I think I have figured out Melnyk's angle , and it isn't something that I am not unfamiliar with as I went through a similar situation in a property transaction.
Melnyk wins the bid for Lebreton, and has the paper for the land. He was basically trying to flip the paper to Ruddy, who would, in lieu of profits , build him the arena, or the lion's share of it. He could build it a lot cheaper at Ruddy's costs instead of making profit on the arena. That 600M number , realistically, has about 400M in actual costs. I had this happen, a right of first refusal of sorts. It was annoying but had to be dealt with. And I'm sure Ruddy did.
Now, Melnyk still has the paper and will probably approach the rest of the construction community. The Malhotras and Friends would be my guess as his next angle. He is going to scurry to try and locate a business partner. People in business have short memories, but this will be a difficult venture moving forward.
Terrible news, but like JD1, I just didn't see the validity of this deal from the Sens standpoint. Too much money that he doesn't have, too much risk and the revenues just don't support the viability of a new arena downtown.