Balsillie Closer to Being NHL Team Owner

The NHL upped the price on the Phoenix Coyotes and set a relocation price of somewhere between $101 million and $195 million in documents.  At that time, three buyers had placed bids on the team – James Balsillie’s PSE Sports and Entertainment, Ice Edge and the NHL itself.

Ice Edge holdings has dropped out of the race saying that they intended to pay up to $150 million USD to buy and keep the Coyotes in Arizona (as long as they came to some sort of lease agreement with the city of Glendale).

This leaves the NHL and Balsillie as the only bidders and, of course, the Canadian billionaire has offered the highest amount.  After increasing his offer by $30 million, Balsillie notified the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Phoenix that he is willing to pay $242.5 million.  He plans to move the team to Hamilton.  Meanwhile, the NHL (with commissioner Gary Bettman strongly opposing the sale of the team to Balsillie) has offered just $140 million with the intention of keeping the team in Arizona.  The NHL board of governors voted 26-0 with three abstentions against Balsillie as an owner.

A judge is going to review Balsillie’s bid on Friday to decide whether he will allow him to vie for the team against the NHL’s wishes. 

I don’t even know what to say anymore and I don’t know how I feel about the team staying in Phoenix and I don’t know how I feel about the team moving to Hamilton.  Of course, I’d love to see another NHL team in Canada but there are some things that I don’t like about this deal.

First of all, I do think Balsillie is a shady character.  His desperation for an NHL is a little scary, to be honest, since he’s gone after the Coyotes as well as the Nashville Predators in the past.

Secondly, I don’t really want Ontario to have a third NHL team.  Call me selfish but I would like to see Quebec get a second team or they could try to market in the prairies again (Saskatchewan, Manitoba). 

What do you think?  Would it be good to have the team move?

image: TSN