Winnipeg Jets - coming back?

[ikilledemilia]

Looks like emotions are starting to stir with the debate...?

[rigpiggy]

to paraphrase gary bettman 'small case letters on purpose'

CANADA GO F@CK YOURSELVES

[sky's the limit]

STEPHEN BRUNT
Bettman has no Plan B for Phoenix
STEPHEN BRUNT
Globe and Mail Update
Published Tuesday, Mar. 08, 2011 9:56PM EST


Hard to imagine that was really worth the airfare from New York to Phoenix.

Last night, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, accompanied by his right-hand man, Bill Daly, completed what must have been a long and tiring day, addressing the press at the Jobing.com Arena in advance of the Phoenix Coyotes game against the Vancouver Canucks.

It is a safe bet that far more people were hanging on his words in Winnipeg – where they watched via a live Internet feed, at least until it crashed – than in the Valley of the Sun, where the Coyotes’ death throes have caught the imagination only of the team’s modest number of hardcore supporters, and of those who make a fetish of monitoring government waste.

The latter group, under the banner of the Goldwater Institute, received virtually all of the commissioner’s attention Tuesday.

In effect, he called them out. He said it was all their fault that the City of Glendale’s $116-million (U.S.) municipal bond issue, designed to underwrite the purchase of the Coyotes by Matthew Hulsizer, has so far been a miserable failure.

He implied in veiled fashion that the Institute’s motives might be less than pure. He came close to suggesting a conspiracy. He asked that it step away and stop messing around forthwith – and if it didn’t, well then the gloves will really come off, but only after the Coyotes are long gone.

For a group of ideologues and zealots, heretofore obscure to even many Arizonans, what a day, what a glorious day.

A commissioner comes almost the entire way across the country to single them out, to declare war, even as they are standing on what they firmly believe is a point of principle and a point of law.

And at the same time, that commissioner acknowledges there is nothing he can do to thaw the bond market, that there is no plan B, no alternate strategy. If Goldwater Institute simply holds its ground and stays the course – maybe for days, maybe for weeks, at most for a couple of months – it can kill the deal without even filing a lawsuit, because soon enough either Hulsizer (who certainly seemed to be losing his nerve Tuesday) or the NHL, or both, is going to have to fish or cut bait.

Now what would possibly compel the GWI to do otherwise – given it refused even to meet with Bettman, unless he agreed to a session open to the press and public? (… And wouldn’t that be something.)

A sudden loss of nerve? If it backed down now in the face of Glendale’s threatened lawsuit, the group might as well turn out the lights and turn Senator Barry’s picture to the wall.

A sudden change of heart? Did we mention that these are ideologues?

It would seem they have not much to lose here and plenty to gain in terms of their self-styled mission as the righteous enemies of big government.

Bettman looked weak Tuesday. He looked like someone who was playing his last card, trying to save face, trying to set up a future speech in which he can claim he did everything he could to keep the Coyotes right where they were.

But it isn’t public relations that ought to be his concern right now. The NHL’s loyal fans won’t suffer any angst if the Coyotes do indeed move back to Manitoba. A significant portion – surely a majority, given how the game’s popularity is strongest in traditional markets – would see it as the righting of a historical wrong.

The folks Bettman will have sway with his great powers of persuasion are his employers, the owners. He needs to come up with a story to explain how, following the Coyotes bankruptcy, the Jim Balsillie incursion, the season of league ownership, the accumulation of losses, and the revelation of Hulsizer as saviour thanks to that remarkably generous offer from Glendale, the whole thing could hit the rocks because a small band of true believers sent out a few letters and press releases, filed some access to information requests, wouldn’t promise not to sue, and refused to be bullied off their position.

It still looks like Winnipeg’s gain in the end, even if the governors will return there with gritted teeth.

But the whole thing, the whole process … it just doesn’t seem very big league, does it?

[Darkwing Duck]

My question is how come Brandon does not get an NHL team?

Because Winnipeg would want one too....

[I WAS Birddog]

Like everything in life...too much commodity. It's all watered down.
There are too many hockey teams in the NHL. The only glorious thing about Bettman's expansion program was Anahiem when they won the cup years ago. That's it.

Nashville, Columbus, Atlanta, Phoenix: FAIL

It figures being a Jets fan all my life and being cheerless for the last 13+ years before becoming a HABS fan...the possibility of the Jets flying again in Winnipeg has left me confused like Tom Hanks wife to be in the movie CAST AWAY where she remarried another after thinking he was dead.



GO JETS GO!!!

[Doc]

Gawd forbid that the NHL would actually place a franchise in a city where some fans might actually show up to games?
Some of you remember when the NHL had SIX teams. Now, let your imagination take you to a modern NHL with only the original 6. Think of the quality of the hockey when only 1 out of 6 players in today's league could even get a job i a 6 team league? Now that would be something to see. Every game would have the speed and quality of a 7th game of a Cup final. Teams couldn't afford to take fighting penalties, because they would be scored upon every time. Ah, REAL hockey!
Winnipeg could realistically support a franchise. So could Quebec City. So could Hamilton. Hockey doesn't belong where palm trees grow. It belongs in the land of ice and snow!
Don't even get me started on fighting in hockey. Street gangs on skates. Pure, simple and disgusting.

[The Old Fogducker]

"Jets" return to YWG?

Well, maybe, but keep that cash sucking vacuum cleaner nozzle out of my personal pocketbook. I pay too much in the way of taxes already.

The Jets failed financially in YWG the first time around, so tell me why would this time would be any different?

When they were playing in Winnipeg, I seem to recall attendance was dismal, and people would say they didn't attend games because the arena wasn't nice enough .... as if the seats were made of concrete and had railroad spikes protruding through the seat backs. They wanted government to build them a new arena with tax money to support a private business.

Why should they do that?

The Old Curmudgeon ... errr, I mean ... The Old Fogducker

[Doc]

tax money to support a private business.

Pretty much the same principal in reverse that allows ORNGE to operate. Using TAX dollars to COMPETE with private business!

[Inverted2]

Once they get rid of that shyster of a commisioner Bettman, I could see some more Canadian teams coming back.

[Nark]

Doc,
The quality of the game has evolved quite a bit since the Stompin Tom Conners days. I'd even wager that Gretzky wouldn't have the same amount of points, simply because today's game is different from the the mid 80/90's.

While I love to see the Canadian teams doing well, especially in the West, I don't think Canada can afford another team. Winnipeg doesn't have the population to support a team. It has plenty of cheer-leading, but no capital.

I love the cheap seats I got when I was in San Diego (Anaheim) and now in my new midwest city. Comparable seats in Columbus vs GM place are 4 times cheaper. I can afford to go to Canucks road games as a starving FO, but not their home games.

As a seriously devout fan, I can't afford to pay $100 for a nosebleed ticket just to put a team where otherwise it can't survive.

[Just another canuck]

The Jets failed financially in YWG the first time around, so tell me why would this time would be any different?

The Minnesota North Stars failed the first time around too... and now they've been sold out for nearly a decade since their return.

And Winnipeg DID get a brand new arena... the Manitoba Moose play there. It was also built so that it could easily be upgraded to hold the amount of fans needed at the NHL level as well.

Winnipeg, IMO, could support a team... the city would be so happy with its return that it would never let it go again, just like what's happened in Minneapolis. I would also think Quebec City could get away with a return of the Nordiques too.

I can't believe anyone would look at this as a bad thing... another Canadian in the big show would be great in my books.

[rigpiggy]

kind of like threatening yeg to build them a new arena, yet edmonton is presently about tenth in attendance. my brother is in phoenix, hae says that the coyotes are more like a AAA baseball team inhow the games run with kids contests, tshirt cannon etc.... and he gets tix for about 17$/seat

[Slats]

Doc,
The quality of the game has evolved quite a bit since the Stompin Tom Conners days. I'd even wager that Gretzky wouldn't have the same amount of points, simply because today's game is different from the the mid 80/90's.

I agree 100%. Just don't tell the self-righteous nostalgic crowd that. They still believe old-timey hockey involved more skill, less violence and no fights.

[Beefitarian]

Eddie Shore?

[Doc]

Doc,
The quality of the game has evolved quite a bit since the Stompin Tom Conners days. I'd even wager that Gretzky wouldn't have the same amount of points, simply because today's game is different from the the mid 80/90's.

I agree 100%. Just don't tell the self-righteous nostalgic crowd that. They still believe old-timey hockey involved more skill, less violence and no fights.

That was kind of my point. Imagine all that talent, in only SIX teams? An average team of today could literally slaughter the 1967 Stanley Cup winning Leafs! It's a different game. DUH! Bode Miller could wipe Jean Claude Killy's ass in a ski race! Not because Killy is damn near 80, but today's training and conditioning is heads and shoulders superior to what it was 40 years ago. Look at tennis. Most of the top women (of today) could beat the Rod Lavers, and Stan Smiths of the '60's! Hell, Serena Williams could BENCH PRESS Rod Laver.

[rigpiggy]

Toronto won the Cup? Not in living Memory.

[ikilledemilia]

"Jets" return to YWG?

Well, maybe, but keep that cash sucking vacuum cleaner nozzle out of my personal pocketbook. I pay too much in the way of taxes already.

The Jets failed financially in YWG the first time around, so tell me why would this time would be any different?

There's a Facebook page recently created for that: "Winnipeg Jets, But Without Government Subsidies".

[Moose47]

Test

[ScudRunner]

Simple fact is Winnipeg and Manitoba for that matter are a quasi socialist state that live off the government teet. Manitoba has a very limited pool of corporate business that would support a National Hockey League Team. The population is not large enough or prosperous enough to keep a team in that city even with a decent sized stadium it would be doomed to fail.

I recall last year the premier of Manitoba spouting off about how the province had weathered the economic storm and was not effected by the world economic downturn. I ask what economy was there to ruin, go and look at all the high rises in Winnipeg they are all federal government building and MTS ? Sorry Winnipeg best of luck.

[Sheila]

Not anymore !

Darn rights the Winnipeg JETs are coming back. Why did they say tonight, " They have to make an announcement in the next couple of weeks.?"

[Rowdy]

bahahahahahahahaha

Winnipeg with a TEAM of any kind? you're joking right???

[ScudRunner]

what idiot billionaire would do that when there are far better markets to put a team in.

[Sheila]

Winnipeg is supposed to get an nhl team because there is a market. It's Phoenix that is the dipshit market. Another hint for the corporations, was when they took that picture in downtown Winnipeg where tons of hockey fans filled the street, during the Olympics, and the Globe and Mail put it in the paper. When Canada won, I heard some guys tore off their shirts and ran in the snow banks, yelling and jumping.

[ScudRunner]

Well if that guy who jumped in the snowbank would buy every corporate suite then your in luck!!

[iflyforpie]

When I read this I thought maybe Bristol Aerospace was getting the F-35 maintenance contract. Seemed less far fetched to me...