Darin Pastor group to buy Coyotes? Bid IN!

We all knew that without stable ownership in here things could get hairy. Many suitors are now all of a sudden appearing from nowhere.

Out of the woodwork Leblanc, Pastor, Hulsizer, Reinsdorf, and yes…even our boy Greg Jamison all appear wanting to submit a bid to purchase the embattled franchise and save them and their fans from relocation.

If you are a fan or member of the Coyotes and their organization this is great news. At times it seems no one wanted us, and we must be cautious in choosing a suitor, lease management deal, etc. The worst case scenario is we sell to a Canadian investor and within 5 years the teams is relocated to Canada. The best scenario is we secure an owner and the team stays forever!

We all saw Greg Jamison blow the sweetheart of a deal the City of Glendale gave him. With 15 million a year to operate Jobing.com Arena it seemed we finally got the owner we waited so long for. Then as the deadline came and went we all feared this was the end of our beloved Coyotes in Arizona. Jamison still claims he is putting some things together but I just don’t see it.

The Chicago boys which includes Mathew Hulsizer and Jerry Reinsdorf both are in the mix and will have some sort of offers at some point but are not the front runners at this point.

That leaves us with Anthony LeBlanc and Darin Pastor. You have to consider Pastor the favorite at this point and he submitted his bid this morning which was the highest so far with the lowest expectation from the City of Glendale for the lease agreement. I will not be $15 million as Glendale has already claimed it will not give that same deal. Many say it will be between $8-$10 million. LeBlanc’s group will want a $12 million +  commitment to run and operate the Arena. Pastor sought the services of a local firm to handle the financials with Glendale.

The Pastor group wants to forge a much deeper relationship with all of the Valley’s youth hockey programs both to promote and grow the game. That shows a true commitment and the key to making hockey work forever here in the desert. So until we hear more from LeBlanc / Gosbee, Pastor is indeed the front runner and the NHL was true to it’s word by saying there would be an open battle to bid on the Desert Dawgs!

The only bad thing is the 5-year out clause. Hopefully we can all HOWL for decades!