Earning points

One wonders whether or not there will be any winner. The vitriol between Jim Balsillie and the National Hockey League (NHL) grows daily. Its a fertile plant. Poison Ivy steps aside for the botanical wonder.

The NHL were the ones that made the issue personal. They were winning legally but Gary Bettman's ego removed the boundaries of common sense by declaring to a court that it was unanimous that all the Governors of the NHL considered Balsillie unfit to be an owner in the NHL.

They do a lot of unanimous votes in the NHL Bored of Governor's meetings. Only a couple of years ago the NHL declared the very same individual more than qualified to be an owner. However the poison started quite consciously by the brat Gary Bettman. Balsillie's group continues to push forward bidding in an Arizona bankruptcy court for the hapless Phoenix Coyotes.

The intention of Balsillie is to move the team to Hamilton, Ontario where for the first time in its entire franchise history, including when the team lived as the Winnipeg Jets, it might actually generate enough revenue to actually break even.

This move has been opposed by the Toronto Maple Leafs who considers all of the southern reaches of the province of Ontario as its very own. It has a veto on any decision although the NHL has said it doesn't. Someone obtained a version of the secret league rules and lo it appears it does. So apparently publicly the NHL has no problem with lying.

Further to the point of character, Balsillie's camp fired back with a list of NHL owner's who conducted themselves badly. One of those mentioned was a Eugene Melynyk, owner of the Ottawa Senators retorted publicly that he now thought Balsillie to be morally challenged.

Quite unlike Balsillie, Melnyk doesn't live in Canada, owns companies facing criminal charges in the United States. He owns a company that committed insurance fraud but faced them in a Canadian court where judges hold little value in sending white collar criminals to jail. Balsillie did commit an indiscretion of miscalculating the value of stock options. He admitted the error, paid all the fines and stepped down from the post he held.

Others in the NHL have committed crimes and the NHL did nothing to censure them from the Board. Harold Ballard was convicted of criminal fraud and sentenced to nine years finally being paroled in 1973. Bruce McNall became the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the NHL in 1992. A couple of years later he admitted bilking investors of $234M. He finally served out his parole in 2006.

Which begs the question of why would anyone of any integrity whatsoever wish to belong to this elitist club known as the NHL owners? At the moment, I hope Balsillie loses his bid. Winning sometimes isn't necessarily winning.