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 Monday, October 25
'Avenues seem to be exhausted'
 
Associated Press

  OTTAWA -- Further discussions on financially bailing out Canada's NHL teams are pointless because nobody can agree on a shared solution, according to a new report prepared for the federal government.

The public policy forum, a group commissioned to look at financial viability among the six NHL teams based in Canada, said Monday that not all the stakeholders it spoke to wanted to contribute funding.

Consultations included federal, provincial and municipal governments, as well as the teams, the NHL and the NHL Players' Association.

The responses it received from the different groups varied:

  • British Columbia, Toronto, Vancouver and the NHLPA said a solution was up to the other stakeholders.

  • Alberta, Edmonton, Calgary and the NHL said they were doing enough already to help the teams.

  • The federal government, Ontario, the city of Kanata, Ontario, and the regional municipality of Ottawa-Carleton offered to make a contribution as long as everyone else did.

  • Quebec said it didn't want to take part in a shared solution, but may act on its own.

    "The elements required for a shared solution consisting of contributions from all the major stakeholders that would ensure the future economic viability of all six existing Canadian teams cannot be forged from the current contributions," the report said.

    Industry Minister John Manley said avenues seemed to be exhausted.

    Manley had suggested earlier this month that a portion of sports lottery proceeds be redirected to the teams, but the provinces rejected the proposal.

    "There aren't other stakeholders that are willing to be involved," Manley said outside the House of Commons.

    Rod Bryden, majority owner of the Ottawa Senators, reiterated his earlier comments that the governments must step in or he will move his team.

    "If that does not happen, then this team, for absolute sure, will play in some U.S. city shortly," Bryden told CTV News.

    But he is still optimistic that the governments will come through.

    "I hope what this report will do is cause the three levels of government to recognize someone better get off the dime and make something happen," he said.

    Toronto Maple Leafs president Ken Dryden said he wasn't convinced the door was closed to eventually striking a deal on providing help to the NHL clubs.

    "I haven't seen the report," he said Monday night in Toronto during the Maple Leafs game against the Dallas Stars. "All I can say is these kinds of conversations still go on. Some will be repeated. Some have gone on with Ontario and some have carried on with Ottawa.

    "It sounds like these comments, and I haven't read it, are fairly definitive and that's not the way I understand it. I think it's something that will play itself out at some point."

    The public policy forum's first exercise was to reunite all the stakeholders in Canadian NHL hockey at a roundtable meeting in Toronto in June. The discussion was broad and vague, and no real commitments were made.

    The league has said that between 1996 and 1998, the six Canadian teams reported combined losses before taxes of more than $170 million.

    Part of the problem facing Bryden and other teams is that governments don't find tax breaks politically palatable. Opinion surveys have suggested that Canadians are not keen on the idea of financial support to the clubs.

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