rumour - NHL's Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg

Heard it on CJOB this evening. Just a rumour.

meh if we got one the next thing you know Toronto would want one.

Rumour- The Beasejour Beavers are moving to Winnipeg! Or was it Lockport?

I'd heard the same rumour. I think a number of NHL teams are struggling. They've been papering the stats for a few years now. For example they may "announce" attendance at 15k when in reality it was 6k. The also have obscenely low ticket prices to get seats filled.

I think the only thing Winnipeg is lacking is someone with deep pockets who doesn't mind carrying a team that at best will break even. I guess if you were Jerry Moyes (owner of Coyotes) he'd be absolutely thrilled with break-even...

How could they even think that hockey would sell in Arizona? Not even the Gretzky name attached to it put butts in the seats.

Triniman wrote:Heard it on CJOB this evening. Just a rumour.

I heard the same rumor a year ago, from someone in a position to "know". I thought it was a bunch of wishful thinking at the time.

The fallacy of owners having to have deep pockets bugs me!
Anyone who can add and has an understanding of what Manitoba needs, and some common sense would have figured the following out:
$265 million for the Dead People's Museum - buys a franchise, and then the $22 million in upkeep going towards the $57 million salary cap, leaves a salary of 36 million. When the Jets left the salary was $16 million, so all the franchise would have to raise is an additional 20 million dollars that amounts to only an additional $33 per ticket per sell out of all 15,000 tickets, less if you deduct the selling of corporate boxes.
It is do-able!
Any one want to pitch this to the governments?
I can contact the Aspers! lol

Add some topless cheerleaders and you'll have a sell-out at every game.
What the h*ck, just have the cheerleaders do their stit, and you'll have peeps standing outside to get in at $200 a seat, and who cares if there ain't no hockey game to see.

rosencrentz wrote:The fallacy of owners having to have deep pockets bugs me!
Anyone who can add and has an understanding of what Manitoba needs, and some common sense would have figured the following out:
$265 million for the Dead People's Museum - buys a franchise, and then the $22 million in upkeep going towards the $57 million salary cap, leaves a salary of 36 million. When the Jets left the salary was $16 million, so all the franchise would have to raise is an additional 20 million dollars that amounts to only an additional $33 per ticket per sell out of all 15,000 tickets, less if you deduct the selling of corporate boxes.
It is do-able!
Any one want to pitch this to the governments?
I can contact the Aspers! lol

I agree. It is indeed do-able.

First, the team has to be declared a public utility. From then on, it's financed by the government. Simple.

Just like the Bombers are "community owned" eh? LOL

LivingDead wrote:

Triniman wrote:Heard it on CJOB this evening. Just a rumour.

I heard the same rumor a year ago, from someone in a position to "know". I thought it was a bunch of wishful thinking at the time.

Probably just the same "wishful thinking - never going to happen" mentality such as bringing an IKEA to Winnipeg, and look how that turned out.

Manitona Hydro takes them over!! The perfect answer- need more money- we can have floating hydro bills to offset any unforseen expenses!

Rosencrentz! Pass the hat the next time you are at synegoge. Convince the Israel bonds guy to become a partner and then buy an NHL team for Winnipeg! Convince Shenkarow to once again become the public face of ownership. Perhaps hire Gretz as coach! The media will go nuts, trying to tell the story about how we couldn't get Gretz as a player due to a lack of backgammon skills, but now we have him as coach! And while you're at it, bring back Kurt Kielback as the voice of the Jets.

Triniman wrote:Rosencrentz! Pass the hat the next time you are at synegoge. Convince the Israel bonds guy to become a partner and then buy an NHL team for Winnipeg! Convince Shenkarow to once again become the public face of ownership. Perhaps hire Gretz as coach! The media will go nuts, trying to tell the story about how we couldn't get Gretz as a player due to a lack of backgammon skills, but now we have him as coach! And while you're at it, bring back Kurt Kielback as the voice of the Jets.

Jumping to conclusions already, eh? Can you prove that there will be millions of $$$ taxpayers money going towards the purchase of an NHL franchise for Winnipeg? No, didn't think so.

What?

He didn't actually say that EdWin...

grumpy old man wrote:He didn't actually say that EdWin...

I know he didnt' say that, but it was definately implyed. I can read between the lines. Just like all his snyde comments about how the Museum will fail and such. It's blatantly obvious.

Found this on SSP. Chew on this NHL rumour...
Toronto buyers moving Thrashers to Winnipeg
By: Tim Campbell

There was more NHL/Winnipeg speculation on Saturday night's Hockey Night in Canada's Satellite Hotstove.

On the season's opening weekend, the captivated nation was told that big money from Toronto has done plenty of work already to buy the Atlanta Thrashers and move them to Winnipeg. Is it just another episode of wishful thinking or a real indicator of what's afoot?

True North Sports and Entertainment chairman Mark Chipman wasn't saying on Sunday, taking his usual tack of the less said the better. There are several known quantities to this ongoing story:

* The NHL has more problems than just the financially drowning Phoenix Coyotes.

* Chipman, whose company owns Winnipeg's MTS Centre, has been a consistently keen observer of NHL franchise matters for longer than his arena has been open (2004) and has never denied his interest in some future deal that might bring the NHL back to the city.

* One of the biggest partners in the True North success story, and certainly its most well-heeled, is Osmington, Inc., the Toronto-based private real estate company of David Thomson, the richest man in Canada and son of the late Ken Thomson.

* Chipman and True North have been to NHL headquarters in New York to address league executives and governors about their new arena, their situation and their interest and they continue to maintain a very quiet but open channel for dialogue with the league's leadership.

* In this case of Saturday's HNIC outburst, the Thrashers' owners, the Spirit group of eight partners, have been embroiled in disputes and legal wrangling for about four years over control of the NHL team, the NBA Hawks and Philips Arena. This summer, a judge tossed out a lawsuit that sent the bickering partners back to the starting blocks over share valuation and how one side or the other could be bought out. It's thought that the group is far more interested in basketball and could sell the Thrashers, but that's only speculation.

* In recent years, hopeful yet emotionally battered Winnipeggers have gotten better at not overreacting to every bit of speculation or mention of their city and the NHL, even when it comes from influential or powerful figures like league commissioner Gary Bettman himself.

All of the above considered, the tone of any speculation on Winnipeg seemed to move one grade towards legitimate in the spring when, among the court filings and briefs in the Coyotes' debacle, it was discovered that Bettman wrote in an email earlier this year that the Coyotes, if they were going to be sold and relocated anywhere, ought to be offered up first to Winnipeg.

That seemed to infer the commissioner, so wildly reviled for chasing teams out of Canada in the mid-'90s, would now give his blessing for a repatriation.

Chipman had almost no reaction to that revelation, too, not only because he had no intention of rocking the boat but also because he was steadfastly sticking to his position that the NHL knows where we are.

Even as the Phoenix mess stumbled from headline to headline to last week's interim conclusion that Ontario billionaire Jim Balsillie could not buy the bankrupt team and relocate it to Hamilton, the eager return-of-the-Jets type crowd would no doubt urge Chipman to get into the bidding line the NHL will surely seek for Winnipeg's former team.

But the financial morass in the desert will be more complicated and expensive than most suspect, Chipman said late last week, while hinting he and his group won't be rushing into the first money pit that comes along. He didn't say he was done looking, though.

The group has previously kicked tires in Nashville, and watched with great interest in Phoenix, but both situations are both tainted and inflated by Balsillie's inept interventions.

Maybe they're kicking tires in Atlanta, too, or maybe not. Chipman won't say, but you can take this to the bank -- he's only going to look at the possibilities as sound business propositions and if he has any control over it, Winnipeg won't be dragged into any bidding wars and his group continues to have no desire to make a single public proclamation about what it may or may not do until it's done.

That should suggest to the wise money that the story is a long way from over.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca

"Chipman, whose company owns Winnipeg's MTS Centre, "

LIE!

Deank wrote:"Chipman, whose company owns Winnipeg's MTS Centre, "

LIE!

I was wondering about that. Isn't it now owned by the Thomson family, the RICHEST family in Canada?

nope.

Guess again.

Nah, not in the mood for a guessing game. Who owns the MTS Centre?

oops sorry thinking of wrong project. I was for a moment thinking that "we" owned it and it was simply leased to them for X years

So then I am right; it is the Thomson family that owns the MTS, AND is willing to purchase a team and bring it to Winnipeg. Sounds like a good combination to me!

EdWin wrote:So then I am right; it is the Thomson family that owns the MTS, AND is willing to purchase a team and bring it to Winnipeg. Sounds like a good combination to me!

....except if you've followed the Thrashers at all, they stink! lol

Say, can't we get us one of those "winning" franchises this time?

If we're gonna do this thing, we have a chance to do it right this time, lets not get stuck with someone else's lemon!

Well, look at it this way. If we can't get ahold of one of those "winning" teams, we should still take on of the others. If you have the richest family in Canada owning this team, they will have the $$$ to build it up into a winning team, and then we can finally win the Stanley Cup!