I was going to bitch about the reported falling through of Jim "Bals" Balsillie's bid to purchase the Nashville Predators and probably move them to Hamilton, but then I found that TSN's Bob McKenzie had done it very nicely himself: read it here.
The thing that hurts the most is that it looks just like the NHL simply won't let Canada have another team. I respect the way Bals went through the process because he didn't pretend to want to do anything but move the team. Instead, he spent the time securing a deal on an arena in Hamilton and taking deposits on season tickets in Hamilton -- in essence, proving that Hamilton can beyond any doubt support a team. Now, it's one thing that the deal fell through because the league wants to keep the Predators in Nashville, which is at least understandable. However, the owner of the Preds is now reportedly leaning towards a $190M offer -- nearly $50M less than Bals' offer -- from someone who clearly wants to move the team to Kansas City.
What hurts even more is that the league is working so hard to make hockey work in the US, which is clearly a losing battle at this point, when the NBA didn't give two shits about keeping the Grizzlies in Vancouver. It's garbage, plain and simple.
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