As a side issue, I’ve always found this a bit of a head-scratcher.

It was only after the playoff bid failed and the sale process was publicly announced that David Poile was directed to slash the payroll.

It makes sense, I guess, to start with a fresh slate if a new GM is already in – but I would think that a team with it’s best assets in it’s players under contract would be a more valuable asset than a lower-payroll, but crappier one.

It just seems like it’s a case of “we want to sell the team, so let’s get rid of everything good and sell a cheap pile of garbage!” instead of “we want to sell the team, so let’s make sure we have a stable organization with a good fan relationship still intact.”

Dirk,

You are correct that it was after the public sale process that Poile was forced to slash payroll. But I’m speaking to a deeper operating philosophy.

Leipold finally raised the payroll to make a deep run in the playoffs at that time in order to raise the value of the team as he wanted out. Prior to that, the team consistently ran one of the lowest payrolls in the league.

Further, he did not invest time and effort to grow the sport in the business community and at the grass roots level. He was not a builder and he went into a market where hockey had shallow roots and did not do the things necessary to help it take hold. And he angered a lot of the business community along the way.

He had a one year head start on the NFL and wasted it.

Investing in players/payroll is one thing. Investing in growing the sport in a new market is something he did not do (and is something that the new owner, David Freeman is – I see it first hand as my son plays hockey here and I coach).

I know there are some who think he’s good because he brought the sport here, but my observation has been that he was the wrong kind of owner for the market.

I was trying to ask you whether the only documentation that is admissible as evidence are sworn statements. That, of course, is not the case. Affidavits contain all manner of supporting documentation. For example, JB’s affidavit contains numerous unsworn emails, in which you evidently place a great deal of weight. Leipold’s document is in the same category of document. It is unsworn, but it is evidence.

Those are different types of evidence. The emails that I’m referring to are documents produced contemporaneously with the events in question and (presumably) are being relied upon as evidence of the understanding on Balsillie’s side of the deal at the time they were written. They wouldn’t be relied upon for the truth of their content but only to show what Balsillie’s people were thinking at the time.

They’re actually more compelling evidence than an affidavit prepared three years later saying “Look, on date X, my understanding was Y” because unless you think that they were prepared as part of a scheme to paper a file in the event that this issue arose three years later, Balsillie’s explanation as to his understanding does seem to be supported by the documentation that was produced.

By contrast, Leipold’s statement is just summary of his complaints about Balsillie. In order for the two to be comparable, Daly would have to have attached something like the emails to the City of Nashville. While you (or a judge) might think that Leipold is admitting things that make him look bad, it’s likely that everyone who heard that statement was already well aware of those facts.

As to what weight one places on it, different people will disagree…To say that it is inadmissible is to say that every email or other unsworn document that gets attached to an affidavit is equally inadmissible, which is not the state of the law.

Well no, that’s simply not true. As I explained above, these are extremely different unsworn documents and they’re being used for different purposes. Unless Leipold is willing to swear to the facts alleged in that statement (and he may well be – I don’t know and I’m not suggesting it’s untrue) it’s piss poor evidence and completely different from the emails, in my opinion. The emails lend support to the sworn assertion as to a certain state of underestanding on Balsillie’s part. Given that Daly doesn’t swear to the facts of the Leipold statement (and wouldn’t be in a position to do so in any event), the statement seems to me to be included in the hopes that the NHL can rely on it for the truth of it’s contents.

I certainly wouldn’t go to court with an affidavit set up like that. I would be surprised if the NHL didn’t get knocked around a bit by the judge if they ultimately try to rely on that.

I was interested that the OSC stuff didn’t come up. I guess the NHL either doesn’t want to get into a debate about whether an OSC problem makes someone unfit to be an owner or Balsillie made adequate disclosure in 2006.

Pretty much, yeah. One thing you can’t do, apparently, is use the value that’s being carried on the books. It appears that Moyes has been amortizing the franchise value, under what provision I still have no idea.

You can’t use a discounted cash flow model, because all the indications are that that would give the franchise a negative value, which clearly isn’t the case.

My guess is that they’re going to have to fall back on the expansion fees that have been charged in the past. That forms a baseline for what people think an NHL team is worth. Possibly they’ll look at sale prices of teams, and the predators in particular. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to make a guess, I’d say that the value will be somewhere in the $75-$85 million range.