As if we didn’t know this was going to happen. The NHL has accepted Jerry Reinsdorf’s bid to buy the Phoenix Coyotes and rejected the offer that Jim Balsille made. The funniest part of the report was that Gary Bettman said that the approval of Reinsdorf had absolutely nothing to with relocation. Yea right. Balsille’s offer was more then 100 million dollars more than that of Reinsdorf’s, with of course the catch being he would move the team to Hamilton, Ontario. I’m guessing that was the straw that broke the camels back on that offer.
Just to make it clear what my thoughts on the whole Hamilton/Phoenix fiasco is. As a fan, It would be great to have 3 NHL teams in about an hour radius from each other. It would make the match-ups better between the Sabres, Leafs, and Hamilton as cross town rivals. But I’m with the league on this one. The league’s biggest goal is to try and sell hockey to the States. Hockey is hook, lined, and sinker when it comes to Hamilton, ON. Not to mention Hamilton is like 25 minutes away from Toronto.
The Coyotes have been a laughing stock in NHL for years. No playoffs since 2002, no playoff series wins since the Winnipeg days. Look at their coach Wayne Gretzky, who should kiss his Stanley Cup rings every night because that’s the only reason he still has a job. His claim to fame the last 5 years was his Police Academy wife having a gambling problem (had she bet against the Coyotes, her problem would be counting all the money she had won).
Now I know some off you may be thinking, “Phoenix doesn’t sell out games and are bankrupt, forget those people.” Well, he who has not sin cast the first stone. Remember the late 90’s and earlier this decade? The Sabres only sold out games against Toronto and Montreal, because half the crowd was Canadian. Their jerseys weren’t even close to being the top seller in the league, and the team was in bankruptcy and scandal. The casual Buffalo Sports fan’s mentality was, “wake me up when football season is over” when it came to the Sabres. You want to know what got the fans to go party in the plaza and wait on a list of 15,000 for season tickets? WINNING!
That’s how you sell a sport to a market. Tampa Bay during its Stanley Cup run were selling out games left and right. Now they can’t give away tickets because they suck. And don’t look now Buffalo fans, but that waiting list has shrunk since not making the playoffs the last 2 years. So before you say forget the desert, always remember what you were doing for Sabres games in 2003 and then tell me hockey can’t be sold down south.
–joe–
“Gretzky makes Quinn look like Bob Kraft”
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