Recently it has been rumoured that international architects have been sniffing around the MTS Centre, looking at various ways to increase seating capacity and/or the number of box seating. I have no idea if this is true.But the significant question is this: Does the MTSC really need to be reworked for the NHL's return?Evidence from April 4th makes anyone Offside who continue to believe the MTS Centre threatens Winnipeg's return to the NHL.Another possibility to consider: would any potential changes to the MTSC make even more money for the team/rink owner?Those two questions have never been made more clear then since April 4, 2009 with Gary Bettman’s email to Bill Daly and David Zimmerman, two of the NHL Commissioner’s top people. Courtesy of the Globe and Mail, see it for yourself on page 5 of 5: http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/v5/content/pdf/bettman.pdf more »

Now a second group led by Bassano, Alberta’s Daryl Jones is supposedly making a firm offer to the bankruptcy court for the Coyotes.Several media outlets have asked why anyone would be involved in Phoenix’s NHL money-shredder.These journalists are Offside if they haven’t looked at this story as an investment story first, sports story second.These businessmen see the Phoenix Coyotes as a huge potential opportunity, the same way that Boots Del Biaggio viewed the Nashville Predators.In short, it's all about "Portability"!All investors know that in the end, the NHL would rather relocate a team than lose them outright to bankruptcy and dispersal drafts. Such an occurrence would heavily de-value the remaining franchises. Teams borrow money against team values. So as they go up, they can borrow more money against it up to a certain percentage. So when values plummet, this in turn causes their lenders to call in their loans on an accelerated basis, making life even tougher for the remaining teams. Such is called the "domino effect" of sports team valuation. The collective weight of the team’s debt load can be become overwhelming should team values be adjusted downwards. Lenders get anxious especially in a downturned economy to begin with.So then every team has portability value regardless of how bad they are in their present state and locale. more »