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Coyotes sale potentially in big trouble

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The NHL playoffs were moving along a little too smoothly to not have a bombshell be dropped right in the middle of everything. The sale of the Phoenix Coyotes has hit yet another snag and this time it’s a big one.

Sources tell TSN the city of Glendale has asked Ice Edge Holdings to return to the bargaining table as a back up plan to buy the Coyotes, in the event the deal with Reinsdorf falls through.

Sources say Glendale reached out to Ice Edge late last week amid growing concern Reinsdorf’s accepted bid to purchase the Coyotes from the National Hockey League is at risk of falling apart.

To make things even more of a mess, ESPN’s Scott Burnside, tosses in this nuclear bomb of a revelation should Ice Edge not make a deal with the City of Glendale.

The situation in Glendale remains fluid; if the city does not agree to the league’s conditions, it is possible the NHL will instead move quickly to finalize a purchase agreement with Canadian billionaire David Thomson and move the team to Winnipeg. Sources tell ESPN.com there is a purchase agreement ready if the Glendale situation disintegrates.

If the team moves to Winnipeg, the Ice Edge group would then move the existing AHL team, the Manitoba Moose, to Thunder Bay, Ontario.

To call this a “big deal” would be to downplay the situation wildly. What’s most baffling about this is that it wasn’t even a full day since we got word of what the different conditions that Jerry Reinsdorf was going to have in order to buy the team, and it’s
a sweetheart deal to an exponential degree.

In a preliminary agreement known as a memorandum of understanding (MOU), the Glendale City Council has agreed to pay $65 million in public funds over three years to the NHL, the current owner of the Coyotes, as part of Reinsdorf’s purchase. The NHL took over the team after Jerry Moyes, the previous owner, threw the franchise into bankruptcy court in a failed effort to sell the club and move it to Hamilton, Ontario.

The $65 million to be paid by Glendale is nearly 40 percent of the total Reinsdorf will have to pay to the NHL to acquire the Coyotes. But although Glendale is paying 40 percent, Reinsdorf and his group will own 100 percent of the team.

Essentially, the City of Glendale was selling the team to Reinsdorf for 40% off the manufacturer retail price. Not to mention they were giving him a five year window to turn a profit before allowing him to sell the team and leave town and he’s still walking away from the deal. Obviously this story is all built off of sources and inside reports, but both ESPN and TSN have discovered there’s some smoke coming from this entire mess, whether there is actually fire to go with the smoke remains to be seen.

A lot of folks often wondered what would happen if movies turned out differently and should this whole thing breakdown the way it’s being painted by Scott Burnside, the comparisons of the Coyotes to the Cleveland Indians in the movie “Major League” take on a whole new light. In this case, only this time they lose in the playoffs and get moved away.