All I Have to Do Is Dream

Ever since Mario Lemieux came out and said the Penguins’ days in Pittsburgh were numbered, the Hartford Courant has printed a new article almost every day discussing the renewed crusade to return NHL hockey to the Nutmeg State.

It hasn’t made news outside southern New England, but it’s worth noting that former Whalers owner Howard Baldwin recently submitted a plan to the Connecticut Development Authority, which leases the Hartford Civic Center from the city, designed to lure a major league franchise to the insurance capital:

Neither Baldwin nor state officials would speak to the specifics of Baldwin's most recent proposal. But in a document prepared by Baldwin and obtained by The Courant, the man who says he would bring the NHL back to Hartford proposes acquiring the authority's lease for the city-owned building and assuming responsibility for future capital improvements to the civic center. Among other things, Baldwin's company also would get the rights to the Whalers name, logo and other trademarks.

In return, the authority would no longer have to pay an annual management fee as it now does to Madison Square Garden, and it would be out from under the burden of its lease payments to the city.

Once he has the civic center, Baldwin says, he would bring in a new AHL Whalers team to replace MSG's Wolf Pack. And while attendance at Wolf Pack games has been just shy of the contract-minimum 5,200, Baldwin says he can draw enough of a crowd to impress the NHL.

But authority officials aren't convinced, saying that Baldwin's offer - AHL now, maybe NHL later - does not merit hasty action.

"If somebody had a guarantee for an NHL team, the proposal would be entirely different," board Vice Chairman Richard T. Mulready said at a recent legislative hearing. "That's a lot of maybes to go through the process of canceling what we have with, by the way, an operator we think is pretty good."

The state of Connecticut is losing $4 million annually on the Civic Center, but it has nothing to do with MSG’s perceived mismanagement. Rent and capital improvement payments account for a majority of that loss, and those are expenses that wouldn’t disappear if the CDA were to replace MSG with a new managing partner for the 30-year-old arena. However, as the article notes, Baldwin claims he’s willing to assume all of the CDA’s current arena expenses, including lease payments and capital improvements.

Unfortunately for Baldwin, the CDA is not very receptive to his proposal. Richard Mulready is quite satisfied with MSG’s eight-year management tenure at the Civic Center, and there is no indication that he and the Authority will not exercise MSG’s lease option come late January. In fact, just yesterday the CDA approved a long-term study of the Civic Center’s future, a move that essentially kills any idea that MSG is about to be ushered out of town.

It’s also important to remember that MSG manages Rentschler Field, the brand new home of UConn’s football team. Should the CDA choose to void their Civic Center contract with MSG, it is conceivable that MSG will opt out of its deal with Rentschler Field, which is something that UConn Athletic Director Jeff Hathaway says is not an option (see Monday and Tuesday's commentary).

Don’t expect this story to die any time soon.

POSTSCRIPT: The CDA's recent board meeting can be viewed here.

POSTSCRIPT #2: Allright, I'll admit it. As someone who works in Connecticut, I felt obligated to express my own thoughts to the CDA. Thanks to Karen Hunter for the acknowledgement.

Joe Tasca 06:00 PM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.ericmcerlain.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/5509

Comments

Posted by: at December 23, 2005 12:35 AM

Post a comment