Balsillie, Moyes Ask Judge To Force NHL To Negotiate On Coyotes

Balsillie Says He'd Pay A "Reasonable" Relocation Fee

PLAYERS' POSITION: The GLOBE & MAIL’s Eric Duhatschek notes not every player at Thursday’s annual awards ceremony "necessarily agreed with commissioner Gary Bettman’s position" on keeping the Coyotes in Phoenix. Lightning RW Martin St. Louis: “In terms of hockey-related revenues, we’re partners. It doesn’t mean that Phoenix has to be out. Maybe you have to consider expansion to markets that can support hockey and bring some more revenue. It’s a tough question because you don’t want to see a city lose its franchise, but at the same time, we’re partners. We want to be in markets that we’re going to make the most money.” Red Wings D Nicklas Lidstrom: “If they can keep a team in Phoenix and it’s working, then they should keep it there. But if it’s not working, I don’t think it’s going to work for anyone -- whether it’s the owner or the players. That’s just the reality of it” (GLOBE & MAIL, 6/19).

Persistence NOT Paying Off: In Toronto, Steve Simmons writes the harder Balsillie pushes, the “farther away the NHL gets from him, and by extension, from southern Ontario.” More and more with each passing day, NHL officials “hate his publicity stunts. They hate his overt public relations campaigns. They hate the way he disregards whatever may be going on around the NHL ... and continues in his bull-in-a-china-shop kind of way, blinded by everything but his own ego, hell-bent to bring a seventh NHL team to Hamilton.” Simmons: “You have to admire Balsillie’s naïve persistence. It is oddly commendable. But it also sounds a lot like those phone calls that disrupt your dinner, trying to sell you a vacation. After awhile, you’ve heard one telemarketer, if you’ve heard them all” (TORONTO SUN, 6/19).

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