Winnipeg Jets Links...

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The Winnipeg Jets have a television deal. So if you have the NHL Center Ice package on your Direct TV or Cable service you “should” be able to see all of the Winnipeg Jets games on TV.

NHL.COM ---- True North Sports & Entertainment, in conjunction with Bell Media, are pleased to announce today they have entered into a 10-year agreement awarding the regional television broadcast rights for the Winnipeg Jets and the radio broadcast rights for the hockey club to Sports Radio 1290.

This deal ensures that ALL 82 Winnipeg Jets home and away games will be available for fans on both national and regional television and radio through to the 2011-12 season.

As part of the agreement, TSN will broadcast more than 60 regional regular season and pre-season games each season to fans in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and parts of Northwestern Ontario on the newly launched “TSN Jets” – a part-time television service dedicated to Jets games and launching September 20th.

Dustin Byfuglien’s little run in with the law could prove to be very costly. If Byfuglien is charged and if he is found guilty Byfuglien could have a hard time getting across the border because the Canadians consider DWI to be a very serious offense.

Winnipeg Free Press --- "He's technically not inadmissible into Canada, because he hasn't been found guilty of anything. But they do have the right to refuse. Typically, though, Canadian officials at the Emerson border are very fair, as are those at the Winnipeg airport," Perillo told the Free Press.

Perillo said Byfuglien's life would become much more complicated if he was ultimately convicted. In Minnesota, he could face up to 90 days in jail, a $1,000 fine and a year-long driving suspension. He would then have to apply in writing to the Canadian government for a temporary resident permit to enter the country. If granted, the order would expire after one year.

Byfuglien would have to apply for five consecutive years before he could try to obtain a lifetime pass, said Perillo.

Winnipeg NHL team to play Les Habitants to open 2011- 2012 season

Image by Jordon via FlickrThe Winnipeg NHL team _________ ( the what-evers) are going to open with Les Habitants on Sunday, October 9th at 4 p.m. at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Go ________...

ST. PAUL, MINN. - Break out the tuxedos folks, the Montreal Canadiens will serve as the first regular-season opponent for Winnipeg’s new NHL franchise.

Although the full NHL schedule will be released on Thursday afternoon, True North confirmed Wednesday evening that they’ll host the fabled Habs on Sunday, Oct. 9 at 4 p.m. at the MTS Centre in a game that will serve as the season and home opener for Winnipeg.

“To be honest, I could care less about who we’re playing,” Winnipeg captain Andrew Ladd said in a text message. “It’s going to be more about the first game back in Winnipeg and how crazy the fans will be!”

Manitobans will get a double dose of scheduling pleasure on Thursday.

In the morning, the preseason schedule for Winnipeg’s NHL team will be unveiled.

Winnipeg general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff revealed on Wednesday that Winnipeg has simply picked up the preseason schedule the Atlanta Thrashers planned to play.

Winnipeg will play seven preseason tilts, three at home, three on the road and one neutral site game against the Ottawa Senators on Sept. 26 in Conception Bay South in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Having a game in the same province as their American Hockey League affiliate is a bonus.

“It was very fortuitous that the exhibition schedule for Atlanta already had a game already scheduled out there,” said Cheveldayoff. “For us, it’s great. It’s an exciting time for the fans of Newfoundland to really get to see a lot of players that could be there way, but certainly a lot of players who will be in Winnipeg as well.”

That game against the Senators will be part of the Kraft Hockeyville promotion

Related articles

• True North and MTS Allstream agree on 10-year naming rights deal for MTS Centre in Winnipeg (prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com)
• NHL To Vote On Winnipeg Relocation Of Atlanta Thrashers Tuesday (sbnation.com)
• Winnipeg GM Kevin Cheveldayoff prepares staff for first NHL draft (thehockeynews.com)
• NHL approves Atlanta sale to Winnipeg (cbc.ca)

Thrashers, Atlanta were never given a chance

Image via Wikipedia Here is an interesting perspective from Atlanta.

Jeff Schultz; AJC.COM --- This is how it ends: With the weasel of a commissioner not stepping foot in the city, with another season passing without a playoff game, with a lying ownership group maintaining it did all it could to save a franchise that in reality it spent most of seven years wrecking.

Atlanta has lost an NHL expansion team to a Canadian outpost for the second time. The Thrashers are going to Winnipeg just like the Flames went to Calgary in 1980. A noon press conference today is expected to make this long, slow death official.

This isn’t about the fans or the market or certainly Gary Bettman’s fictional “covenant” with fans, which I believe he left in the same sock drawer with his conscience. It’s about greed and abandonment, plain and simple. It’s about a disingenuous ownership group, which had long lost any semblance of credibility, serving up fans swill and gruel and then wondering why the turnstiles sleep at night.

They’ll tell you they care. They don’t. They’re walking away with a fat check. While you mourn the loss of a franchise, they’re waving goodbye with one middle finger.

The NHL is leaving a city that never really was given a chance. It’s going back to a city that it left 15 years ago and that has grown by about 60,000 people and a couple of doughnut shops since. They will be discussing this decision one day at business schools, right after the sections on Charles Ponzi and Enron.

Coyotes saga paints a poor picture of league

This is a follow up story to the blog post that I posted earlier today. More of the unfolding drama. I do have to agree with the author of this tory this does make the NHL look a little silly. Also, there seems to be something to the story that David Thomson and Mark Chipman of True North Sports and Entertainment Ltd. are leading a group to move to the Coyotes back to Winnipeg.

And while espn.com reported the city and Ice Edge had agreed on a new lease agreement that would keep the team in the desert through next year, at least, the agreement on covering operating losses still needs to be debated by Glendale city council. Still, Winnipeg seems to be back on the back burner, for now. The Reinsdorf deal, meanwhile, was always a joke; it required the creation of a special taxation zone that would convey to the gracious saviour of the team approximately US$65-million over the next three years to put towards the purchase price, and another US$100-million over seven years to cover operating losses.

Not only that, but it included control of the arena, the right to leave after five years, and a guarantee that Reinsdorf would get US$103-million back in any sale of the team. It was not a credible business arrangement; it was a charity.


And that is where this league was going. In its final attempt to keep a team in a non-traditional market -- or at least, in the display of something resembling an attempt --the NHL seems to have been reduced to proposing municipal blackmail.

Thus the best-case scenario for the Coyotes to stay in the desert is that the business receives publicly funded indemnification against losses. If only the auto industry had been smart enough to write that into their deals with the state of Michigan. Then again, it worked for much of Wall Street.

So what does this tell the next canary in the NHL's overexpanded, misaligned coal mine? What does this tell to the owners and city councils entangled with teams like Atlanta, Nashville, Columbus, Florida -- located outside Miami -- or the New York Islanders, the last of whom are currently fighting for a new building that may never come?

What it says is that if you are a Jerry Moyes, the league will sell you down the river once the money runs out, and if you are a Glendale, you will be held hostage. Oh, and if you want to move a team into the Toronto area you're out of luck, because that's being saved for expansion. Hell of a way to do business. Step right up and own a team, folks.

But we Canadians won't care about how it looks; if Winnipeg is ever finally made whole, hockey-wise, the elation will steamroll any worries about precedent, or that the building is too small, or what happens should the loonie dip back to 65 cents U.S. And as long as Mr. Thomson and his partners agree to absorb any financial losses in private, then all that's fine. [Read the whole story]

Coyotes sale in jeopardy

So you say that there is a chance. This makes the chances of hockey moving back to Winnipeg even better. I am holding out hope, as I recently told a friend of mine from Winnipeg. I can't wait till I can go to a Jets game on Boxing Day just like the old days.

The imminent sale of the Phoenix Coyotes to Jerry Reinsdorf is no longer imminent, meaning Winnipeg's chances of landing an NHL team just got a little bit better.

Several media outlets reported Thursday night that the NHL’s sale of the Coyotes to the Chicago businessman is dead and that the city of Glendale, Ariz., wants Ice Edge Holdings to assume control of the franchise in an effort to keep the team in the desert.

Scott Burnside of ESPN wrote that Reinsdorf’s deal with the Phoenix suburb is off the table and that Glendale’s city council will file documents on Friday morning accepting a new lease proposal from Ice Edge. Glendale voted against Ice Edge’s initial proposal last month.

As for the team possibly returning to Manitoba, the ESPN report indicated that Glendale needs to guarantee several conditions with the NHL before the league will agree to sell to Ice Edge.

It’s believed Ice Edge was waiting for those conditions to be met before signing the new lease agreement.

If those conditions aren’t met, Burnside wrote it’s possible the league would then look at selling the franchise to Canadian billionaire David Thomson, who co-owns True North, the company that owns MTS Centre. ESPN said a purchase agreement is ready if the Glendale-Ice Edge deal falls apart. [Winnipeg Sun]