THE CANADIAN PRESS
TORONTO — Winnipeg’s hopes to get back in the NHL jumped again, as the league issued an ultimatum to the city of Glendale, according to The Globe and Mail.
The league has told the city to find a buyer for the Phoenix Coyotes by Dec. 31 or the NHL will sell them to someone who is waiting to buy and move the team.
The threat is included in the agreement between the NHL and the suburban Phoenix city in which the city agreed to pay up to US$25 million of the Coyotes’ operating losses for the 2010-11 season. That agreement was completed Friday and a copy was obtained by The Globe and Mail.
There was no mention of the prospective buyer in the agreement. The only buyers the NHL has admitted speaking to in connection with the Coyotes, aside from Jerry Reinsdorf and the Ice Edge group who both want to keep the Coyotes in Arizona, are Canadian billionaire David Thomson and Mark Chipman, the CEO of True North Sports and Entertainment, who own and operate the MTS Centre in Winnipeg.
