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NHL RELOCATION OF THE ARIZONA COYOTES; LAS VEGAS SINS?


TSN has reported that the city of Glendale in Arizona voted in a special city council meeting last night to cancel the existing arena management contract between the city and the Arizona Coyotes. In total the contract was for $225M and the cancellation will lead to a $200M lawsuit against the city by the Coyotes ownership.

This is the context that sets the stage for the interests for potential relocation of the Arizona Coyotes to Las Vegas, Quebec City, or other suitable locations. While nothing has yet to be said from the NHL and Gary Bettman on what the cancellation of this deal will mean there is lots of speculation on the future of the Coyotes' franchise.

It goes without saying that there is a keen interest being shown by the leadership of Hockey Vision Las Vegas, the potential ownership group for a Las Vegas NHL franchise, as they have previously announced their intentions to approach the NHL Board of Governors with an expansion application. This includes a successful season ticket drive that has already sold 11,500 season tickets for the proposed inaugural season as well as the almost completed Las Vegas Arena at the MGM Grand that meets the NHL standards for hockey venues.

Gary Bettman has always been one to state in recent years that the NHL has no intentions of further expansion past its current 30 teams in North America although there are many locations that would like one including Las Vegas, Seattle, Kansas City and a return of a franchise to Quebec City since the relocation of the Nordiques to Colorado in the mid-1990s. There is even talk about expansion of the NHL to Europe.

Looking back there was also a keen interest to have an expansion franchise bring NHL hockey back to Winnipeg since the Jets franchise was relocated to Phoenix, also in the 90s. And when the formerly Phoenix, now Arizona, Coyotes ran into bankruptcy issues and previous relocation speculation Winnipeg was considered the front runner at that time. But, the city council of Glendale reached this now cancelled agreement with the Coyotes to keep the franchise in Glendale and luckily for Winnipeg fans the Atlanta Thrashers franchise was relocated to Winnipeg in 2011.

This scene is somewhat familiar as there is a strong push for NHL expansion to Las Vegas with season tickets, arena and expansion application all ready to go and now the issue of relocation of an existing franchise comes to the table. It is much more likely to secure a team through relocation rather than expansion in the current NHL which some critics have said is already diluted enough with 30 teams in North America. This might just be the chance that Hockey Vision is looking for to bring Las Vegas its first major league professional sports franchise.

The City of Glendale is using a statute in the arena management contract to cancel the deal. This statute relates to provisions allowing the cancellation of the contract if  personnel employed by the City that were involved in the deal were to leave and become employed by the Coyotes which is the case with Craig Tindall who TSN reports was an attorney for the city when the agreement was reached and is currently employed by the Coyotes.

This statute and provision in the contract is pretty clear and specific and there is no doubt that this situation would open the door for Glendale to back out of the existing deal. But questions remain as to why the City of Glendale would want to back out of a deal that they had already agreed to. Part of that may fall on the fact that the Coyotes are consistently losing money season after season and this agreement was the only thing that kept the team in Arizona in the first place.

ESPN, among others, have introduced potential team names for an NHL franchise in Las Vegas long before this contract cancellation came into the picture. Team names included the Las Vegas Aces, the Bones, the Outlaws, and others. One name, the Las Vegas Sins, may be more appropriate if Hockey Vision or another party played any part in leading to Glendale's city council decision to back out of this deal. But again, this is all just speculation.

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Rudda said…
The Rant is back baby!
Thu Jun 11, 01:20:00 pm
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