Buyers are lining up for these Canadiens

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/04/2009 (6266 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Hands up. Anyone else interested in buying the Montreal Canadiens?

I mean, other than Celine Dion, Serge Savard, the guy who owns Cirque du soleil and Stephen Bronfman and the Quebecor media chain and some half-dozen other curious parties.

How times have changed, eh? After all, it was only a decade ago when Colorado businessman George Gillett bought this country’s most venerable sports franchise for a song not so long after the aforementioned Dion’s My Heart Will Go On won an Academy Award as part of the soundtrack for Titanic.

Ironically, that’s exactly what the listing Canadiens were at the time; a once unsinkable ship floundering in a sea of red ink. Or rouge ink. Whatever, the NHL’s most storied entity was unwanted and virtually worthless.

Gillett scooped up the Habs and a relatively new Bell Centre for a fire sale price of $185 million. Can you believe that? The arena, opened in 1996, was built for a cost of $270 million.

Looking back now, it’s difficult to recall just how bleak the future looked for every single NHL team not located in the Greater Toronto Area.

Today, the Habs generate only slightly less revenue ($1.7 million per game) than the No. 1-ranked Toronto Maple Leafs ($1.9 million per game), the Bell Centre is the second-most lucrative arena venue in Canada and Forbes recently estimated the Canadiens’ worth at $355 million.

Of course, whether or not Gillett ultimately parlays his initial investment of 80 per cent in the Canadiens into a 140 per cent, plus profit remains to be seen. But with the owner’s core businesses in the U.S. flailing — and possible financing of a new stadium for Gillett’s other major sports business interest, Liverpool FC, requiring major capital investment — there’s every chance that the Canadiens ownership could soon be changing hands.

So why is this noteworthy, other than the simple fact that the Canadiens are an national treasure? Answer: Because the Canadiens, love ’em or don’t, are a treasure again, that’s why.

Really, nothing, outside of the actual loss of the Winnipeg Jets and Quebec Nordiques, was more depressing than how the mighty Canadiens had been reduced to a garage sale afterthought — not unlike some ratty couch you can’t even give away. It was all part and parcel of the nadir of the NHL in Canada.

Just the thought that the team of Howie Morenz, Rocket Richard, Jean Beliveau, Guy Lafleur could be bought by an American entrepreneur (no offence, George, you’ve been a great owner) for almost $100 million less than the original cost of the hockey rink they played in was nothing short of a national disgrace.

Imagine buying the New York Yankees, on paper, at a bargain price. Your own country’s hockey history is going, going, gone. To the only bidder.

How pathetic was that?

Fortunately, Gillett became the antithesis of a drive-by owner. He embraced the Canadiens’ legacy and oversaw the team’s rebirth into this, the Habs centennial season. For that, all Canadian hockey fans can be grateful.

But even more satisfying, frankly, is how the renaissance of the Canadiens from the dark days of the turn of the century has been mirrored by the prosperity of all six homegrown franchises. Remember, the Oilers’ demise was widely considered a fait accompli at the time. The Flames were equally vulnerable and the Senators were in bankruptcy. The Canucks were bleeding up to $20 million a season and facing their own ownership woes.

Look around. The Oilers, no longer a poorhouse franchise serving as a glorified farm team, are owned by a hometown billionaire. The Oilers generate an estimated $1.2 million for every home game, just like the Senators, now also owned by a billionaire. And those totals represent the lowest revenue of the six Canadian teams, for Pete’s sake.

Indeed, as it’s widely been reported, the Canadian franchises generate at least a third of the NHL’s overall revenue — more than a billion dollars a season, with the Leafs, Canadiens and Canucks profits being skimmed to provide financial aide for the new generation of financial cellar-dwellers in Phoenix, Nashville, et al.

Heaven knows there are critics of the revenue-sharing system (now that the money is going south, ahem), but isn’t that better than the alternative? True, the Jets and Nords didn’t survive, so to some in these parts it might be small compensation that at least the future of Canadian-based NHL teams hasn’t seemed this stable in decades.

But just remember how much worse it was, and could have been.

The Canadiens may soon be on the market. And already the long line of potential local buyers has started to form to the right.

Rest in peace, Rocket Richard.

 

randy@freepress.mb.ca