Balsillie Says He Is Trying To Play Nice, Others Question Approach

Balsillie Says He First Begin Talks With Moyes Two Weeks Ago

RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie Friday in his first interview since agreeing last week to a deal to purchase the Coyotes “portrayed himself as a businessman reacting to events and pursuing an opportunity that all but fell into his lap,” according to Stephen Brunt of the GLOBE & MAIL. Balsillie: “I wouldn’t be doing something if I didn’t think there were optimistic possibilities -- that wouldn’t be constructive.” Balsillie said that he first spoke to Moyes “only two weeks ago (he won’t say who initiated the conversation).” Meanwhile, Balsillie “seems to be holding out an olive branch to the other NHL owners,” as he “won’t discount the possibility of paying compensation to the teams -- Toronto and Buffalo -- that would share a market with Hamilton.” Balsillie: “You can play lots of scenarios where somebody could want something for so much or so little where it makes it easy or it makes it really difficult.” Balsillie added, “I’ve always been a constructive team player in what I do. Whether it’s in my work, in my philanthropy, in my friendships or in my sports. I know how to work with teams and integrate well. I know the proper code of behaviour” (GLOBEANDMAIL.com, 5/8). Greater Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber of Commerce President & CEO Joan Fisk, a friend of Balsillie's, said, “Jim’s a really complicated guy. Jim’s drive to do this is partly because he was rebuffed. He is very, very dedicated to success.” In N.Y., Ian Austen notes Balsillie “heads to a hockey rink once a week at 5:30 a.m. to train and plays twice a week in a local old-timers league.” Balsillie “would supervise the business side while turning the hockey operations over” to an expert. Former AHL Hamilton Bulldogs investor Ron Foxcroft, a friend of Balsillie's, said, “He wants the team for the right reason. This may be a business, but it’s also a passion. It would really make money from the beginning” (N.Y. TIMES, 5/10). Canaccord Adams Global Technology Strategist Peter Misek said of Balsillie owning an NHL team, “It's a bit of a boyhood dream. This is a driven, successful man who wants to have an NHL Stanley Cup ring" ("Money For Breakfast," Fox Business, 5/11).

WRONG APPROACH: The CBC’s Mike Milbury Saturday on “HNIC” said of Balsillie, “Why are we giving this guy the time of day, the arrogant buffoon? Go through the process for crying out loud.” Milbury: “Just because you’ve got a few extra bucks doesn’t mean you can go to any country club and get in. It’s a clubhouse. Act like a decent human being” (TORONTO STAR, 5/11). One NHL owner who “likes Balsillie” said that he will “side with Bettman.” The owner: “I support the process. If you don’t, you have chaos and anarchy.” But the GLOBE & MAIL’s Shoalts wrote, “Why shouldn’t the NHL sell Southern Ontario as an expansion market and cut every owner a big cheque?” (GLOBE & MAIL, 5/9). Tim Hortons co-Founder Ron Joyce, who in '90 attempted to bring an NHL team to Hamilton, said that he “suspects that getting into a legal brawl with a league you want to join is not the best way to bring an NHL team to Hamilton.” Joyce: “If you depend on the courts, the courts could make a decision. And let’s assume Balsillie wins. Are they going to accept that as a win, or will they challenge it with an appeal? So, I guess what I am saying, if they don’t want him at all as an owner, and they don’t want him in Hamilton, (Balsillie) has got a real uphill battle legally.” Joyce added, “I count my lucky stars that I didn’t get the team, because of the financial mess the NHL is in today. … You don’t have enough head offices in Hamilton, in my opinion, to support the private boxes program which is such an integral part of making it work today” (NATIONAL POST, 5/10).

DECISION TIME: The GLOBE & MAIL’s Eric Duhatschek wrote the question is if the NHL “does eventually relent and go into Canada with a seventh team, do they want that to be a relocated franchise, or a brand new one, equipped with a $400[M] price tag, to include territorial indemnification fees to Toronto and perhaps to Buffalo as well?” The decision the league has to make is “does expansion make any sense in the near term -- a time of too many wobbly franchises, tight credit markets, endless global recession.” If the “answer is no, then Balsillie’s solution makes some logical sense.” The Coyotes court case “may be the ultimate test of Bettman’s current power base within the NHL.” If “every team lines up squarely behind Bettman and presents a unified front of opposition against Balsillie -- publicly and behind the scenes as well -- then it will be an uphill battle for him to get control” (GLOBE & MAIL, 5/9).

OPEN INVITATION: HAMILTON SPECTATOR Publisher Dana Robbins in an open letter to Bettman writes, “I fully understand the [NHL] is a private business. … Still, I would propose, with greatest respect, that you and the league also have a responsibility to the fans upon whom your success was built, and who remain critical to the league’s future prosperity.” Robbins: “This part of Ontario has a near insatiable appetite for the best hockey in the world, and that means the NHL.” Fans in Hamilton are “mystified by the league’s apparent unwillingness -- along with your own -- to consider a second franchise for southern Ontario, and more specifically, Hamilton.” Robbins: “On behalf of our readers, I invite you to visit Hamilton, to see for yourself the potential that exists here” (HAMILTON SPECTATOR, 5/9). But in Toronto, Damien Cox wrote the chances of a team landing in Hamilton “remain remote.” Hamilton “has been used and abused by the carpetbaggers of professional hockey more than any other North American city” (GLOBE & MAIL, 5/10).

Coyotes Finish Season 24th Out Of 30 Teams In Attendance

GIVE PHOENIX A CHANCE? The Coyotes finished the season 24th out of 30 teams in attendance, and a motion in the Coyotes’ bankruptcy filing states, “Fans have not supported the Coyotes in sufficient numbers to make the club financially viable.” The filing adds, “Given the current economic slowdown, advance sales of tickets, advertising sales and sales of suits have been depressed.” However, NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said, “People deserve a team … in Glendale. I think it’s a good market, but I don’t think it’s had an opportunity to prove one way or other that it is or isn’t because of a number of factors, including on-ice performance, the expenses of the club” (TORONTO STAR, 5/10). Former NHL Exec VP & COO and Accrue Sports & Entertainment Ventures Founding Partner Steve Solomon said, "It's very important to a sports league to try as best as they can to enable teams to stay in the locations where they first started. Moving a team is really a last resort effort" ("Money For Breakfast," Fox Business, 5/11). In Hamilton, Steve Milton wrote the NHL is “committed to keeping every team where it is.” The league “will talk about all kinds of other reasons, some of them valid, to stay in Phoenix,” but “some of the rationale sounds very forced.” Daly said that an ownership group headed by Jerry Reinsdorf, which the NHL “has in mind” for the Coyotes,“can make things work in Glendale.” But Milton noted, “One thing you cannot fix about the Coyotes is where” Jobing.com Arena is located (HAMILTON SPECTATOR, 5/9).

GET A MOVE ON: The TORONTO STAR’s Cox wrote it “appears unlikely” the Coyotes “will be the last troubled team to turn from bonfire into full-blown inferno as the business of hockey is invaded by larger economic issues.” The Lightning are “in desperate straits,” while the Predators, Thrashers, Panthers and Islanders “all have big problems.” There is “no benefit to be derived by intentionally shielding public eyes from the economic troubles of individual teams.” It “eats at the credibility of NHL leadership when, after months of blunt denials, the Coyotes prove to be swimming in precisely the overflowing pool of red ink that many reports suggested” (TORONTO STAR, 5/9). In Vancouver, Ed Willes wrote it “should be obvious by now the league doesn’t work as it’s currently constructed, and the sooner it moves to markets that care about hockey, the better it will be for all concerned” (Vancouver PROVINCE, 5/10). GLOBESPORTS.com's Bruce Dowbiggin wonders, “Why is the NHL fighting so hard to save the [Coyotes] when, at $35[M], it is the second-largest secured creditor?” Southern Ontario “means the world to Southern Ontario, but it adds zero to Bettman’s pitch for American networks and advertising.” Phoenix “could be a home run if it just … started … winning” (GLOBESPORTS.com, 5/11).

Gretzky Stands To Earn $22.5M If Balsillie Buys Coyotes

POWER PLAY: The GLOBE & MAIL’s Brunt wrote it is “becoming ever more clear thanks to the transparency of the bankruptcy proceedings now ongoing in Phoenix” that Coyotes Managing Partner & coach Wayne Gretzky “had plenty to win, and plenty to lose, through his association” with the team. The owners “needed him there to put a positive winning face on a franchise that had never made a dime.” But from a “purely selfish point of view,” Gretzky has 22.5 million “reasons to be cheering for Balsillie,” as that is the amount of money Gretzky stands to earn if the team is sold. If Gretzky “were to stand together with Balsillie and argue that the Coyotes rightful place is in Hamilton, it would be awfully difficult for the NHL powers to credibly counter that pitch” (GLOBE & MAIL, 5/9). In Toronto, Steve Simmons wrote the silence of both Gretzky and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE), which owns the Maple Leafs, is “indeed strange.” While the Maple Leafs “clearly don’t want company in the marketplace, the market does want competition.” By remaining silent, MLSE “comes off as arrogant and monopolistic” (TORONTO SUN, 5/10).