Fingers crossed
Well the Western Hockey League’s grand pronouncement was finally issued today and it’s….well…just read it.
The Western Hockey League (WHL) and the Portland Winter Hawks announced today that the WHL audit of the Portland franchise has been completed and an agreement has been reached on all matters pertaining to the operation of the franchise.
That agreement and a couple of bucks…
What the agreement doesn’t say is the league is at its wits end with the current ownership group and has all but washed their hands of it. There will be no more help. There will be no more visits to highlight the sub-standard building or its onerous lease. There will be nothing. In exchange for nothing, Goldsmith has promised to be a better owner and turn hockey operations back over to Hodge. All that does is gives Goldsmith one more scapegoat when things go further south in six months.
The “b” word is starting to get whispered both in the message boards and in my inbox. Bankruptcy would be a terrible fate for the franchise and one I think the league would like to avoid. But one could easily see Goldsmith and company suing if their franchise were yanked, which it should be, and that might turn out worse than just filing Chapter 11. No sense, I guess, in giving these guys any hope.
Vendors ought to keep Goldsmith on a tight leash this season. Were I providing a service, I’d certainly demand cash up front.
Sidebar: While discussing the team’s financial straights last week, I gave the impression that last season’s bus troubles in Red Deer were somehow connected to an unpaid bill. That’s pure blog speculation, and multiple people, all of whom I trust, have told me there’s nothing to that. It was simply a matter of extreme cold affecting a diesel engine. There was no “get out of town” money paid to anyone. So there you have it.
I still say there’s no better time or place to make a point than Red Deer in January, but that’s just me. End Sidebar.
So we play out the string. Maybe Hodge gets his money, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe there’s a white knight group who’s still ready to go, maybe there isn’t. Who knows.
I washed my hands of this whole mess a few months back, yet I’m still writing about them. Will I actually attend games this year? You know what? I just might. I just can’t stand the thought of giving these guys one red cent for anything.
