Archive for the ‘Make It Seven’ Category

Help Mr. Balsillie; the NHL needs you!

Friday, March 12th, 2010

They’are baaacckkkk! The Coyotes are back in the news and it isn’t going to be good for Gary “Mr. Suck” Bettman. An outside party recently valued at ‘yotes at $50M…yes! That is $110M LESS then the NHL is asking. The main reason is Ice Edge Holdings Inc doesn’t have the money to purchase the team. Apparently, the US banks learned something from the drop in the housing market!

Phoenix is averaging less the 12K fans per game and that is at discounted ticket prices…I wonder how the Players Union feels about the ‘yotes bringing down the NHL salary cap? Mind you if the cap goes up…at least 3 more NHL teams will face bankruptcy.

Here is what is wrong with the Ice Edge deal:

- Bankers are balking at financing this venture after they learned financier Jeffrey Vinik paid only about $100-million in cash for the Tampa Bay Lightning. They are asking hard questions about why the Coyotes would be worth 60 per cent more.

- The Ice Edge principals will not discuss their finances in detail, but a banking source says they have only a relatively small amount to put into the proposed deal. As a result, bankers are not queuing up to lend money.

Thanks to David Shoalts at the Globe and Mail for a great article on the failuer of the Ice Edge bid.

Is anyone REALLY surprised this deal fell apart? Mr Balsillie did you see this coming? I am sure you did…

My next prediction, when Mr. Suck gets handed his walking papers it will be over two things… a bad deal with the Players Union last strike AND the ‘cotes. Mr. Sucks successor will try and distance himself by letting Balsillie put a team in Hamilton!

Ho Ho Mr. Suck you’ve got to go!

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Posted in General Rant, Make It Seven, Mr Sucks Bad Ideas, Phoenix Coyotes, hamilton | 3 Comments »

Send a MakeItSeven.ca message to Gary ‘Mr Suck’ Bettman

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

I just received and email from the Make It Seven team. Asking people to send a messaget to Gary “Mr Suck” Bettman. Here was the body of the message:

Supporters of Make It Seven,

In his ruling on June 15, Judge Baum clearly encouraged the NHL and Jim Balsillie enter into mediation to settle the matter of relocating the Phoenix Coyotes to Hamilton.

Jim Balsillie is more than willing to discuss relocation with the NHL and we need you, the fans, to help bring the league to the table. We have written an email that you can quickly and easily send to us and then spread the word among your friends so that we can deliver the message to the NHL.

Click here to see the letter and send it to the league.

With your help, we will Make It Seven.

Send Mr Suck a message…it will take you 10 seconds!

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Posted in Make It Seven, Phoenix Coyotes | 6 Comments »

Relocation fee and Leafs waiting list…

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
  • In the battle for a seventh NHL team, the judge has ordered the NHL all sides in a Phoenix bankruptcy court to provide him with information around a possible relocation fee the NHL may charge for the Coyotes franchise to be moved to Hamilton.

The current rumours have amount being set at $100M! Crazy amount? Maybe maybe not…

The Anaheim Ducks payed the LA Kings $25M back in 1992-1993 because they were moving into their fan base. In 1992 the NHLs total revenue was only $400 million. So, the Ducks paid the Kings 6.25% of league revenue to move in on their fan base. In 2008, the league has revenues around $2.2B if they keep the 6.25% rule it would mean $137M! WOW! That is a pretty crazy amount of money to be given to the Leafs and the Sabers.

But wait, revenue is just one part of the equation…distance between the areans would also have to be  huge part of the equation. The Staple Centre is 31 miles from the Honda Centre. This pretty close and the Ducks had to pay $$25M.

The Sabers are 65 miles from the arean in Hamilton and the Leafs are 41miles from Hamilton. Because both are farther away, the percentage they have to be paid should be lower. So 5% of revenue might make more sense…roughly $100M…this seems to be the logical…but is it too much for Mr. RIMM?

Maybe the NHL and Mr. Suck will realize another team in Southern Ontario will be good for hockey and the NHL. Maybe the will realize the Leafs revenue has been increasing steadily, from $117M in 2003-2004 to $160M in 2007-2008. While the Buffalo Sabers reveune has increased as well but was starting from a much lower point, $51M in 2003-2004 to $76M in 2007-2008

Does it seem fair to give these teams over 50% of years revenue for Hamilton to get a team?

This could be debated but one thing I want everyone to know, the Leafs have a season ticket waiting list that is around 3000 names deep…and over the last two years no one on the list has moved. That is right, there is 100% renewal of season tickets for the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs also have the highest average ticket price at $75 per seats…and even during this recession they have increased their ticket prices.

To recap, what the leafs have:

  • highest ticket prices in the NHL
  • highest team revenue
  • 3000+ fans on the season ticket waiting list
  • and a ton of scalpers who make a mint off leafs tickets

Can someone tell me why Leafs need millions of dollars if a team goes to Hamilton?

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Posted in General Rant, Make It Seven, Phoenix Coyotes | 2 Comments »

Phoneix Coyotes real attendence numbers!

Thursday, June 4th, 2009

This is a great piece of information relating to the possible move of the Phoneix Coyotes to Hamilton.

James Mirtle wrote a nice post showing that the ‘coyoes only had 11K people go through the turnstiles, on average, every night. That is over 3K less then they announce at actual games…

http://www.fromtherink.com/2009/6/3/897211/the-coyotes-attendance-figures

Read the ‘good news’ from his post…

The good news? A lot of those tickets that weren’t used were at least paid for (this season anyway). Paid attendance figures are actually up significantly from where they were in the first season after the lockout, when the team apparently sold just 11,340 per game and yet announced attendance of 15,570.

Paid tickets went up this year? Something fishy about this…

Mr. Suck what else aren’t you telling the NHL fans…are the $200 a seat tickets in Toronto subsidizing the ‘coyote?

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Posted in General Rant, Make It Seven, Phoenix Coyotes, hamilton | 3 Comments »

Bettman wants team in Winnipeg! B***S***!

Saturday, May 16th, 2009

How low with Mr Suck go? He is pretending that ‘if’ the Coyotes had to move then Winnipeg would be the best place for them to go. Is anyone stepping up a bid to bring the ‘yotes to Winnipeg? Has there even been rumours of this?

Two interesting things coming out of the court documents:

In an affidavit filed Friday, Earl Scudder says that Bettman informed him Hamilton wasn’t an ideal destination because Copps Coliseum is over 30 years old, saying “if the team did return to Canada, it would be to Winnipeg.”

So Winnipeg is next on the list… that is great… but Mr Suck still have a vendetat against Ontario.


Scudder’s affidavit also says that Bettman said the only way a team would end up in southern Ontario is through expansion.

Read the full story at Yahoo! Canada Sports.

Ask your self, “Why would Mr Suck pit Winnipeg vs Hamilton?”. The asnwer is pretty easy, he is trying to divide Canada over where the Coyotes should move. It is hard to fight a united Canada but a split Canada falls perfectly into evil little hands.

Yes, the MTS Centre is newer than Copps Coliseum but Copps can seat up to 17,383 for a hockey game while MTS can only seat 15,015… so that mean…. WAIT NOW… I am falling in to Mr Suck’s evil plan to divide Canada! Damn you Gary Bettman…

Fight Bettman! Don’t pit Winnipeg V Hamilton. Instead lets change MakeItSeven… to MakeItEight!

Remember… it is Bettman VS the NHL fans! He is the problem…

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Posted in Make It Seven, Phoenix Coyotes, Winnipeg Jets | 6 Comments »

Make it seven, seven Canadian NHL teams.

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

The website Make It Seven was started by Jim Balsillie to show the grass roots support for a new NHL team in Southern Ontario. This is a great idea because it allows the ‘pent up’ desire for another hockey team to be seen.

If you aren’t from Toronto or surrounding areas, you might know how difficult it is to get hockey tickets. My quest to get Toronto Maple Leafs season tickets began in 1999 and as of this post I am still on the waiting list. To make it worse, for the last two years I haven’t moved a single spot. Maybe by the time I am 80….

Single game tickets are nearly impossible but I usually get a couple of pairs each year. The order of priority getting single tickets are::

  • Season Ticket holders – this means that games like Pittsburgh and Washington are sold out before the game is available for ‘non-season ticket holders’.
  • Maple Leaf Insiders – they email a code to use on TicketBastard. This is how I get my tickets for my team, New Jersery Devils. About 5 minutes after the tickets go on sale all Leafs games for the year are sold out.
  • Regular Folks – no chance because all the tickets are sold out! The ‘funny’ part is that the Leafs still make a big deal about being able to buy tickets even know that all the games are sold out.

Mr. Suck, this shows adding another Southern Ontario team would be fantastic. Why do you hate Canada so? Don’t you realize that everyone wants this…. EXCEPT you!

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Posted in Make It Seven, Phoenix Coyotes | 7 Comments »

The Coyotes are being run by the NHL!

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

Yes, that is the type of headline that would pull me out of retirement to blog.

Early this morning, I read a great blog post by Puck Daddy. The post was about the Phoenix Coytes possibly being controlled by the NHL, since February. I sent a tweet (follow me: theonlysandman) about that this post. It was then pulled from Yahoo! about one hour later. It would appear that someone is trying to stop this story.

This a HUGE DEAL since the Coytes have taken on a bunch of crappy salaries at the deadline. If the ‘yotes where to go bankrupt after taking on these bad salaries… well, I think the courts would have something to say about that…

The biggest question I have is, why was this well written and informative blog post taken down?

I have made a PDF of this post so you can read it here your self… Coyotes being run by the NHL (pdf).

UPDATE, 5:45pm Just found out that the Arizona Central is covering the NHL’s loan to the Phoenix Coyotes. Where there is smoke there is fire… look out Mr. Suck… you might be on slippery ground.

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Posted in Make It Seven, Mr Sucks Bad Ideas, Phoenix Coyotes | 2 Comments »