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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. - Celebrity sightings are not uncommon here at one of the great playgrounds of the rich, "the greatest meeting of land and water in the world," as it has been described.
But Santa Claus?
That is surely how more than a few members of the NHL board of governors must feel as they get ready for two days of meetings which kick off Tuesday. The man in red takes the form of Ice Edge Holdings, the group of businessmen with whom the NHL signed a letter of intent Friday to sell the financially-hemorrhaging Phoenix Coyotes.
Ice Edge has the potential gift of cutting the league’s and the governors’ losses from the Phoenix fiasco. Ice Edge is rumoured to be ready to pay the NHL at least $140 million for the franchise and potentially save the NHL millions in losses. It’s believed the Coyotes lost $60 million last season and the NHL is holding the bag right now.
The NHL has owned the Coyotes since buying them out of bankruptcy court in September for $140 million.
Talk about the Ice Edge deal will be at the top of the agenda, though no final decision is expected.
But, hey, not everybody believes in Santa Claus.
The NHL office distributed an email to the governors and team executives over the weekend detailing the league’s letter of intent to sell the Coyotes to the Ice Edge group, which has been greeted with skepticism on the part of some governors.
"There’s going to be a lot of discussion about this group’s legitimacy. Do they have enough money? Do they have the cash to make this work? Do they have the plan to make it work?" one anonymous governor wondered. "I know there are going to be some owners that are just going to be happy to have somebody take over (the Coyotes) and pay the bills so the league doesn’t have to, but we don’t want to be in the same situation a couple of years from now."
There could also be some talk about other potential NHL markets. There have been rumblings about the NHL’s interest in returning to Quebec City, which lost the Nordiques to Denver in 1995, but there are significant hurdles to be overcome before that could happen, not the least of which is a new rink.
It should come as no surprise that the NHL would warmly embrace the idea of a return to La Vielle Capitale; it’s in the league’s best interest to have at least the appearance of a number of cities interested in its product.
Talk of a second team for the Toronto area will also likely take place, but as one governor told Sun Media, he wants it to be in the form of an expansion franchise so all the owners can share in the rich price another team in the Golden Horseshoe could fetch, perhaps as much as $10 million a team.
•There will be presentations and discussion about head shots, with NHL VP and director of hockey operations Colin Campbell passing on information gleaned from discussion at the general managers’ level last month. Deputy commissioner Bill Daly will make a presentation on concussion research.
•There could also be some discussion about the schedule. In order to control travel costs, there is a move afoot to "package up the divisions," according to one governor, meaning an Eastern team traveling west would ideally play, say, all the teams in the Northwest Division on one trip.
"What happens too often is a team will play Calgary and Edmonton and not Vancouver," said the governor, "and you have to make a second trip out there. Teams are being asked to make more arena dates available. It’s just a matter of trying to make the schedule more practical."