BY MARK SPECTOR
sportsnet.ca
RALEIGH N.C. — Stand down, Winnipeg.
The money from the $100 million municipal bond may be late in Glendale, but Gary Bettman says it’s on the way. And as anyone who has watched the NHL’s handling of the disastrous Phoenix Coyotes franchise, the National Hockey League commissioner is long on patience.
"I know it would satisfy anyone’s sense of finality to announce a drop-dead date," he said of negotiations by Chicago businessman Matthew Hulsizer to close the deal on the league-run Coyotes. "As long as the process is holding together with a time frame that we can deal with, with the schedule sand the like, we’re going to hang in there."
Bettman faced questions surrounding ownership issues in Atlanta, Phoenix, Dallas and St. Louis during his All-Star Game press availability.
The Coyotes situation is the league’s burning peat however a fire that they’ve been hosing down in the desert for more than two years.
"There was no deadline of Dec. 31," he said of reports that the Hulsizer deal was in trouble. "On Dec. 31 we had the option of pursuing alternatives. We’re not doing that yet, as it appears everything is on track and any reports to the contrary are absolutely baseless and without foundation.
"We’re hoping in the next couple of weeks or so, everything will be resolved and the franchise will close."
And if there are any further hiccups?
"If it becomes clear that the train is off the rails, or the train isn’t getting to the station any time soon, then we’ll have to re-evaluate our position," he said. "We’re not going to, by a matter of a day or two just simply make an artificial date."
"We’ll hang in there as long as it makes sense and as long as we can. But time is getting short. This is not something that is of infinite duration."
So fans in Winnipeg, whose hopes are raised every time the deal goes soft in Phoenix, will have to sit back and wait some more.
"I have tried to be as careful as I can be not to raise expectations in Winnipeg," he said. "If we have to move a club, it would be good to go back to a place we were once in, that has a different situation (now)."
