Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel hopes to get the proposed downtown arena deal "back on the rails,” according to Terry Jones of the EDMONTON SUN. Mandel and his team will meet at the NHL offices in N.Y today with Commissioner Gary Bettman about the proposed C$450M downtown arena and entertainment district. Tomorrow they will meet with Oilers Owner Daryl Katz, Katz Group Exec VP/Sports & Entertainment Bob Black and VP & CFO Paul Marcaccio, and lawyer John D. Karvellas. Mandel said of the proposal, "I wouldn't be taking this trip if my expectations weren't optimistic. Most people want to see this deal get done." He added: "I know without a doubt that if we get it done and look back five years from now and 10 years from now, nobody will be saying a negative word. And I know if we don't get it done, and five and 10 years from now we don't have a hockey team and we don't have any improvements to our downtown and we look back, there will be a lot of people wondering how we could have done that to our city.” Mandel said, “I think everybody involved, including Daryl Katz and Gary Bettman want the team to be successful and stay in Edmonton." Mandel said Bettman’s "willingness to be the facilitator and deal with the miscommunication and misinformations can play a huge part here this week.” Jones writes Mandel is “starting to think Katz setting a Halloween deadline -- the date his options on the land of the proposed site expire -- is probably a good thing” (EDMONTON SUN, 10/11).
IT'S GO TIME: In Edmonton, John MacKinnon writes it is the “murky long-term uncertainty over the new arena project and what that might mean for the franchise that clouds the big picture.” There is “little doubt” that with Mandel and Katz’s trip to N.Y. for meetings with Bettman and “that Oct. 31 deadline looming on those land purchase options, the project has reached a crunch point, if not necessarily a crisis point or drop-dead date.” Bettman may be able “to provide clarity, to demystify a three-year process that has frustrated all parties involved.” MacKinnon writes it is “safe to say Bettman’s intervention cannot possibly hurt a process in which all parties involved, Katz, the city and Northlands have faked left and gone right often enough to undermine the public trust in the whole process.” Bettman also might “reinforce the hard reality that a new arena is a precondition for the long-term future of the Oilers in Edmonton, pure and simple” (EDMONTON JOURNAL, 10/11).
