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Atlanta-to-Winnipeg update: Last local bidder all but out of running for Thrashers

Thrashers Flagging Fans Hockey

Atlanta Thrashers fan Maria Mityashova, of Russia, runs through a parking lot of the arena where the Thrashers play their home games, as she arrives for a rally to oppose the move of their team, Saturday, May 21, 2011, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Amis)

AP

While we continue to keep an eye on the news surrounding the potential sale of the Atlanta Thrashers to True North Sports and Entertainment, a deal that was reported last week to being possibly done on Tuesday of this week, we find out today that hopes for a local buyer are dwindling fast.

Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports today that the last local prospective buyer interested in keeping the team in Atlanta is apparently all but out.

The last-ditch effort for a buyer willing to keep the team in Atlanta appears to have expired. I’m told that “probably, but not completely” the one final prospective buyer is now out of the picture.

This story has been nothing but disheartening for the hockey fans in Atlanta and getting this piece of news seemed all but inevitable as the Atlanta Spirit Group seeks to get out from under its self-imposed boondoggle in Atlanta and find a way a way to keep their own interests safe.

Meanwhile, Atlanta columnist Jeff Schultz is waiting on NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman to drop into Atlanta to pledge his support to keep the Thrashers in the south the way Bettman and the NHL did to keep the Coyotes in Phoenix. So far, Bettman himself has been very quiet about things as the situation in Atlanta continues to crumble while the interests in Winnipeg wait patiently to celebrate in earnest at the return of the NHL to their Canadian prairie city. Schultz
isn’t expecting to see anything from the NHL home office, however.

The team’s sale to a Canadian outfit and move to Winnipeg seems to have been a fait accomplifor a while now, notwithstanding the constant denials by Bettman, Thrashers’ ownership and anybody else who’s worried more about their own reputation than what’s wrong or wrong.

The only reason we know the move won’t be completed today is that it’s Victoria Day in Canada and the banks are closed. Alas, Bettman/NHL (relocation fee) and Bruce Levenson/Atlanta Spirit must wait on their millions.


Waiting is all that seems to be happening now as True North and Atlanta Spirit work out what should be a landmark sale that sees a franchise returning to Winnipeg for the first time in 15 years. Nothing about what’s going on is fair to the fans in Atlanta and it’s clear that Atlanta Spirit has failed as an owner in the NHL. Given that they’ve been trying to sell the team for nearly six years and have come up with nothing tells you all you need to know about the situation there. The NHL can’t afford to have two teams mired in ownership hell and with one obvious buyer at the ready for any franchise to purchase, the NHL has to take care of itself first.

Big business has a way of getting what it wants no matter what and the hockey fans in Atlanta are feeling the pain of that right now.