CBC-Sports

Balsillie's timetable too tight, but he'll be back at a different price

June 16, 2009 11:16 AM | Posted by   Jeff Marek  

Strike three.

If this were a baseball game Jim Balsillie would be headed back to the dugout, but nobody believes the head of RIM won’t be back to take another swing at owning an NHL team.

After failed attempts with Pittsburgh and Nashville, Balsillie was denied the purchase of the struggling Phoenix Coyotes in a Glendale, Ariz., bankruptcy court on Monday and by doing so, Judge Redfield Baum made a case for his own inclusion on The Hockey News’ annual Top 100 People of Power and Influence issue.

Baum ruled there was not enough time to sort out the myriad of complicated issues that satisfied Balsillie’s timetable - June 29th - all under threat of pulling his offer. From a relocation fee, to the status of the city of Glendale contracts, to anti-trust issues, there simply weren’t enough hours in the day for Baum to rule in favour of Balsillie.

Still, Balsillie refuses to concede defeat, last night issuing a statement maintaining that the NHL still has enough time to approve the sale and transfer of the Phoenix Coyotes with the hopes of playing in Hamilton next season.

Anyone see that happening?

No, but it’s part of the ongoing MakeItSeven campaign, which has lured in fans and simplistically positioned NHL commissioner Gary Bettman as the bad guy in this pro-wrestling-like storyline and turned this sophisticated and complicated issue into a simple 1950s white hat/black hat cowboy movie.

You see, it’s easier to just say “Gary doesn’t want another team in Canada” than actually consider the issues that confronted the court in Glendale.

In his ruling, Baum …

  • Found no precedent for this scenario in case law anywhere and as such openly mused in court several times whether he, as a bankruptcy lawyer, had the authority to override the NHL’s constitution and, by doing so, redefine the entire North American sports landscape and the way all leagues - including the NHL, NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball - do business.

  • Said there was no evidence that the NHL was running an illegal cartel or violated any anti-trust legislation since an attempted move had not been made yet.

  • Said there was just not enough time on the calendar to sort out one of the most complicated sports ownership issues we’ve ever seen. June 29 is just too soon for all these issues to be dealt with.

Like you, I wondered about the deadline often and why Balsillie would make this date a condition of his offer knowing that judges don’t like being put in a hurry-up offence and that the Phoenix play was potentially too much of a pretzel to untangle under the tight timetable. It makes one wonder if Balsillie has ever really wanted an NHL team or just enjoys the Captain Canada status he gathers when he pops up in the NHL world? In some respects, he’s the anti-Robin Hood, taking from the poor to make himself rich, while convincing Canadians he’s doing it for them.

That’s some slick PR, right there.

The NHL is not the villain here as much as some Canadian hockey fans howl. You may maintain that hockey will never work in Phoenix and there is indeed history on your side in that argument. You can say that NHL owners should be onside with Balsillie’s play, which essentially puts wheels on every NHL franchise and in turn raises the value of every NHL team (“You mean there’s a salary cap and I can move the team to any market I see fit if it fails? Where do I sign?”). And these are two legitimate arguments; however, let’s not bundle them into the Jim Balsillie play to buy the Desert Dogs and ship them to Steeltown at a discounted price.

We all basically understand now that there will eventually be another franchise in the southern Ontario area, but it will not be a relocation scenario. Rather, it will be an expansion situation with the attached expansion fee associated (hello $300-$400 million). At this point, Balsillie will be allowed to bid for the franchise along with a number of other interested parties.

In Monday’s decision, Baum sided with the NHL on every key issue and in doing so essentially delivered a serious blow to Balsillie’s attempt to pay Phoenix prices for a southern Ontario team.

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