A CANADIAN NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE OF OUR OWN

THE TIME IS NOW
CANADA’S OWN NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
RECENT HEADLINES
ESPN.com quotes a series of e-mail excerpts between Leipold and Rodier that seem to indicate Bettman was against Balsillie's owning the Predators, long before the co-chief executive officer of Research in Motion acquired the lease for the Copps Coliseum in Hamilton and held a drive for season tickets.
Those two pre-emptive actions by Balsillie are cited often by NHL sources as the reasons for the league cooling on him as a potential owner, even though its executive council approved him last fall when he wanted to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins.
According to ESPN.com, in early May, nearly three weeks before Leipold announced he had an agreement in principle to sell the team to Balsillie, both Rodier and Leipold made reference in e-mail correspondence to Bettman's "cease and desist" order. In an e-mail message dated May 4, Leipold writes, "I would say the cease and desist order is still in play."
NHL spokesman Gary Meagher said Friday "the commissioner never ordered a cease-and-desist order to Mr. Leipold."
In e-mail dated May 3, Leipold wrote that he "needed time to smooth things over" with Bettman, according to ESPN.com. Rodier subsequently asks Leipold, "Will you be talking to Gary to calm him down some more?"
Leipold eventually went ahead and announced an agreement in principle on May 23 to sell the team to Balsillie for $238-million (all currency U.S.).
Shortly thereafter, Balsillie obtained the lease for the Copps Coliseum and took season-ticket and suite deposits in Hamilton, actions aimed at satisfying requirements in the NHL's constitution pertaining to relocation.
But it is another area of the constitution that may have made Bettman cool to the idea of a franchise in Hamilton.
Section 4.3 seems to indicate that any team can veto the move of another into its territory, meaning that the Toronto Maple Leafs would be able to block a franchise move into Hamilton with a single vote against.
"No franchise shall be granted for a home territory within the home territory of a member without the written consent of such member," the constitution states.
However, the NHL insists that that is not the case, citing bylaw 36.4, subsection C, which states that a simple majority vote would allow any team to move. That bylaw, however, applies only when the league is advised by counsel that its constitution may be unlawful regarding franchise relocation.
Several sources have suggested the NHL does not want a test case that would
THE SOLUTION
For the few or the many who may be interested and would like to consider what course of action can be adopted nation wide as being sound, feasible and especially needed to assure that Canada will soon retrieve its former hockey glories and international status, there are two main proposals and possibilities to consider. Adopting these changes may be the starting point of a new era, a new format of hockey excellence, for our players, our fans, the nation and our financial establishment.
First, the formation of a Canadian National Hockey League --secondly the reestablishment of the Stanley Cup as our symbol of our National Hockey Champions.
Is such an idea possible, practical, conceivably or unsound and contentious? It depends on how one looks at it and the needs that exist. Other than banking and politics Canada no longer has a defining national industry. It has a few companies working successfully in the industries of other countries and in the world of international trade and industry, but not one singular Canadian industry to call our own and profit from. So the national need exists for a significant hockey program which will once again restore our international status in the most Canadian of all worldwide athletic enterprises.
The needed cities are there, the hockey talent is there, the money for franchises is there. All player contracts will provide for payment in Canadian Dollars. There are enough fans paying enough money presently for NHL games in Canada, to support successfully an entirely Canadian enterprise as our own professional hockey league. Our Canadian Junior hockey leagues turn out a couple hundred hockey players a year. Europe does the same. If European countries can support their own hockey leagues, Canada should be able to do so also. Presently there are National hockey leagues in the Czech Republic, Germany, Switzerland, Belarus, Slovakia, Finland, Austria, Japan, Sweden, Latvia, the Ukraine, Russia, Italy and Norway. There are two hundred and eighty European hockey players, 28 percent of the leagues' total employed presently by NHL teams. Approximately six hundred and fifty Canadian born hockey players earn their living playing in the NHL. These players were born and raised in Canada and played their minor and junior hockey for cities and towns across the country. Canadians and expatriated Canadians make up the great majority of the managers, coaches, and supervisors of the hockey and business affairs of the National Hockey League league and its franchised member teams.
IT IS TIME TO BRING LORD STANLEY HOME
There are twenty-four American cities with NHL franchise teams ; Canada has six franchise teams. These odds make it very difficult for Canadians across the country to see the day when Canada will once again celebrate a Stanley Cup championship. Lord Stanley's trophy of hockey excellence and superiority in Canada, donated in 1893, is now more at home south of the border. The National Hockey League began in 1917 as a Canadian enterprise with headquarters in Montreal, Quebec and remained that way until the election of John A. Ziegler, Jr. of Grosse Pointe, Michigan (Detroit) as the League’s President in 1977 who the made the NHL a American Corporation and centered its headquarters in New York City.