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Post by ~Jiffy~ on Jan 15, 2009 16:44:06 GMT -5
We should make a list of potential buyers... See who would be interested... and have a little bet going on who. I am very virgin to billionaires/millionaires.. but i have a feeling in the end it will be a Manitoban.
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Post by razorsedge on Jan 15, 2009 18:32:42 GMT -5
Yes, pretty much. Steven Glukstern (one-half of the guys who purchased the Jets from Barry in '96 to bring them to Phx) actually commented not too long ago that he would be losing less money had he left the franchise in Wpg then in Phoenix. Glukstern, as we know, sold the Yotes to Jerry Moyes. Do you have link or a source of him stating this?
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Post by NewJets on Jan 16, 2009 9:18:21 GMT -5
Yes, pretty much. Steven Glukstern (one-half of the guys who purchased the Jets from Barry in '96 to bring them to Phx) actually commented not too long ago that he would be losing less money had he left the franchise in Wpg then in Phoenix. Glukstern, as we know, sold the Yotes to Jerry Moyes. Do you have link or a source of him stating this? I wish I did. It was quoted from an article not too long ago. If I find it, I'll post it. But its not hard to see that there is truth to that statement.
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Post by NewJets on Jan 16, 2009 9:20:36 GMT -5
Gretzky confirms Coyotes in troubleMATTHEW SEKERES January 16, 2009 VANCOUVER -- Phoenix Coyotes head coach Wayne Gretzky confirmed yesterday that the troubled NHL franchise requires financial assistance and is seeking an investor who could help keep the team in Arizona. The Coyotes could lose as much as $45-million (all currency U.S.) this season, including interest payments, and owner Jerry Moyes is looking for a partner. He also is speaking to city officials in Glendale about the lease arrangement at the community-owned Jobing.com Arena. Yesterday, when Gretzky was asked whether the owner could continue to operate the club, given its losses, he deferred queries to Moyes. But Gretzky, the club's coach and managing partner, also signalled that Moyes requires investment in the franchise and financial relief from the city of Glendale. "I don't think it is any big secret that Mr. Moyes has asked for new partners or investors," Gretzky said. "Mr. Moyes is doing the best he can in working with the city and city officials. Our responsibility is to come, show up and play, and play the best we can." Since The Globe and Mail began documenting the Coyotes' economic woes last month, no one from the club's management had confirmed that it was seeking financial help. A TSN report on Wednesday said that as much as 80 per cent of the team is expected to be sold in the next two months, and that Moyes would retain as much as 20 per cent. Barring a sale, the club could be forced into bankruptcy proceedings. It is possible the Coyotes could be disbanded or moved out of Phoenix before next season.The Coyotes entered a game against the Vancouver Canucks last night in seventh place, a playoff spot, in the Western Conference. The team is trying to snap a seven-year postseason drought behind a youth movement that features seven players who are 22 or younger. "The older players definitely don't let [the financial trouble] be a distraction, but the younger players don't understand it, maybe," said defenceman Derek Morris, the team's union representative. "We realize that things aren't good, but they are still treating us first-class here. They're allowing us to play hockey." www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090116.GRETZKY16/TPStory/Sports
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Post by gee on Jan 16, 2009 9:32:08 GMT -5
NICE! bring 'em home
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Post by WildJetsFan on Jan 16, 2009 10:43:23 GMT -5
I'm sure all kinds of investors in Arizona are jumping all over this given the economy and all. I'd love to hear the selling pitch "howdy partner, how would you like to be part of an organization that loses 45 mill a year?" Maybe they'll help the team out in a "save our Coyotes" rally.
tick tick tick...
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Post by bromine on Jan 16, 2009 13:14:06 GMT -5
I don't see an owner coming forward.. especially with that horrible lease. Bankruptcy is a real possibility. After that, I guess it gets complicated as to what can happen with the team - although bankruptcy would break the lease.
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Post by NewJets on Jan 16, 2009 13:20:18 GMT -5
While it doesn't necessarily increase our chances, I view the demise of the Coyotes (if it does happen) to be a victory for Canadian NHL hockey or the FUTURE for NHL hockey in Canada.
This could also spell the demise of Bettman. Maybe not right away, but I would think NHL owners are starting to re-consider Gary as the Commish. He's been in this position since 1992, therefore, its time for a change. Actually, its long overdue.
Seeing that he's been Commish for over 15 years just tells you how delusional some NHL owners are.
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Post by WpgJets2008 on Jan 16, 2009 13:46:13 GMT -5
Phoenix's financial problems is ironically and hauntingly similar to what was going on with the Jets in 1994-95. The only difference being that the city of Winnipeg through its' WEC held most of the revenue streams away from the Jets whereas the Coyotes get almost everything already from the rink including non-hockey related revenues. Only a parking fee remains to cover the $180 million that the city of Glendale paid out to buy the Dogs a rink to play in. (The team only put up $40 million of the $220 million arena cost.) Oh and yes the other major difference: about a quarter of a million MORE NHL fans willing to pay for tickets. So the Coyotes really don't have it that bad by current and past yardsticks. Chris
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Post by jhendrix70 on Jan 16, 2009 13:51:53 GMT -5
Financially struggling Coyotes are a long way from relocatingThe relocation of the Winnipeg Jets to Phoenix in 1996 was a funny joke and now let's move the franchise back to Winnipeg.That's the sentiment in Canada these days as the Phoenix Coyotes seem on the verge of financial collapse. With the team possibly looking at losses of nearly $30 million this season, the situation is dire. But there are still many cards to be played before this team would be relocated: These factors are all important in determining the fate of this franchise: • The league is not considering, and has no plans, for folding the franchise or contracting the league. There's no secret plan for a dispersal draft of Phoenix players. • Commissioner Gary Bettman's history has always been that moving franchises is only the last resort. That showed most recently during the sale of the Nashville Predators and during the Pittsburgh Penguins' negotiations for a new arena. • Other franchises, including the Buffalo Sabres, Ottawa Senators and Penguins (before Mario Lemieux rescued them), have needed the league's assistance and pulled out of their financial mess to be vibrant again. The Sabres and Penguins were even in bankruptcy. • There are groups looking to buy NHL teams, and there are potential suitors for the Coyotes. • Coyotes coach Wayne Gretzky still seems to believe this team can work in Phoenix and his name still has currency with the NHL and with prospective owners. • Attendance, revenue, and, most important, the team have improved this season. There is a decent core group of young players who give them a promise of future success. This team could make the playoffs this season. • Improvements in the lease with the city of Glendale could drastically alter the Coyotes' outlook, probably more than a new lease helped the Nashville Predators. For example, there are ways to increase revenue for both the city and the Coyotes. Right now, the Coyotes are the only NHL team with free parking. Although parking revenue varies from city to city depending upon who owns the nearby parking, parking revenue can potentially mean up to $10 million in revenue. The point is that while it is time to sound the alarm bells about the Coyotes' financial outlook, the league isn't ready to leave them in the desert to die. Through the league's help, the Coyotes will be kept afloat for the rest of the season. Presumably, at some point, the league will focus on a new ownership group and its representatives would talk to Glendale about whether a new lease is a possible and whether it will be enough to make the team viable again. The future for this franchise is anything but clear. When Lemieux pondered whether to sell the Penguins to a man who wanted to move the team to Kansas City, I believed it would never happen. Everyone in the hockey world liked Pittsburgh. No one wanted to see that franchise erased from the NHL landscape. Even though Nashville didn't have Pittsburgh's NHL history, I suspected the city was going to receive another opportunity of proving it could support NHL hockey. There is an endearing quality to Nashville, maybe because it's Music City, the home of country music. Phoenix's survival seems much more of a coin toss. Undoubtedly there is a chance that some time in the distant future we might see the Stanley Cup sitting next to a cactus. And there is also a chance that the Coyotes might go the way of the Hartford Whalers, California Golden Seals, Cleveland Barons, Minnesota North Stars, Quebec Nordiques, Winnipeg Jets, etc. www.usatoday.com/sports/hockey/columnist/allen/2009-01-15-phoenix-coyotes_N.htm** HERE ARE A COUPLE OF COMMENTS MADE BY READERS **RichA wrote: 27m ago This team should have never left Winnipeg. They moved from a hockey city (with support) to the desert, where they are an afterthought.wheelman45 wrote: 3h 55m ago Hockey in the desert. Who's brialliant idea was that? Move the Coyotes back to Winnipeg, where they belong and where they are wanted. Change their name back to the Jets, too, while your at it.
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Post by jhendrix70 on Jan 16, 2009 13:57:08 GMT -5
Outlook in the desert a grim oneJoe O'Connor, Canwest News Service Published: Friday, January 16, 2009 It is the dirtiest of dirty words, and Gary Bettman, the commissioner with the rose-tinted glasses and silver tongue, will say almost anything before he says the C-word.Contraction is bad for the NHL brand. And contraction is bad for Bettman, whose entire legacy, at least the one he had hoped to leave behind, is staked to the frozen game's expansion into markets where it never snows, markets like Phoenix. What does the future hold for the Coyotes? There is no future. They are a dead dog walking in the Arizona desert. Owner Jerry Moyes, a trucking magnate, lost $30 million US on the team last year, and is expected to lose another $45 million this season. The league is advancing the Coyotes money to help pay the bills, while the club has been firing front-office employees, reducing the number of trips its scouts take and cutting costs wherever it can.Phoenix Coyotes coach Wayne Gretzky signals how many dollars remain in his team's bank account these days. Well, maybe not. But things are grim financially for the former Winnipeg Jets franchise, which has sparked talk of NHL contraction. On the ice, the Coyotes have a winning record and are making a run at the playoffs. Wayne Gretzky, the greatest hockey player the game has ever seen, is the coach. It is the perfect storm for your diehard hockey fan. But Jobing.com Arena, the Coyotes sparkling facility in suburban Glendale, is deathly quiet.
Gretzky has a good young team, and still the fans don't come.
They never will.Dreamy-eyed Canadians, as Canadians always do, will talk of the Coyotes moving north -- maybe making a return to Winnipeg or landing in Hamilton, where the white knight would be the Blackberry king, Jim Balsillie. But there are no saviours in a global economy that is sinking fast. And there is only one logical end for Phoenix, and that is for Bettman to say the word he never says, and to close the doors and turn out the lights.© The Vancouver Province 2009 www.canada.com/theprovince/news/sports/story.html?id=32a83976-0f86-41c5-b3fb-47fb347dd2bc
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Post by jhendrix70 on Jan 16, 2009 14:02:18 GMT -5
January 12, 2009, 3:52 pm The Morning Skate: How Did the Coyotes Mess Happen?Dry Gulch? Jobing.com Arena, home of the financially troubled Phoenix Coyotes. On Saturday night, the Hot Stove panel on “Hockey Night in Canada” began its second-intermission segment discussing the hypothetical dispersal draft for the Phoenix Coyotes. Talk about jumping the gun. They were every bit as eager as Sam Donaldson, George Will and Cokie Roberts were one Sunday in 1998 when, with Bill Clinton’s troubles at their zenith, they spent a good portion of “ABC’s This Week” debating how the Al Gore administration would govern. The HNiC panel’s premature evaluation was set off by a particular report late last week in The Globe and Mail. Fresh off its most recent offensive against fighting in hockey (here, here and here) in the aftermath of Don Sanderson’s death, the national paper blew out the front page of its sports section with a red-ink-splattered package — literally — on the Coyotes’ financial woes. No newspaper has been as dogged in chronicling the ongoing troubles of the N.H.L.’s U.S.-based franchises, and its journalists — especially David Shoalts and columnist Stephen Brunt — deserve credit for mining their sources to cut through the “all is well” output of the league’s fog machine.All is not well, of course, as Shoalts detailed in his main story, researched with the assistance of two N.H.L. owners, which won’t please Commissioner Gary Bettman. Shoalts shows that almost everything the Coyotes own — the rights to the franchise, all equipment, inventory, all government licenses, trademarks, logos, copyrights and insurance policies as well as almost all the revenue, including much of the ticket revenue, N.H.L. broadcasting rights, any share of future expansion or relocation fees, revenue sharing, merchandise sales, concessions, sponsorship contracts and practice-facility rentals — is pledged as collateral to SOF Investments, which Shoalts describes as “a private equity fund owned by another New York company, MSD Capital, which was set up in 1998 to manage exclusively the capital of computer tycoon Michael Dell and his wife.” The collateral is for loans totaling $80 million. In addition to the loans, the Coyotes have been drawing down on advances the N.H.L. distributes to them from various forms of revenue sharing, which, Shoalts reports, could total $22 million. Among the Coyotes’ operating expenses is their $42.4 million player payroll. The club is expected to lose $30 million this season [Update 1/13: Shoalts now writes that figure will reach $45 million and ESPN.com's Scott Burnside reports they failed to reach threshold levels for some revenue sharing money from the league]. There’s much more to this, of course. (Including Shoalts’s amusing sidebar on the team’s public campaign to reclaim the $2.70 per ticket it surrenders to the city of Glendale as a parking levy, even though Glendale put up $180 million of the $220 million to build what is called the Jobing.com Arena and gets little other revenue from the building. By our calculations, if the team got that extra $2.70 per car from, say, 8,000 cars a game — a generous estimate given their attendance — for each of their 41 home games, the amount would come to less than $900,000 for the season, which would hardly improve their monetary woes).What’s not clear is whether other N.H.L. teams are enduring similar financial misadventure. There have long been whispers that many of the league’s teams are carrying unhealthy amounts of debt, and lots of clubs could be highly leveraged but not hemorrhaging as the Coyotes are. Debt is a way of life here in the States, both consumer and corporate. (Government too, come to think of it.) Things get even more interesting, however, in Brunt’s column accompanying Shoalts’s stories. (On most weekday afternoons, we stop everything to hear Brunt’s 4:25 p.m. segment on “Melnick in the Afternoon” over Montreal’s Team 990 radio, where, it is advertised, Brunt “makes sense of it all.”) After wonderfully encapsulating, decorating and amplifying Shoats’s findings, Brunt writes that the Coyotes are merely “the first domino.” In Brunt’s view — and the view of many who bemoan the N.H.L.’s ambitious move to the Sun Belt of the last two decades — the missionary work that bum-rushed hockey out of traditional markets and into the American South in order to save it, has in fact, torpedoed the league. “Historically, the Coyotes are a symptom, not the disease,” Brunt writes. “They exist in their current straits because of the N.H.L.’s rose-coloured aspirations to conquer America, aspirations that had been kicked around for decades but really took flight after Gretzky was sold to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988 and set off hockey mania in Southern California. The Phoenix franchise shifted from Winnipeg because the league had in theory outgrown that city and the market. The question of solid, grassroots hockey interest was beside the point; the sport packaged properly, the conceit was that the league could sell it to anyone.”Well said. Except that’s not exactly the way it happened when it came to N.H.L. franchise relocation. The Winnipeg Jets, like the Quebec Nordiques and the Hartford Whalers — and nearly the Pittsburgh Penguins — all relocated in the mid-’90s, but not entirely because of the league’s desire to expand its footprint in the warmer climes of the U.S. (although that was certainly a main plank of the early Bettman regime). These teams, well rooted as they were, didn’t outgrow their cities “in theory,” but in fact. One fact forgotten by Brunt and others is that the business of hockey changed drastically when Alan Eagleson (whom Brunt skewers in his excellent book, “Searching for Bobby Orr”) was ousted as head of the N.H.L. Players Association — a move few of those who now rail against Sun Belt teams would condemn. But his ouster set off a Rube Goldberg-esque chain of events that changed the course of the league and set it southward. When the Eagle was replaced by Bob Goodenow, the union’s accommodations to ownership were gone too. One brief strike later (in 1992), and salaries began to skyrocket. That was followed by one half-season lockout (in 1994), and the rocket’s booster kicked in. The N.H.L.’s trajectory completely changed. To cover those escalating salaries, owners needed new revenue. Since hockey was an arena-based gate-receipts business — as it always has been and continues to be — the owners found that they needed more seats, more amenities, more luxury boxes and, yes, even better parking revenue. Many owners got those things. Not all did. Norman Green, the North Stars owner, issued the ultimatum and was the first to make good on it, in 1993. Unable to coerce a new deal out of the Twin Cities (and with his local mall business failing and facing a sexual harassment suit in the Minnesota courts), he packed up his team and headed to Dallas. Other teams followed, each with their own local twists, turns and absurdities. In the case of the Jets/Coyotes, there was political wrangling galore and ever-shifting demands from the Jets owners, led by Winnipegger Barry Shenkarow. The public, some politicians and some in the business community exhausted all avenues to save the Jets. But the civic and commercial forces in Winnipeg could not make it work, and perhaps Shenkarow would never have relented anyway.
For those with dim or no memory of these events, we recommend Jim Silver’s excellent history of the Jets’ demise Thin Ice, which demonstrates that the money and will to responsibly fund a new arena just wasn’t there. “There were more pressing needs in Winnipeg to which public funds could be applied than building a new arena that differed from the old one primarily in having luxury suites which would be the exclusive and tax-deductible preserve of the corporate elite,” Silver writes.
In the end, as Silver recounts, Shenkarow, who at one point was going to sell to local interests, had a better deal from Richard Burke and Steven Gluckstern — the very same Steven Gluckstern who later owned part of the Islanders — for $65 million. Yes, they moved the club to Phoenix (while Shenkarow turned a handsome tax-free profit on the sale), but not before Burke explored his first choice, moving them to Minnesota, where he lived. Hardly a Sun Belt destination. All this gets forgotten amid the somewhat understandable clamor against the evil conspiracy of the Sun Belt. It’s hard to disagree with those who mourn the loss of clubs in traditional markets, and there’s a lot of sense in it when Brunt, a proud son of Hamilton, Ontario, writes, “It’s tough to thrive in the long run in the big-league hockey business in places where the game doesn’t run deep.” Perhaps, although it’s also true that it can be tough to thrive where the game does run deep. But in any case, the real story of the current N.H.L. map and how it came to be, as we have seen, is not quite as simple as an American commissioner with little feel for the game’s roots manifesting his desires by forcibly transplanting teams to where he sees fit to grow U.S. TV ratings. To get back specifically to the Coyotes, here’s another forgotten chapter in their sad saga. While serving as tenants in the N.B.A. Suns’ arena (where the view to one of the goal nets was obstructed from a few thousand seats), Burke made a deal to sell the club to Steven Ellman, a real estate mogul who brought Wayne Gretzky into the picture. Ellman wanted the Coyotes’ new arena built in Scottsdale, which is directly east of Phoenix and the most prosperous area of the Valley; the team might have flourished there. But Ellman sparred with the Scottsdale government on all sorts of things, including paying for the demolition of Los Arcos Mall, where Ellman wanted to build his arena and a new entertainment complex. There were the typical demands and ultimatums seen in all these matters, and in the end Ellman took his team in a huff west of Phoenix, to Glendale, an area that was hardly developed, had little decent highway access and was some distance from the fan base the team had established. The fans who might have flocked to a Scottsdale rink centrally located in heart of the Valley haven’t flocked to Glendale where, as Shoalts points out, “the arena is in the middle of nowhere.” You’d like to say that Ellman’s decision to spite the Scottsdale city fathers has come back to bite him, but he’s not in the ownership picture any longer, having sold his piece to trucking magnate Jerry Moyes, who joined Ellman as a partner and bought him out in 2006. Moyes, whose trucking business has been struck hard by the downturn in the economy, is taking all the hits here. So things might have been different for the Coyotes, and perhaps there is some karma, some rough justice at work here. Bad decision has piled upon bad decision, leading to the current mess. There are likely to be more messes as the economy staggers, wobbling like one of the punched-out boxers Brunt writes so eloquently about when he covers that sport. But no one has been KO’d just yet. Not saying it won’t happen, but as hockey’s business gets set to change yet again, let’s hold off on that dispersal draft. At least for a few more weeks. slapshot.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/the-morning-skate-how-did-the-coyotes-mess-happen/
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Post by dbp1990 on Jan 16, 2009 14:39:10 GMT -5
Phoenix has ironically become OUR FRIEND if you know what I mean?
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Post by NewJets on Jan 16, 2009 14:41:04 GMT -5
I have heard from some people how Phoenix will survive this just like Ottawa and Pittsburgh before them.
I beg to differ.
I think the Yotes are done.
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Post by NewJets on Jan 16, 2009 14:44:31 GMT -5
Maybe its karma.
Maybe this was supposed to happen.
I for one can't wait to see this on the Yotes website:
PHOENIX COYOTES 1996 - 2009
REST IN PISS!!!!
LOL.
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Post by ~Jiffy~ on Jan 16, 2009 15:11:33 GMT -5
totally agree.. i have wanted them to fail ever since winnipeg went
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Post by jhendrix70 on Jan 16, 2009 15:17:18 GMT -5
Let's put it this way: I'm a DIE-HARD Montreal Canadiens fan.......however; When the Coyotes played the Maple Leafs a couple of years ago.......I did what I hope NO Habs fan would ever have to do: Cheer For The Leafs!
I've only hoped for the worst since they became the Coyotes and them failing right now has been brought upon them by themselves. Karma works in mysterious way doesn't it!
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Post by archiseek on Jan 16, 2009 15:29:04 GMT -5
Fingers crossed they pull the plug on them.
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Post by NewJets on Jan 16, 2009 15:50:32 GMT -5
Let's put it this way: I'm a DIE-HARD Montreal Canadiens fan.......however; When the Coyotes played the Maple Leafs a couple of years ago.......I did what I hope NO Habs fan would ever have to do: Cheer For The Leafs! I've only hoped for the worst since they became the Coyotes and them failing right now has been brought upon them by themselves. Karma works in mysterious way doesn't it! Yes, it does. I'm also happy to see that the loss may happen while Gretzky is coach. Yeah, yeah, he doesn't really need the job --- but a failure is a failure. Oh and its vindication for Jets fans since Gretzky has been a curse to us ever since the last WHA game in 1979. From there on he's decimated our team in the 80s, made it impossible for us to forge ahead -- 'cause there was a time where the Jets were so good they could walk over any team in the league; just not the Oilers. Then there was his time in California which jump started the interest to expand in the Southern Belt. And then he becomes a managing partner and coach of the same franchise. I am a die hard Jets fan since as far as I can remember watching my first game (early 80s). There is no love lost for Gretz.
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Post by Dcmac on Jan 17, 2009 21:01:40 GMT -5
Perhaps if they fold we can finally put the Jets history to rest, as much as I would love to see a Phoenix vs Winnipeg game!!
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