The NHL approved the sale of the fan-challenged Nashville Predators this week to a consortium that has the look and feel of the one that took over the Expos and within a decade ran the team into oblivion. The NHL had a chance to go with a single owner, and a billionaire at that, but passed on that because Jim Balsillie was a little too opinionated for their taste. So instead of Nashville pulling up stakes next year it will be 4 or 5 years from now.
No league has been as injudicious about it's team ownership than the NHL. Unlike the NFL which will not allow large ownership groups, the NHL is filled with them. The NFL has been the North American sports icon because the league front office deals with individual owners rather than boards-of-directors.
In the NHL we have the Toronto Maple Leafs under the control of a teacher's union with all of the attention to product quality of a Chinese toy-manufacturer. We had the Canadiens for years owned by a brewery more concerned image than the team and thus ordering the general manager to unload, at any porice, such perceived liabilities as Chris Chelios, Shayne Corson, Guy Carbonneau and Mathieu Schneider. Only when the Canadiens returned to the single ownership of George Gillett did we see the beginnings of a return from the wilderness.
For all intents a consortium is a committee. And as Sir Alex Issigonis told us back in the 30's---"a camel is a horsedesigned by a committee". In the NHL there seem to be a lot of camels right now.
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