pinksheets
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Smelly McUgly":3eoevml9 said:pinksheets":3eoevml9 said:This is just kicking the dirt out of frustration that we won't get winter sports immediately. Reopening the MOU would be the most dangerous thing Hansen could do. His focus is, as it should be, on getting through the process of the EIS and having a shovel ready arena plan. If the NHL wants to come here on spec, they can. If an NHL group wants to take a huge chunk of the city's risk AND most of Hansen's risk (that he would pay back in if/when the NBA team comes), I'm sure it'd be an easy proposition, but it doesn't pencil out financially at all. All Hansen did today was reiterate what he was saying when he was pushing this arena deal initially, "Be patient. We're in this for the long haul. Let's continue to put our best foot forward. Oh, and my group has no interest in owning a hockey team."Smelly McUgly":3eoevml9 said:It's over. The NBA wants us to have an arena up first in the next city they move to. The best way to do that would be to amend the MOU and get hockey in here first. Hansen won't, so the NBA will go elsewhere. I get why Hansen won't, but them's the facts.
But other places have arenas or are building them, like KC and Las Vegas. The latter is more attractive to the NBA, as the NBA's modus operandi is to find cities that only have them as a pro team since those cities are easier to hold hostage for a new arena. See Sacramento, moving from Seattle to Oklahoma City, the numerous teams that are alone in their cities like Sacramento, San Antonio, Orlando, OKC, etc.
The NBA wants an arena first (as does the NHL, to be fair). Other cities are doing that and we are not. I mean, this isn't a temper tantrum. I want hockey here badly, but I'm pretty sobered about the chances of that happening through the SoDo arena, which I honestly don't think will get built.
KC built their arena and has been entirely ignored by the NBA. By your thinking, the arena was never going to get built, since it was contingent on a team, so it's not now 'over', it never started.
If the NBA turns down a shovel ready arena in Seattle for Vegas, which they could, this market will be scorched earth for an entire generation at least, and hockey will never be the catalyst to get an arena built here. Not without a deal even better than the one Hansen has offered, which makes no financial sense for any side with an NHL team as the only tenant.