“No decision could be a decision” is how NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly put it Wednesday.
What he meant is this: If the city of Glendale doesn’t get an arena-management deal done soon with the latest prospective owners of the Phoenix Coyotes, the NHL will be forced to relocate the franchise for next season.
How soon does a decision need to be made? Well, the City Council is set to meet on June 25, and the NHL Board of Governors convenes June 27.
“Stuff’s gonna happen,” said commissioner Gary Bettman yesterday.
“Obviously we’re getting to the point where some decisions are going to have to be made, both by the city of Glendale and by us. We haven’t set a deadline, but the time is getting shorter.”
Which brings us to this:
Glendale councilman Gary Sherwood 'doesn’t think the council will have enough time to make a final decision by June 25' #Coyotes #NHL
— L.A. Lariviere (@L_A_theRiver) June 13, 2013
2/2 Unless Glendale (council recesses June 28) calls special meeting, it is unlikely Coyotes will be 'saved' by June 27th's NHL BoG meeting
— L.A. Lariviere (@L_A_theRiver) June 13, 2013
For Coyotes fans, that’s not good.
Obviously, this is a massive decision for the cash-strapped city. It’s believed the Renaissance Sports & Entertainment group is looking for around $15 million a year to manage Jobing.com Arena if it buys the club. Four bidders recently proposed to manage the rink without an NHL tenant.
“I could easily see this going into July,” Sherwood told The Republic. “I’m a little embarrassed that we haven’t been better prepared.”
June 25 may not be the official deadline for Glendale, but for scheduling reasons (not to mention, this just can’t keep dragging on), the NHL will need to be quite certain a deal is going to get done if it waits on the city any longer.
“No matter how this plays out, I don’t think anybody can accuse us of kind of (taking) a grass-is-greener approach to this,” Daly said. “We’ve been committed to this market; we’ve done everything humanly possible to make this franchise work in this market, and now’s the time we’re going to find out whether that works.”