Monday, May 23, 2011

Ex-Thrash Coach Anderson Talks About Old Team, Moores-Hawks Deal Dead For Now...((UPDATED With Off-Ice Personnel Decisions))

((HT: NHLHomeIce/Sirius XM Radio))

The HQ will be the first to admit that Anderson didn't get anything close to a fair shake when he was head coach of the Thrashers.

He was a successful minor-league coach who was fully respected. He was also economically-feasible for Spirit's choice for a head coach at the time.

Anderson was on NHLHomeIce this afternoon to discuss the possible/probable/inevitable move of the Thrashers to Winnipeg...

Among his money quotes...
"It's very difficult when you have an owner not willing to spend the money, or have a solid interest in the team itself."

And, from Tim Tucker at the AJC, the time period that soon-to-be-ex San Diego Padres owner John Moores had to negotiate exclusively with Spirit is wiped off the books.

"We no longer have an exclusivity," Gearon told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "It was ended by mutual agreement after preliminary discussions."

Eklund and his HockeyBuzz-ness are relaying that the only way that True North fails in getting a team to Winnipeg is by not making an appointed season ticket number of 14,000. True North is also saying, through Eklund's sources, that they want it written in the deal that Spirit won't get a dime until that marker is achieved.

1800 UPDATE: In what may be another sign of the coming hockey demise in town, the flagship radio station for the Thrashers broadcasts, WCNN-AM/680TheFan, has let go all associated, on-air personnel that were not directly under contract with Atlanta Spirit itself. Remember what we were telling you about good people now having to find work because of the abject hubris of others...???

Here's the first salvo of that...

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