True North Sports and Entertainment Buys Atlanta Thrashers, Headed To Winnipeg

Added on May 31, 2011 by J Merrill in

NHL

The NHL finally announced what we all knew for weeks now, the Atlanta Thrashers are moving to Winnipeg after being sold to True North Sports and Entertainment. The NHL chose to make the announcement 48 hours before the kick off of the 2010-11 Stanley Cup Finals and most people thought they would wait until the season was over.

Although the deal won’t be done until the deal is approved, Chairman of True North Mark Chipman made the announcement with prospective new owner David Thomson, Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and True North President and CEO Jim Ludlow. Chipman declared,”Today, on behalf of my family, our partner David Thomson and our entire organization, I am excited beyond words to announce our purchase of the Atlanta Thrashers. In a sense, I guess you can say True North, our city and our province has received the call we’ve long since been waiting for.”

The NHL Board of Governors will meet on June 21 in New York, and this will obviously be up for vote. The transfer of ownership will need a 75% vote in order to be approved, and the relocation vote will need a majority vote. As of right now, no one is expecting any resistance to either vote. If approved, the Thrashers move from Atlanta to Winnipeg is the League’s first franchise relocation since 1997, when the Hartford franchise moved to Carolina.

The CEO of True North, Ludlow, mentioned that they had a goal to sell 13,000 season tickets prior to the Board of Governors meeting, and Commissioner Bettman said would be an excellent way to convince the Board to vote in favor of the move. Bettman said he wasn’t expecting any resistance, “It is clear that times have changed for Winnipeg as an NHL market and this is a wonderful time to add a club to Canada. Hockey in Canada has never been stronger. The NHL has a different economic system that allows the so-called ‘smaller markets’ to compete. The NHL is coming off another season of record revenues in both Canada and the United States, and our prospects remain extraordinarily bright.”

Although mum is the word on if they will be renamed the Jets, the team that left Winnipeg, they did announce the home ice for the team. MTS Centre will be the home of the new team, and the building is also the current home of the AHL’s Manitoba Moose. The building has been used for NHL pre season games, and seats roughly 15,000. Bettman said “This venue, the MTS Centre, will be a fine, fine home for an NHL club. And there is the strength of the prospective ownership group. We now also, and perhaps this is the most poignant point, get to be back in a place we wish we hadn’t left in 1996.” The Jets relocated to Arizona prior to the 1996-97 season and became the Phoenix Coyotes.

According to Bettman, the scramble has been on to find a buyer in Atlanta, but the NHL could not come up with one. Bettman concluded “As we have said repeatedly, we don’t like to move franchises. But sometimes, even if it’s been 14 years since the last time we moved a franchise, we simply have no choice, as was the case back in ’96 when the Jets left Winnipeg. No one, at that time, wanted to own the Jets any longer in Winnipeg. We’re not happy about leaving Atlanta. This was never about whether Winnipeg is better than Atlanta. The decision to come to Winnipeg was only made after the Atlanta ownership made the decision they were going to sell even if it meant the team was going to leave Atlanta.”