Consider The Source
Darren Dreger started a mini flurry of speculation, again, with a tweet about the Coyotes relocation being imminent. I characterized his tweets as “premature speculation” last night. In one of the inevitable Puck Daddy click farming blog posts that always follows negative Coyotes “news”, substantiated or not, there’s this:
“Current focus remains on selling the Coyotes to ownership in Glendale,” Bill Daly told Yahoo!’s Nick Cotsonika. “We haven’t spent much time on anything else.”
It’s entirely possible, I suppose, that Dreger has his finger on the pulse of the NHL’s intentions better than Bill Daly. Yet, there are other recent clues that perhaps it’s Bill Daly that really has a grasp on the situation for the Coyotes.
More Accurate Information Is Available
Four tweets followed, from reliable source John Shannon (follow @JSportsnet) call out, politely of course, Dreger’s rumor:
- With a report of potential relocation of Phx to Quebec,hearing that there is a new group of Canadians Investors looking at the Coyotes.
- Cdn Group has been in contact with NHL and are considered lead group in purchase. Key names in group are Anthony Leblanc and George Gosbee.
- Gosbee is head of AltaCorp Capital and Vice Chair of AIMCo, a $70 Billion investment Fund. Word is they are finalizing a proposal with NHL.
- To all those asking, the goal of Gosbee and his Investors is to keep the Coyotes in Glendale. #norelocation
If you review the Twitter feed of Mr. Shannon, you will note he is quite accurate when it comes to news out of the NHL, particularly if it involves Bill Daly. There’s no reason to doubt that has changed.
Information Verified
Shortly after John made his statements on Twitter that debunked the inevitability of the Coyotes packing their bags, he was backed up by another guy that’s very familiar with all things Coyotes and NEVER makes a statement without verification. The guy is Craig Morgan, you should follow him on Twitter.
- Can confirm, per source, that George Gosbee is key player in bid to buy #Coyotes. Am also told this bid is to keep the #Coyotes in Glendale.
Ready for a relocated team?
Craig then followed up with a story early this morning, “New suitor emerges for Coyotes” with more details to flesh out the story. There’s no sense repeating it here, read what Craig has to say, he’s ethical and knows what the scoop is.
Craig is reporting that the Gosbee-LeBlanc bid will be presented to the NHL within a week and that the price is still $170M. Interesting they have a bid ready so quickly, since there is still no published Request For Proposals available in Glendale and Beacon was just “officially” hired two days ago. Quick work!
It’s also been reported in the hockey blogosphere that Greg Jamison is no longer a factor in a bid for the Coyotes. This is also false.
Things may or may not progress rapidly now. The bottleneck and weirdness in the City of Glendale is still present and a factor. That said, it seems that the competition of at least two legitimate groups, especially groups that now probably have some enmity (LeBlanc was a former Jamison investor/partner) should speed things up.
Stay tuned.