First, the situation in Phoenix is still to be resolved. The city has ponied up more money to keep teh team in town short term, but it seems likely know a new buyer will have to be found unless some miracle can happen to finally get this deal done. It also looks like the St. Louis Blues will be sold before the start of a new NHL season. Dave Checketts is ready to move on, and there seems to be a lot of interest in buying the Blues.
The Montreal Canadiens have won a tax battle with the city of Montreal. They won a 5.8 million dollar rebate, and had their yearly taxes reduced from 10 million to 8.5 million. All in all good news for the team, potentially bad news for the city. Most of the tax issues were related to the Habs home, the Bell Centre.
Now some not so good news for the Edmonton Oilers. They are desperate to get out of the 37-year-old Rexall place when their lease expires in 2014. To do so they need 100 million dollars in loans from the Province of Alberta, or from the Canadian Federal Government, and neither side seem very interested in giving them that kind of money.
The Oilers have plans to build a 425 million dollar arena project, but I am not a big fan of any government using taxpayer dollars to fund private enterprise. I want the Oilers to stay in Edmonton, but they should find the funding for their project from private sources.
