Thursday, May 14, 2009

Balsillie Defends "Brash" Move

((HT: The Spec/Steve Milton))

Jim Balsillie argues that he’s been forced into his controversial, confrontational approach to seeking an NHL team for Hamilton “because there is no front door.”

Damien Cox of the Toronto Star sets up the meeting Balsillie had with the Editorial Boards of the Star and the Hamilton Spectator...


Balsillie has twice angered NHL executives, and some owners, by attempting to buy teams with the express purpose of moving them to Copps Coliseum.

In his May 2007 bid to purchase the Nashville Predators, Balsillie’s ticket drive for the “Hamilton Predators” ruffled many NHL feathers.

And he will move the Coyotes to Hamilton if a Phoenix bankruptcy court rules that Jerry Moyes can put the team into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and sell it to Balsillie.

That ruling may come next week and if it’s in his favour “the puck will drop (in Hamilton) in October,” Balsillie told a joint editorial meeting of the Hamilton Spectator and Toronto Star in Toronto today.

Balsillie says if he is successful in gaining a team for Hamilton, he would try to be an owner like Mike Ilitch of the Detroit Red Wings. Ilitch hires hockey people for the long term, he said, and lets them do their job.

The co-CEO of Research In Motion said he has “spent five years looking for a front door” into the NHL and “you get all this characterization. Club rules, all that.

“I tilted against them. Call me brash; it’s a compliment.”


Balsillie, who has committed an immediate $5 million for the upgrading of Copps Coliseum said he isn’t sure how much he’d personally be willing to put into the arena. The city is going to seek funding from other levels of government for refurbishing the 25-year-old facility.

He also said that if the City of Hamilton is reticent and doesn’t want him, he’s had plenty of offers from landowners in other parts of Southern Ontario.

Balsillie threw this challenge at the city: “Do you really want to thrive or not? That is the central question.”

Kevin McGran continues coverage for the Star by clicking in black...

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