it is to Regina? Or Abbotsford closer to Washington than Vancouver?
A 5 hour plus drive should lump Hearst in with Thunder Bay? By that logic then I should indentify with Edmonton. That’s what I was more talking about.
Oddly enough, I wouldn’t be surprised if people from Hearst, a nearly universal Francophone community, identify with rural Quebecers.
Another example: Flin Flon is about 325 km closer to Saskatoon than to Winnipeg. Do they really “identify” with either urban centre?
I used to live in a small town near a small city called Yorkton, SK. I was about equal distance from Regina and Saskatoon, around 3 1/2 to 4 hours away from both. I didn’t identify with either city. General rule of thumb: if you can’t travel to the city and back within reason for a day of shopping (as in you don’t have to stay the night there), you don’t really identify with the city.
Hockey blogging can't get any flatter.
Fair enough
Here I thought Cassie from Raw Charge was the resident geographer.
My bad.
They can’t move the San Antonio franchise since they don’t own it (the San Antonio Spurs own it, having bought out the Panthers share way back in the day). They’d have to buy a different AHL franchise to move a team to Thunder Bay, or hope to persuade another ownership group to move there with promises of a lucrative agreement. Either way, this rumor doesn’t seem likely to enter the realm of reality.
by VA Libertarian on Dec 14, 2009 10:04 AM CST via mobile up reply actions
Elliotte Friedman on CBC...
26 year lease, no out. That’s the word on the terms.
Given that that’s the term of the lease as written, I’m curious to find out just what was negotiated.
by J. Michael Neal on Dec 13, 2009 4:17 AM CST up reply actions
Did anyone else catch the Hotstove where it was suggesting 24 of the 30 NBA teams are bleeding money?
If we wait long enough, the recession will extinguish a few NHL teams.
Wouldn’t it be better if 6-8 dogs folded and the remaining couple dozen teams each got a bigger slice of overall revenue? Wouldn’t that make the survivors more competitive with upstarts such as the KHL?
I really don’t see a downside to contraction other than to finally put a nail in The Commish’s manifest destiny.
by garth the hoser on Dec 13, 2009 7:38 AM CST reply actions
The biggest downside is the perception. Bigger is always considered better, and if a business isn’t growing, then it is assumed to be shrinking. Not just sports – any retail chain starts closing outlets that are not performing well, and they immediately have to fend off questions about their viability and spin it as retrenching and strengthening their base. A sports league is no different.
It may be inevitable, and if so the smart thing would be to contract teams while the league as a whole is strong enough to withstand it instead of waiting until it’s too late to help the stronger teams. There really isn’t a good option for the league.
"While there's life, there's hope." --Cicero
There are bigger downsides than perception.
How do you conduct player dispersal?
What do you do with the contracts of the other players?
Is contraction going to be conducted through the bankruptcy process? Either asnwer to that question poses some serious problems.
What happens to the national TV contract, which is, if it’s anything like those in other leagues, tied to the number of markets that have teams?
Contraction is a mess. It’s only a good idea if there aren’t any others. As I said a few threads ago, there are no good solutions to this problem.
by J. Michael Neal on Dec 13, 2009 12:11 PM CST up reply actions
Oh, no doubt, but the other things you listed can be solved (although they might not be) logically.
If the perception is that contraction = a weak league, then all the logical arguments to the contrary would be useless once the meme becomes entrenched. The equivalence of growth with strength in a business can lead people to do stupid things just to get bigger because it looks better than not actively expanding. This is something that even non-hockey fans will understand, because so many people see the same thing in their own workplaces.
"While there's life, there's hope." --Cicero
This contraction discussion, like every other contraction discussion, is nonsense in any event. It is about as relevant as a discussion of whether martians should be allowed to own teams.
Contraction can really only happen voluntarily. Until an owner cannot sell his team for ANY amount, it will not happen.
And I do think Martians should be allowed to own teams, by the way. I think the idea of contraction is an interesting theoretical discussion. No one else has to ever bring it up if they don’t want to discuss it – I was responding initally to garth the hoser’s comment about not seeing a downside to contraction.
"While there's life, there's hope." --Cicero
The above is not intended to downplay the other downsides that Michael identified above, all of which are quite valid. My only point was that you don’t even need to get into that.
I think that we’re getting close to the point where it is going to be an issue. As I’ve indicated, I’m still skeptical that we are really about to see the sale of the Coyotes. The league seems to be having problems figuring out what to do with the Lightning. The news out of Columbus is bad. It turns out that the ownership thought to be solid in Nashville has a large tax problem. The situation in Atlanta is a patch job.
We have no idea what is going to happen with Tom Hicks, though my guess is that the Stars won’t have too much trouble finding an owner. The others I’m not so sure about. Granted, I don’t have anything solid on that, since no one is going to come out and say it. I just think that the economy has pushed the league into a position where it’s running out of options.
Look, we all recognized how ridiculous the new ownership in Tampa was well before the sale was completed. Unless they’re morons, the league had to recognize that, too. Yet, they approved the sale to a group that should be wearing rubber noses and big, floppy shoes. If they had a better choice, do you think they would have done that? Well, the situation in Tampa, either for the team or the economy, hasn’t gotten any better in the meantime.
by J. Michael Neal on Dec 13, 2009 7:07 PM CST up reply actions
Fine. I am pretty convinced that this meme has developed where people talk and talk about supposed financial issues and now all of a sudden the NHL owners don’t have two nickels to rub together, scraping for every dollar.
Gerald, do you think that a league with decent choices would have approved Koules and Barrie as owners?
by J. Michael Neal on Dec 13, 2009 10:30 PM CST up reply actions
It was not simply a matter of the NHL approving them. One must also remember that Davidson has to approve them, particularly where he was taking back a note as part of the purchase price. While the loan would probably be secured by the asset of the franchise itself, one can safely assume that Davidson scrutinized the assets of the individuals carefully.
Whether there were other decent choices or not, they would have had to stand or fall on their own credit merits.
The two guys may not be having much success competitively (whihc feeds the clown motif), but again, where is this idea that Koules and Barrie are absolute paupers coming from?
I never said they were paupers, though the state of their other investments indicate that they could get there eventually. I said that they are clowns who were, from day one, clearly not up to the job of running an NHL team. They are also, while not paupers, very thinly capitalized for what they are trying to do. This isn’t fresh news, either. All of this was commented upon while they were negotiating to buy the team.
Why would the NHL approve a pair of unqualified, thinly capitalized clowns if they had other options? It can’t just be that they needed Davidson’s approval, as the league hasn’t shown a great unwillingness to oppose what a current owner wants to do with his team in other cases.
by J. Michael Neal on Dec 14, 2009 11:39 AM CST up reply actions
Upon what basis can you or i or others question the status of their other investments? I know we like to pretend that we know all there is to know about Barrie’s development, but we don’t. Also, we know absolutely NOTHING about Koules’ other investments, except that he makes a pile of money off the Saw franchise. As such, we don’t know how well capitalized they are.
For that matter, we don’t know if they are the only two investors.
As i said, Davidson (who has actual money at stake, as opposed to the league) found them to be an adequate risk for ~$100 million in loans. Does that tell anyone anything?
Not really. Your pretension of ignorance cuts against your claims every bit as much as it supports it. What we know is that their bid struggled to make it to the finish line in the first place, they have shown tremendous ineptitude in running the team since they got it, and that none of this was a surprise. Most of us recognized this ownership group as a fiasco before the deal was completed.
Either the NHL didn’t realize that, or they approved the sale anyway. Which of those makes them look good, if there were better options?
by J. Michael Neal on Dec 14, 2009 5:09 PM CST up reply actions
It is easy to see that the Sunbelt franchises are all on their last legs! Why in the world would you want to jump into PHX with all that you know about the history of hockey in warm towns. Don`t forget if the team were to make it to the cup finals they are played in June, by that time everyone has left town.
Just a thought
Wouldn’t it be a good idea for the league to perhaps promote travel packages to Canadian fans for games in the southern US markets that are having a hard time selling tickets? Schedule a Leafs or Habs trip in the middle of the winter and sell travel packages that include games etc…with golf and shopping etc…I bet they could get a couple of thousand people to take advantage of that easy. That would be better than say giving away tickets for free.
border crossing
Getting into the United States is increasingly more difficult, and a fan would have to be very dedicated to deal with the hassle of it.
"While there's life, there's hope." --Cicero
Have I expressed my feelings about US immigration in the last, oh, two hours?
by J. Michael Neal on Dec 13, 2009 7:08 PM CST up reply actions
Guess I should pay attention … what are your feelings on it? :)
Ever get the feeling we are on a collision course with reality? (boycott Hollywood!)
by ang6666 on Dec 13, 2009 11:44 PM CST up reply actions
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