[David_99]

Arizona has been an absolute shit-shit for decades now. They were losing upwards for $35-40 million a year with the leagues lowest salary. The NHL was forced to buy them out of bankruptcy for $140M. Their continued existence was predicated on the city of Glendale paying the NHL $25M a year. The year Atlanta left, the NHL played chicken with the city. They were 15 minutes away from selling the team to True North, the current Jets owners. When the small city of Glendale ponied up the money, the NHL didn’t want to own 2 teams at the same time, so they sold the Thrashers to TrueNorth. After looking at the business numbers, no one wanted to touch the franchise with a 10 foot pole. Enter Anthony LeBlanc who “bought” the team from the NHL (with the original idea of playing up to 10 games a year in Saskatchewan). Anthony came in and demanded a new arena be built up the road, closer to the denser population. Glendale rebuffed as they were still paying off their 15 year old arena. They then agreed to pay him $15M/ year for 15years for the privilege of having him as “owner”. He then came back to the city and decided $15M wasn’t enough and lobbied to have an entertainment tax zone created around he area so he could collect more money. Yadda yadda yadda, he’s doing the same thing in Halifax now with the Schooners. No money down, have the city and the tax payers build him a stadium and pay for his ownership.