Balsillie's Bailout Plan

If you listen closely enough, you might just hear Steven Bochco's pen going crazy as he creates his newest made-for-TV legal drama: "Balsille V. Bettman: Battle in the Desert". The legal fight between the Blackberry guru and the NHL's Commish is shaping up to be a knock-em-down, drag-em-out affair of epic proportions, and I for one will be following it closely every step of the way. There's a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo to wade through, and I don't pretend to be smart enough to know it all, but here are the main bullet points:

1. Jim Balsillie has a lot of money, and has twice tried to purchase an NHL franchise to move to Southern Ontario... the Pens in 2006 and the Preds in 2007. Balsillie even went so far as to collect 12 000 deposits on season's tickets for the Hamilton Predators when trying to buy the Nashville franchise.

2. Gary Bettman does not like Jim Balsillie. Hate is a strong word, but I would even venture to say Bettman "hates" Balsillie. And he doesn't really go out of his way to hide it.

3. The Phoenix Coyotes are in a heap of financial trouble. Who knew putting an NHL franchise in a city where bass fishing gets more media attention (seriously, I wish I was making that up) than hockey would be a bad idea?

4. Here's where it gets a little dicey. Coyotes "owner" Jerry Moyes tried putting the team into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but according to NHL brass, Moyes no longer had control of the franchise. The NHL's Deputy Commish Bill Daly says the team was under NHL control, so Moyes didn't have the authority to file for Chapter 11.

5. Balsillie made an offer of $212.5M to buy the team from under its bankruptcy, conditional on him being allowed to move it to Southern Ontario (ie - Hamilton).

So now the question is: Are the Coyotes actually in Chapter 11 under Moyes, or does the NHL have financial control of the franchise? The NHL says they have offers from other Phoenix parties to buy the team and keep it in the Sun Belt. Because we've all seen how well THAT'S working out. Until we ge the legal answer to that question, nobody really knows what the next step in the process will be.

But here's the thing... Bill Daly dropped this nugget to the Canadian Press yesterday: "(The NHL doesn't) like to pick fights, but we end them." Aha, and THERE'S the real issue involved. What we basically have is two high school (junior high?) bullies eyeing each other up while the rest of the students look on with keen excitement.

Balsillie might be guilty of using underhanded techniques to acquire a franchise, but Bettman isn't exactly coming off looking like the smart NHL boss that he desperately wants peopl to think he is. Bettman's stubborness has never benefitted the league... players OR owners. His desire to keep a franchise in a market that CLEARLY doesn't give two ships about the NHL (or hockey at all for that matter) isn't benefitting anyone. OK, that might be wrong of me to say. I apologize to the 100 or so season's ticket holders. Moving on... I mean, they have Wayne Freaken' (not his real middle name, I'm aware) Gretzky behind the bench, and they STILL can't drum up minimum support to get the people excited. You'd even think there's enough Canadian retirees in Arizona to make a real go of it, but clearly not.

So who comes out looking worse? The somewhat-shady man who might be trying to get around the NHL ownership rules to move a struggling team to a viable market? Or the man refusing to let him do so to save face and prove he still has complete "power" over his league? All I know is this: before this drama comes to an end, they'll be plenty of material for Mr. Bochco to fill a couple of seasons worth of attention-grabbing TV scripts. I call dibs on Jim Balsillie's character. I'll make a call to see if Vern Troyer is available for the Bettman role.





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