When Bettman comes to town
If the Calgary Flames don’t get a new arena, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told local CBC radio this week, “their long- term stability will be threatened.”
“The Scotiabank Saddledome is older than all but four current Flames players,” he told the Calgary Chamber of commerce this week, and he named and shamed the oldsters: Mark Giordano and Dennis Wideman, who are 32, and Jonas Hiller and Deryk Engelland, who are 33.
“In fact,” Bettman continued, no doubt compounding the Calgary business community’s mortification, “the Scotiabank Saddledome is older than nine NHL franchises.”
Those he didn’t name, perhaps because this argument was even stupider than the first one. The eldest of the nine franchises, San Jose, is contesting just its 24th NHL season; the youngest, Columbus, is contesting just its 16th.
Prithee, commissioner, just how old is too old for an NHL arena?
The Ottawa Senators are pushing the limits of that question. The Palladium, as it then was, opened 20 years ago today. The Sens want out, and why wouldn’t they? It might as well be on an asteroid.
Builders’ remorse isn’t their case, however. They say a downtown arena would draw more fans, which is possible. ( Presumably ticket prices wouldn’t go up, right?) And consider this carefully: in the future, the arena will be older than it is now.
“The Senators’ current arena … will be at least 25 years old by the time a new downtown arena could be built,” the Ottawa Citizen recently reported. “If the team were to remain there, it would require expensive repairs.”
Perhaps it would. The Montreal Canadiens recently announced $ 100 million in improvements to their 20-year-old Bell Centre. That and several hundred more millions would buy the Senators a downtown arena. And if they wanted to build it all by themselves, many would wish them well.
But if they hope to land the plum publicly owned LeBreton Flats real estate they covet, and perhaps, shall we say, secure some additional consideration from the taxpayers, they should ask Bettman to stay well clear.
The commissioner Canadians love to hate was in Calgary to stump for the Calgary-NEXT project, which would see new homes for both the Flames and Stampeders, and for a whopping $450 million public contribution to it. And he made an absolute fool of himself.
If you haven’t listened to his interview with CBC’s David Gray, drop everything. It’s wonderful, and not just for his piqued reaction to being interrupted while peddling hot nonsense: “Hello? Are you interrupting me? It would really be easier for me to explain if you weren’t interrupting me.” Bettman essentially laid out in plain words the scam at the heart of his business model.
The Flames’ owners are superrich, Gray noted, so “why should Calgarians pick up a dime of this project?”
“These things don’t get built privately. They get built in a publicprivate partnership,” Bettman responded. Indeed. The question was why. “The question misses the point,” Bettman continued, bizarrely prais- ing the owners’ charitable donations.
It wouldn’t “make economic sense” for the owners to build the project themselves, he insisted. “They’re not going to bestow a $900 million charitable gift.”
Got that? Your local NHL franchise is running a charity!
Gray asked: Are the Flames profitable?
“I don’t comment on clubs’ economics,” Bettman sniffed. “And frankly the question is irrelevant to the discussion we’re having.” Because it’s all about “infrastructure,” you understand. The arena is but an anchor. Jobs and revitalization and pride!
And just in case Calgarians weren’t buying that, which they certainly wouldn’t from most businesspeople, Bettman issued the threat mentioned in the first paragraph. Nice team you got there. Shame if something happened to it.
This performance was remarkable enough on its own. But Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s response multiplied the effect. “This is the man’s job. This is what he does,” he said, perfectly. “Perhaps in other cities that he has come to, the city councils have just written cheques based on back-of-the-napkin proposals without any consultation to the public or without any analysis. That’s not how we operate here.”
If a city wants to decide to throw money away, that’s its business. To be essentially extorted into doing so is quite another. Bettman has said that without a new arena Calgary won’t get the NHL draft, which is a conference call come to life, or the all- star game, which is the worst thing in sports. And some day, not so far in the future, it might not even have a hockey team — in one of the very largest and wealthiest hockey markets in the world.
The nature of the threats are ridiculous, and their delivery was obnoxious even by Bettman’s lofty standards. This is a perfect opportunity for Canadian cities, Calgary and Nenshi first, to opt out of the NHL’s absurd arena economics.
THIS IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR CALGARY AND MAYOR NENSHI TO AVOID ABSURD NHL ARENA ECONOMICS.