I very seldom formally interview people in the media, especially for this site, but in this case I'll make an exception. For anyone who has been following the Phoenix Coyotes saga closely, news anchor and reporter with the NBC affiliate 12 News Brahm Resnik has been one of the best sources, on Twitter from the courtroom and online.

One of the key things that separates him from all of the other local media is that (a) he's a huge hockey fan and (b) he grew up in Montreal and graduated from McGill University before moving to the U.S. for graduate school and his journalism career. He also spent time living in Chicago and has followed White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf's dealings to an extent.

So, as someone who has lived and worked in the Phoenix area for about 10 years and covered bankruptcy proceedings many times over, he has a good handle on both sides of what's happening here.

The first thing I'll ask you is how long do you think there's been a problem with the Coyotes and how long have you been paying attention to this as as real business issue?

Resnik: When I moved here in 2000, almost from the very first day, we were paying attention to it. That's when you had Richard Burke who wanted to sell and Steve Ellman who apparently wanted to buy, and that for me was Day 1 on the Coyotes, the whole Ellman saga when they used Glendale to get a pretty nice deal on the arena.

I think the original sin here was Steve Ellman. I don't know how the NHL found him as an owner; his struggles to get financing were enormous, enormous, and even today if you talk to investment bankers, they still wonder how he did it and all kinds of questions about that. So this has been a struggle from Day 1 with this team. Pre-Jerry Moyes. This goes back almost 10 years, and I've been following it that long, and not just the team but the associated development (Westgate City Center) around the arena.

The arena is connected to Westgate, which is a struggling entertainment/retail complex next door. Westgate was the only reason that Steve Ellman wanted this team. He was using the arena to get the land there, as a way to pay for Westgate, essentially.

What a lot of people forget is that Steve Ellman put this team up for sale almost as soon as he moved into the arena.

Can you talk just a little bit more about Westgate — what is it exactly?

Resnik: All the land out there is former farmland, and it's really remarkable what they've build out there, a world-class football stadium, the arena, Westgate, shopping, retail. Westgate is an outdoor complex, mainly restaurants and bars, entertainment, because you always want entertainment near sports venues. There's a big movie theatre there, modest retail. They thought it was going to be a big retail centre but the problem is, when there are no games or concerts going on, there's nobody there. There's just nobody there. When there are some games going on, it's packed, and you really can't survive that way as a business. Several have failed. It's struggling, it's really struggling.

They also built a pretty nice hotel right next to there... Glendale again subsidized that. Out of desert farmland, you have what is a pretty spectacular location. It's spectacular to the eye, but if you looked at the books, you wouldn't be that impressed.

Is it a matter of Glendale just not being that bit of a city (about 250,000 residents)?

Resnik: The problem with Glendale is there's no there there. I think that's what someone once said about Oakland, California. Glendale was largely a modest, middle income to lower income bedroom community... they had this vision of building this sports complex, and pursued it very aggressively, but the problem is, again, it's like this island, this huge island in the middle of Glendale.

There are no office workers... there's nobody within miles, there's really no big concentration of workers within miles of that place which is why it's so tough to support when there aren't any games going on.

He obviously sold the team to Moyes, but is Ellman still involved at all?

Resnik: He has a seat at the table. He's very reclusive. I think I've spoken to him once in 10 years, he's very reclusive, but he has a seat at the table because he still owns Westgate and any solution, any concessions, any potential owner like a Reinsdorf is going to get, you have to go through Steve Ellman because he's got to be a part of that. Because of the financial stake he has in Westgate and the way it's tied into the Coyotes.

Here's one little irony: I still believe Jerry Moyes didn't really know what he was getting into with this. To the point that, it is the Coyotes that still pay the $1-million penalty for Westgate falling short of its sales tax revenue targets. The Coyotes are stuck with that.

And do they fall short?

Resnik: Every year.

What's the reception from the fans been like from your perspective?

Resnik: [Phoenix] is a very different place. It's a different kind of fan. Don't forget, pro sports is only about 40 years old in Phoenix, the Suns were the first team in '67 or so, the Cardinals are only 20 years old here, and if the NFL wasn't a type of socialist state where everybody shares revenues and a huge pot of TV money, it's very likely the Cardinals wouldn't have survived here given how inept their management was. But they managed to survive long enough to get the big free stadium and all kinds of goodies and they're raking in the dough now. But boy if they didn't have that NFL support, it's really hard to see how they could survive the first 20 years out here.

The Diamondbacks are only about 10 years old, and their CEO made a really good point when he said, "you know, it's a tough market because you don't have the father and the son, the families that grow up together watching teams, none of this has been passed on. The Coyotes are a first generation team that in effect has done nothing to sell themselves to the fan here. They've done everything wrong. It's a very different kind of market, there is no depth of hockey experience or knowledge, it's a baby market. People are taking baby steps into hockey.

However, we're also a front-runner market, and if they did well, I think they could fill the place up. If they had a charismatic player and a winner, people here love winners, and I think they would get on the bandwagon.

Watching this unfold in court, what's your opinion of Jim Balsillie and his quest to get a team?

Resnik: My opinion of Balsillie and all these guys, and this is shaped by my background [covering cases like this], these are all hard, tough businessmen who want what they want and they will do anything they can to get it. Period. Will they make mistakes, yes everyone's made mistakes here. But they will do what they think they need to to protect their interests and get what they want. ...

That's Jerry Reinsdorf and that's the way he's always dealt with anybody. When he threatened to take the Sox to Tampa Bay 20 years ago — he knows how to get what he wants. People ask me, is he going to walk away — why is he going to walk away? He's on the verge of getting a major professional sports team free. Why walk away from that? I think ultimately he wants it for his son, to get him into the game of sports ownership, but why's he going to walk away? He's put nothing down here.

Balsillie, same deal. He wants a hockey team in the most desperate kind of way. Did he make strategic mistakes? Yeah, probably.

Do you have any thoughts on how you think this is going to get resolved? It sounds like you think Reinsdorf is going to prevail here.

Resnik: All along, from my end, because of my business background, I've just been waiting to see what the creditors, what SOF was going to do, because they have an enormous amount of clout here. And last week you had SOF saying, in essence, giving Balsillie the thumbs up... and then suddenly, this week, we have a deal with Jerry Reinsdorf. So suddenly it's a 180 degree turn. And they count for a lot.

Will they vote for Reinsdorf, you know stick with him when it comes down to an auction, if there is one — I don't even know if we're going to get to an auction.

What would prevent that?

Resnik: My belief is the NHL will keep running the team. I've talked to a bankruptcy judge here about this... it's conceivable the NHL could appeal this. For example, if Balsillie does stay in the auction, the NHL  may go ahead with an appeal right away. I'm not sure if an appeal will stop the auction but I don't think it will. I think the court will let it go ahead and deal with whatever issues afterward.

But I think at a minimum the NHL will end up funding this team for a year, if there is any kind of uncertainty involving appeals. Although I can also draw you a scenario in which the NHL appeals but Balsillie can still take the team. That scenario is out there.

What do you think the percentage chance that Balsillie could win the team in an auction? Do we know?

Resnik: I'm a bit wary of offering percentages with what's happened in the past week. A week ago, you could have said 50 per cent, today, would I say 25 per cent — I think so, but we don't know what's going to unfold in the next 20 days. The unsecured creditors still get nothing from Jerry Reinsdorf. It's not clear whether Reinsdorf has the financing, how he's getting the financing to pay SOF, because Reinsdorf is not putting a dime into this... Is it possible the NHL is helping pay SOF? What do you think?

It's possible.

Resnik: I think that's entirely possible. So, percentages? All I would say is today his chances of taking the team aren't as good as they were seven days ago.

The court will take into account the debtor — what the Coyotes say has a big impact on what the court does — what the NHL says, they have an impact, what SOF says, has an impact, and what the unsecured creditors say has an impact. And you can see them all going in different directions.

(We also talked here about Ice Edge's potential impact and some of the other uncertainties in the case. "Until you see the money, you just don't know," Resnik said.)

How does Glendale come out of this? What sort of concessions will they give up to Reinsdorf?

Resnik: Boy, Glendale is in such a pickle with this team. They need a team there. They're on the hook for more than half a billion dollars in bonds, that whole area, they need a team there, they need to keep generating tax revenue to support the bonds. It's a house of cards. You build a house of cards and you keep it up with tax revenues, so they must have a team there. They have to find a way to give — we saw what Reinsdorf wants, will he get that, I don't know — they have to find a way to give Reinsdorf or anybody tens of millions of dollars in cash over several years to ensure that this team can survive. The credit markets aren't going to give anybody any money, you're talking private money now... so Glendale must come up with money.

Phoenix is all about real estate and development, and Reinsdorf has a significant hand in some of the development going on around that arena. It's connected to the (White Sox') spring training ballpark up there which isn't too far away from the arena. Reinsdorf because of his ownership up there, they can offer him more than just help for the Coyotes, they can offer him more in non-cash dollars, special taxing districts for example, that was in the appendix, that include something called Main Street, which is the project that's right next door to his spring training ballpark. It's right next door to a big piece of land he has an option on. So they can offer him more than they can the (Ice Edge) group.

The bind Glendale is in — I can see the mayor pulling back from this whole big commitment to sports, she was never big on it in the first place years ago, she's been there 15 years. And then there was the Super Bowl and national media and wow everybody's here it's exciting, and today we're back to the reality, this is a huge, huge bet, and it's not paying off. She's been pulling back from it and laying down the markers, saying we're not going to give, this arena lease is going to stay the way it is, we're going to see the same amount of money from this lease under a new owner. Don't touch the lease. So the city manager has to find all kind of ways to funnel money to whoever the new owner's going to be, and that's still up in the air. And that's really going to be hard.

But, again, Reinsdorf has special advantages there. He also has special advantages given who his point man is, a guy named John Kaites, he's a unique guy to Glendale and [Kaites] considers himself a taxing district expert. He has been coaching Glendale for years on how to do a lot of this stuff. That is what gives Reinsdorf the advantage.

I know that's incredibly long, and I don't expect many to read the entire interview, but I do want to put out as much information as possible on this and allow others to sift through everything. (This was really only about 70 per cent of our conversation.)

My sincere thanks to Brahm for his insight and perhaps I'll touch base with him again as this case develops.