The Strange Saga of Betty and the (ex)Jets

I admit, I have no friggin clue what is really going on between the NHL and the Phoenix Coyotes, other than the franchise is $30 million in the hole and something needs to be done about it.

I do know that I either a) don't trust anything Gary Bettman says, or b) have to constantly shift my logic to that of the legal profession to accept that everything going on right now really is above board.

Which it hardly seems like, because everything has now been dragged out into the papers and into the courts with the Coyotes' former owner, the league, and the possibility of new ownership all coming together in one nexus of insanity.

I guess, since Bettman and his cronies are trained lawyers, he can reasonably say that this is a good thing for the league because the whole mess will eventually be settled through legal maneuvering -- something in which the Commish made his bones before getting hooked on with sports.

But...

To the rest of the universe, and that includes the fans of the Coyotes and other students of the game, it's yet another useless legal opera. We have it all, from the denials, to the leaked information, to the league's plausible deniability, to the slick sound bites from all corners, to the impending shocking revelation to come.

Up next is the romantic part of the score, the inevitable push of "will-they, won't- they" between former Phoenix owner Jerry Moyes, Bettman, Jerry Reinsdorf and the inescapable Jim Balsillie.

As I always have been, I am in favor of a scenario which places the Coyotes in a different market, one with a hockey background, with ownership and financial footing waaay more secure than things are now.

Whether the 'Yotes end up in Kansas City, Hamilton, Winnipeg, or wherever, I also don't feel sorry for Wayne Gretzky, his friend and ex-GM Mike Barnett, and the slew of ex-teammates and ex-Soviets who he brought into the fold to try and turn things around over the past five years.

To them I say: you have all failed, and that's part of life. Fifty percent of all businesses fail, and even The Great One cannot be immune. It's also a part of business that any potential owner sweeps out the old and brings in his new staff to get a handle on things.

It is about time that this whole mess gets solved, and the franchise is relocated in time for next season. To keep the team in limbo underneath an excess of suits, countersuits, backroom dealing and legal politics is a shame. It's even more of a PR blow to the league than it was when the Nordiques and Jets failed to stay in Canada in the mid 90's and fled for greener pastures because of quarrels over tickets and new arenas with luxury suites.

And the biggest shame of all is that the man ultimately in charge thinks this is an A-OK manner in which to resolve the whole issue.

I predict that nobody will be happy with what goes down, but that is the essence of compromise.

As for the cities up for grabs in the Coyote sweepstakes, here's a little give-and-take on each:

Winnipeg: Already had the Jets from 1979-95, couldn't hack it when the league's salaries exploded and the Canadian dollar lagged far behind the American. Having the bandbox that was the Winnipeg Arena didn't help either. Winnipeg does now have a better rink, the MTS Center, but as it was built for high minor-league hockey without the possibility of wooing an NHL team, it still is not up to current standards.

Aside from that, the people might give multiple extremities to meet the ticket demand and price to get a pro team back. Realignment can be easy here with minimal movement of teams.

Kansas City: OK, so the Scouts failed miserably, but that was 33 years ago and KC is not so much a cowtown with former AHL glory anymore. It has the new Sprint Center which was used to lure the Penguins out of Pittsburgh, and will split the difference on the I-70 corridor between St. Louis and Denver. Plus, if White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf gets any piece of a potential move, KC is close to Chicago but not in Canada.

Realignment might be a bit of a problem here, but if the league is intent on returning to a four-division set-up, not so much. KC goes in the Central.

Hamilton: Well, the NHL tried smaller markets in Canada to little avail, but the advantage of Canada's steeltown is it's just 90 minutes from Toronto and 60 from Buffalo, in a corridor with about 1 million fanatical hockey fans. Unlike the Devils moving into NY-NJ back in 1982, I don't think a Hamilton team will suffer from a slow siphoning off of Leaf and Sabres fans because the city clearly has its own identity and history as opposed to the North Jersey suburbs 25 years ago.

As Balsillie said, there needs to be massive upgrades to Copps Coliseum in order for it to conform to current NHL guidelines. Realignment is a problem because there will be six teams in the Northeast which creates an imbalance.

If anything, we should just pray for a swift and just end to the mess, with the team ending up somewhere it can't fall pray fairly quickly to tight-fisted finances, bad parking-lot leases, and hour-long commutes across flat expanses of nothing. Unless they really ARE intent on coming back to Manitoba.