Phoenix CXXXIV: 3 Sheets To The Wind

[mesamonster]

If you get caught up into the minutia of the actual decision to kill off the lease, then Glendale deserves some blame.

The more broad the context, the less blame Glendale gets.

At this point in the saga, while individual details can still interest me, mostlu I'm just trying to view it from the widest angle possible, so I put pretty much 0 blame with Glendale at this time.

So you are saying that IA complete non compliance is not a big deal? Seems to me that agreements are designed to offer a roadmap for both parties on how to conduct themselves with regard to the agreements covenants. In this case IA was fully culpable and delinquent in most areas and fully deserved to be on the losing end of this nullified agreement.

 

[TheLegend]

So you are saying that IA complete non compliance is not a big deal? Seems to me that agreements are designed to offer a roadmap for both parties on how to conduct themselves with regard to the agreements covenants. In this case IA was fully culpable and delinquent in most areas and fully deserved to be on the losing end of this nullified agreement.

If you’re so sure the non-compliance issue is so strong then why didn’t Glendale use it as cause for terminating the lease??

They didn’t.

Note I’m not excusing IA here.... they screwed up. But IMO it doesn’t excuse Glendale pulling the end around they did either.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

If you’re so sure the non-compliance issue is so strong then why didn’t Glendale use it as cause for terminating the lease??

They didn’t.

Note I’m not excusing IA here.... they screwed up. But IMO it doesn’t excuse Glendale pulling the end around they did either.

There's a difference between "screwing up" - i.e., making a mistake - and willfully neglecting responsibilities spelled out in a contractual agreement.

Also, there's a bit of context missing here that is important to remember - LeBlanc and IA were blustering about taking Glendale to the cleaners in court over the termination of the lease... right up until Glendale released the segement of the Compliance Review documentation that remains public. And that part of the settlement with the city was that the remainder of the Compliance Review didn't see the light of day.

That's not a mistake - that's a cover-up.

 

[TheLegend]

There's a difference between "screwing up" - i.e., making a mistake - and willfully neglecting responsibilities spelled out in a contractual agreement.

Also, there's a bit of context missing here that is important to remember - LeBlanc and IA were blustering about taking Glendale to the cleaners in court over the termination of the lease... right up until Glendale released the segement of the Compliance Review documentation that remains public. And that part of the settlement with the city was that the remainder of the Compliance Review didn't see the light of day.

That's not a mistake - that's a cover-up.

To some it’s a coverup. To me it’s incomplete information. Maybe it is just me but I prefer knowing all the sides before coming to a conclusion.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

To some it’s a coverup. To me it’s incomplete information. Maybe it is just me but I prefer knowing all the sides before coming to a conclusion.

That's fine, but in my experience you don't make deals like that unless you have something to hide. Particularly immediately following a full-court press in the media where you gleefully announce you'll take your opponent (Glendale) to the woodshed for a good hiding.

Anyway, that's why I will never be in the Coyotes fan camp that would be happy to see Glendale be razed by fire or wiped out in an earthquake or whatever because they made it a bit more likely that the team will relocate elsewhere.

 

[Tom ServoMST3K]

So you are saying that IA complete non compliance is not a big deal? Seems to me that agreements are designed to offer a roadmap for both parties on how to conduct themselves with regard to the agreements covenants. In this case IA was fully culpable and delinquent in most areas and fully deserved to be on the losing end of this nullified agreement.

Oh it's a big deal, but I can see the argument for placing blame on Glendale.

 

[TheLegend]

That's fine, but in my experience you don't make deals like that unless you have something to hide. Particularly immediately following a full-court press in the media where you gleefully announce you'll take your opponent (Glendale) to the woodshed for a good hiding.

Anyway, that's why I will never be in the Coyotes fan camp that would be happy to see Glendale be razed by fire or wiped out in an earthquake or whatever because they made it a bit more likely that the team will relocate elsewhere.

Neither will I. I’ve jumped on a couple of fans who had the attitude that they didn’t care, they just wanted their hockey fix.

I was also guilty of jumping on the IA bandwagon against Glendale at first but as things progressed and more information came out you couldn’t stay on. That’s probably why I’m taking the position I am now in regards to the compliance review. IIRC the beef centered around Glendale wanting access to some of the proprietary info IA held and what could be made public. And IA’s position wasn’t much different than any of the other teams in regards to wanting their books open to the public. It also wasn’t any secret that a couple of council members couldn’t keep their mouths shut.

So I have to give IA some benefit of doubt, even if it turned out they really were using funds where they shouldn’t.

 

[TheWhiskeyThief]

The original sin was Jerry Colangelo suckering the city to build the downtown arena the way they did when the NHL was sniffing around with expansion plans.

 

[TheLegend]

The original sin was Jerry Colangelo suckering the city to build the downtown arena the way they did when the NHL was sniffing around with expansion plans.

And you’d be wrong....

EDIT: Fox Sports Arizona has a video interview with Colangelo where he specifically states he called the league and asked then NHL President John Ziegler point blank if they were interested in placing a franchise in Phoenix and the response was “Not in your lifetime.”

 

[Glacial]

^^^ Streets of New York replaces Papa Johns whom the Coyotes and many other pro franchises dropped after the controversy surrounding its founder.

Also.... I’m getting a sense of deja vu by seeing things here that were posted a day earlier on the Yotes forum.

Well, that's a pizza upgrade (counterpoint: virtually everything is an upgrade over Papa Johns with a few local exceptions from within the Great American Pizza Desert that seems to stretch across the midsection of the country). I was a bit surprised to learn Phoenix metro only got a Portillos recently (hot dogs & Italian beef, not pizza though), likewise apparently doesn't have an established pizza landscape (if what I heard is correct) given how many and how long Chicago area transplants have lived in Arizona.

 

[TheWhiskeyThief]

And you’d be wrong....

And I’d be wrong why?

Jerry knew the NHL was sniffing around with the Roadrunners being a solid weekend draw.

Jerry was the one who induced the Jets to come down after the Roadrunners refused to leave the coliseum or sell to Jerry after the city forced Jerry to change lease terms...

Shall I continue?

 

[TheLegend]

And I’d be wrong why?

Jerry knew the NHL was sniffing around with the Roadrunners being a solid weekend draw.

Jerry was the one who induced the Jets to come down after the Roadrunners refused to leave the coliseum or sell to Jerry after the city forced Jerry to change lease terms...

Shall I continue?

Read my edit above... the video won’t transfer to the board and it tries to convert the link automatically.

The Jets ended up in Phoenix because the two men who purchased the franchise couldn’t get an arena deal in Minnesota and had no where else to go.

 

[TheWhiskeyThief]

And yet within 12 months of Ziegler getting canned, they added 2 franchises.

Added: Jerry also said that BOB couldn’t function as a football stadium, immediately had college football games there within a year.

Jerry was the one who designed the original lease so the city got zero $$ after his expenses. After the city forced him back to the table, Jerry started up any indoor sport he could find(arena football, indoor soccer, team tennis) to distribute physical plant costs among(and preserve Suns margins.)

Jerry tried to buy the Roadrunners after Mr. Abraham passed on moving in, Mr. Abraham asked if he’d like to sell him the Suns.

Jerry was the GM that brought in a bunch of druggies so he could get the PHX 40 owners to get out(at a profit, yet tremendously undervalued.)

Jerry is the guy who screwed his limited partners over by diluting them out via capital calls as he spent like a drunken sailor to get a World Series.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

Well, that's a pizza upgrade (counterpoint: virtually everything is an upgrade over Papa Johns with a few local exceptions from within the Great American Pizza Desert that seems to stretch across the midsection of the country). I was a bit surprised to learn Phoenix metro only got a Portillos recently (hot dogs & Italian beef, not pizza though), likewise apparently doesn't have an established pizza landscape (if what I heard is correct) given how many and how long Chicago area transplants have lived in Arizona.

Not to derail the thread (ROFLMAO) onto the subject of pizza, but there's a ton of Chicago-style pizza in Arizona right now - Gino's East, Giordano's, Pizzeria Uno are the three biggest franchises. It's just that it's largely concentrated in the East Valley where all the Midwest expatriates are.

There is some fantastic pizza to be had in Arizona, though. Pizzeria Bianco downtown is widely considered to produce some of the best pies in the entire nation and has been featured numerous times on national news for it. There's a great pizzeria - La Piazza Al Forno - in downtown Glendale that has some simply fabulous brick-oven delights. There are a half-dozen or more New York style pizza chains (including the aforementioned Streets of New York, as well as New York Pizza Department, a chain that allegedly imports New York tap water to give their dough a distinct East Coast flavor), and several really good hole-in-the-wall pizza joints (my favorite being Graziano's up in North Glendale - great pizza, and authentic New England clam chowder courtesy of Boston expatriates Keith and Judy).

The number of options is really surprising, in short. But - and this may be an appropriate metaphor for a discussion on Arizona hockey - if you have tunnel vision to one type of pizza, it can seem like there isn't an established landscape around...

 

[Glacial]

Not to derail the thread (ROFLMAO) onto the subject of pizza, but there's a ton of Chicago-style pizza in Arizona right now - Gino's East, Giordano's, Pizzeria Uno are the three biggest franchises. It's just that it's largely concentrated in the East Valley where all the Midwest expatriates are.

There is some fantastic pizza to be had in Arizona, though. Pizzeria Bianco downtown is widely considered to produce some of the best pies in the entire nation and has been featured numerous times on national news for it. There's a great pizzeria - La Piazza Al Forno - in downtown Glendale that has some simply fabulous brick-oven delights. There are a half-dozen or more New York style pizza chains (including the aforementioned Streets of New York, as well as New York Pizza Department, a chain that allegedly imports New York tap water to give their dough a distinct East Coast flavor), and several really good hole-in-the-wall pizza joints (my favorite being Graziano's up in North Glendale - great pizza, and authentic New England clam chowder courtesy of Boston expatriates Keith and Judy).

The number of options is really surprising, in short. But - and this may be an appropriate metaphor for a discussion on Arizona hockey - if you have tunnel vision to one type of pizza, it can seem like there isn't an established landscape around...

That's good to hear. I've heard some food-related complaints in sports game threads about Phoenix metro but not nearly the magnitude of some places (St. Louis). By drawing people from all over the country, metros like Phoenix, Vegas should have good food landscapes compared to taste-blighted cities east of there. The main complaint I heard was the lack of a Portillos and the lack of whatever specific pizza chain the Chicago transplants wanted.

 

[Whileee]

If you’re so sure the non-compliance issue is so strong then why didn’t Glendale use it as cause for terminating the lease??

They didn’t.

Note I’m not excusing IA here.... they screwed up. But IMO it doesn’t excuse Glendale pulling the end around they did either.

Previous council committed the city to a terrible lease deal with unreliable owners.

Owners repeatedly thumb their noses at their obligations for reporting for accountability for taxpayer funded deal.

Owners also violate law so new mayor and council finally take action by canceling the lease.

Some fans are outraged at the "bad guys" (Glendale, of course).

 

[TheLegend]

And yet within 12 months of Ziegler getting canned, they added 2 franchises.

Which means what???? The owners chose to add teams.

They also created the commissioner position and hired Gary Bettman to fill it out of the NBA (who also knew Jerry Colangelo).

So..... Bettman had a team with no home and someone he knew who’d asked years earlier about getting one placed in Phoenix.

 

[TheLegend]

Previous council committed the city to a terrible lease deal with unreliable owners.

Owners repeatedly thumb their noses at their obligations for reporting for accountability for taxpayer funded deal.

Owners also violate law so new mayor and council finally take action by canceling the lease.

Some fans are outraged at the "bad guys" (Glendale, of course).

Wow.... don’t let any context get in the way there.

 

[Whileee]

Wow.... don’t let any context get in the way there.

Right, I forgot about the prior massive subsidies provided to the Yotes by Glendale with taxpayers' money.

 

[TheWhiskeyThief]

Which means what???? The owners chose to add teams.

They also created the commissioner position and hired Gary Bettman to fill it out of the NBA (who also knew Jerry Colangelo).

So..... Bettman had a team with no home and someone he knew who’d asked years earlier about getting one placed in Phoenix.

Thank you for illustrating my initial point: Jerry designed the arena to not be adequate for hockey, that’s why the Coyotes are where they are today.

 

[TheLegend]

Thank you for illustrating my initial point: Jerry designed the arena to not be adequate for hockey, that’s why the Coyotes are where they are today.

You initial point seems to be you think Jerry Colangelo should have built AWA as a multi-purpose arena for both NHL hockey and basketball (and spending additional millions in the process) even though he was told there would be no NHL team forthcoming.

BTW.... Baseball stadiums do not make for great football stadiums.... or vice versa... period. Not at the pro level. That’s what Colangelo felt and there’s plenty of history available to support that.

 

[TheLegend]

Right, I forgot about the prior massive subsidies provided to the Yotes by Glendale with taxpayers' money.

Keep lobbing.... something’s bound to stick eventually.

 

[TheWhiskeyThief]

You initial point seems to be you think Jerry Colangelo should have built AWA as a multi-purpose arena for both NHL hockey and basketball (and spending additional millions in the process) even though he was told there would be no NHL team forthcoming.

BTW.... Baseball stadiums do not make for great football stadiums.... or vice versa... period. Not at the pro level. That’s what Colangelo felt and there’s plenty of history available to support that.

It wasn’t the late sixties when stadium design was happening: with CAD it would’ve been easy enough to design dual purpose stadia(like Staples Center) but Jerry only cares about Jerry.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

Wow, you'd think with some of the taxpayer watchdogs in here that no sports franchise was ever successful in a public-owned stadium, and if they were it was because the cities involved were being sucked dry by evil greedy money mongers.... ... don't break an ankle falling off those high horses, guys.

 

[Fenway]

This works

Jerry Colangelo recounts the birth of the Arizona Coyotes