Ladies and Gentlemen, the Phoenix Expos

The bids for the Phoenix Coyotes are coming in slowly but surely, despite the July 24th cut-off date. Of course, we have the Jerry Reinsdorf bid for $148M, which would keep the Coyotes in Phoenix. There's a new bidder of Ice Edge Holdings for about $150M, which we'll delve into deeper in a little bit. And, of course, Jim Balsillie is out there just waiting for something to happen with his $212M bid. If we're doing an auction, guess who wins?? Anyway....did you know the Coyotes lost $60M last season alone and people still want this team?? What kind of secret do they have in order to get this much interest??

That last question will be something to be seen, but let's focus on Ice Edge Holdings and their bid. The Great Greg Wyshynski has the break down of it all, including the San Antonio Rampage moving to Thunder Bay.

However, the one interesting point is the IEH trying to get some games for the Coyotes in Saskatoon's Credit Union Centre during the regular season and maybe some playoffs games. The capacity of the CUC is 11,300; which is what the Jobing.com Arena capacity should be. But what sense does this make?? Why are you going to move the team for five games to a place as out of the way as Saskatoon, in relation to Phoenix, I mean. May as well have them in Halifax or Charlottetown, PEI for pete's sake.

This is my thing though, why is the NHL pulling the same gimmick the MLB did with the Montreal Expos for the Coyotes?? Why are they going to allow something like this to go down and just give a little tease to the Canadian fans only to take it away?? Another big question is what is IEH's grand scale projection??

Let's be honest, this could be a ploy for the ownership brain trust to go to the NHL and say, "Hey, we actually made a profit in the five games in Canada, but lost $xxM playing 37 in Phoenix-- we want to move to (Canadian city here) because it's better for the health of the team and league." And if this is the case, why are we giving the team and fans the run-around like this?? It's hard to have a true home-ice advantage if you're going back and forth. Plus, if you go to a smaller barn and have a ravenous crowd on top of you, then switch back to a big cathedral-esque place with no one in it-- how much of a morale dump is that for the players??

Obviously, we'll have to wait and see what happens and what's going to come from it all, but in my eyes, it's not time to toy around with this team. If you're going to move the team, move the effing team. Let's not string along the fans in Phoenix or the fans in whatever Canadian city they may end up. It's a bad situation on all fronts if you do and it could make the distrust between fans, league, and ownership that much more wider.