The most compelling story of the NHL the last few months? To this observer, it hasn’t even been close. It has been the drama being played out in a Phoenix courtroom.
Does a story get any more absurd than the greatest player of all time, Wayne Gretzky, being barred from attending the practices of his own team? Does it get any more absurd than the NHL having one official schedule for the Phoenix Coyotes already drawn up, and one unofficially drawn up for the new franchise the Coyotes could become soon? Does it get any more absurd than one side of a bidding war with an offer about $75 million less than the other, yet possibly still in a position to win?
The headline in Sunday’s Arizona Republic read, “Coyotes camp opens amid chaos,” which was certainly apt. Right now, Gretzky, the Coyotes’ coach and part-owner, is unable to preside over his team in camp because a judge may soon rule that the Coyotes belong to BlackBerry mogul Jim Balsillie and the city of Hamilton, Ontario.
Balsillie has bid about $213 million for the Coyotes and wants to move them to Hamilton. The NHL is the only other bidder in the auction of the bankrupt franchise and has offered $140 million. (Nothing says you rate your product more highly than coming in about $75 million less for it than the other guy.)
The case of where the Coyotes will play this season is now in the chambers of Arizona Judge Redfield T. Baum, who said he’ll probably take until Sept. 21 to decide.
The drama is fascinating, pitting hockey’s most powerful man, commissioner Gary Bettman, against one of the richest men in the world, Balsillie. Normally, you would think a commissioner would be thrilled to find a buyer for a bankrupt team and at such a big offer.
But if Balsillie moves the team to Hamilton, it could widely be perceived as a repudiation of Bettman’s business-plan expansion of the sport to warm-weather big American cities. And can you just picture the faces of Versus and NBC executives if they had to hear, “Live, from Hamilton, Ontario, the Stanley Cup playoffs . . .”?
Sure, games will sell out in Hamilton, and Canada will care about them. In the U.S.? Not a chance.
It appears it’s all going to come down to whether Baum believes the NHL would have a legitimate new buyer to keep the Coyotes in Phoenix, after buying them out of bankruptcy for $140 million, or whether that’s just Bettman’s bluffing ego getting in the way of an insolvent franchise being moved to a deserving location.
This is better than any episode of “Law and Order.”
