TAMPA, Fla. – Manitoba Moose owner Mark Chipman told the Globe and Mail this week that he was no longer interested in bringing the Phoenix Coyotes to Winnipeg. Good thing.
Chipman has conceded that with the new deal struck to allow Matthew Hulsizer to take over the Dogs of the Desert, the franchise will remain, long term, in Phoenix.
As we reported all week on NCI FM and Streetz 104.7 FM in Winnipeg, on Tuesday night, Glendale, Ariz., city council did indeed vote to approve a lease for Hulsizer to take over the NHL club and keep it in the desert. Absolutely no surprise there.
I’ve said it before many times and will say it again, the team that will eventually become available to Winnipeg entrepreneurs is the Atlanta Thrashers, the team that the major shareholder in True North Sports and Entertainment, David Thompson, originally wanted to purchase. Frankly, as long as Gary Bettman is the commissioner of the NHL, the Coyotes were always going to remain in Phoenix.
However, Winnipeg is not out of the NHL loop by any stretch. There are teams struggling in Dallas, Colorado, Long Island, Sunrise, Fla., Nashville, Columbus and Tampa. If somebody really wanted to bring a team to Winnipeg, there are plenty of clubs looking for both ownership and market help.
Despite what happened in Glendale this week, Winnipeg is not dead yet.
Meanwhile, there were a number of other good things that happened to Winnipeg this week:
(1) On Wedensday afternoon, Winnipeg city council voted 14-2 to accept the plan proposed by Mayor Sam Katz, Premier Greg Selinger and the board of the Winnipeg Football Club, to build a new football stadium for the Bombers and Bisons at the University of Manitoba.
Despite the fact the city’s biggest hypocrite, Colin Craig — the mouthpiece of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, who hates the city and rails against anything Winnipeggers try to do for themselves and yet supports $1 billion a year in public funding for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation — denounced the deal as “a misuse of public funds,” only Russ Wyatt and Harvey Smith voted against the deal.
The fact is, there is NOTHING, nothing whatsoever, that brings as much focus onto the city from coast to coast in Canada than its Canadian Football League franchise. More people watch CFL games in a year from Winnipeg than anything else that comes from our city and yet we continually give the country a lousy team playing in a dumpy stadium.
One hopes the team can be fixed, but right now the stadium issue has been fixed. In 2012 we’ll show off our city to millions of people around the country and we’ll be able to demonstrate to Canadians that we’re a “can do community,” that is open for business.
(2) Someone (and my apologies but I don’t remember who that someone was), suggested last week that if the Bombers had to repay a government loan of $85 million over the next 40 years to pay for their shiny new stadium, the team will not have enough money to put a competitive team on the field.
Maybe I don’t need to apologize to whomever it was who said that (not sure if it was a blog or a news site). Maybe it’s better that the person remains anonymous. That’s because he/she is a moron.
The problem now is that the Bombers can’t raise enough revenue to do things properly. Without that new stadium — debt included — the team doesn’t have a hope. At least with a whole new collection of revenue streams, the Bombers will have a chance to compete.
As a professional franchise, the Bombers have a long way to go. It’s still a franchise that does a lot of things ass-backwards and it’s still a franchise that doesn’t understand it’s market and has no idea who its friends and enemies are. However, with the terrific new board that now runs the team, with President Jim Bell running the business end and with GM Joe Mack on top of the football operation, at least it’s heading in the right direction.