Eugene Melnyk fired back at his rivals for Lebreton Flats Friday, serving notice that his NHL club will not play in a rink owned by someone else.

The Senators’ owner told reporters before his charity skate at the Canadian Tire Centre he can’t understand why the competing bid to redevelop the prime piece of Ottawa real estate, from DCDLS group, has included an NHL arena. Melnyk said if they think they can buy the hockey club, it’s not for sale.

“I think it’s misleading to tell you the truth. I mean, come on,” said Melnyk. “You guys gotta read through this stuff. How in God’s name do they want to build an arena? I don’t get it. There’s no NHL team available.

“This team is mine for life. My daughter has already taken first dibs on it when I go to Heaven, ‘When you go to heaven can I have the Senators? Yeah, I guess so.’

"The long and short of it, the team is not for sale and never will be in my lifetime for sure. No. 2, you can’t come into my territory. What’s the matter with you?

“Who’s going to play there? I don’t understand why they put that in there.”

He added there is “not a chance” the team would move downtown if the group involving Melnyk and the Senators lost the bid.

“We need to control the building. Forget the financial part, which is your revenue driver, you have to control things. I don’t want to get permission if I want to do this nor do I want to pay somebody for that privilege. If we want to do something here we get it done,” said Melnyk.

Melnyk said he had no idea DCDLS would propose a rink.

“I just don’t get it. I don’t know them,” said Melnyk. “I would love to talk all day about it but we could lose. We could get disqualifed. There are very specific restrictions. We’ll just get a letter to say we’ve been disqualified because you did this. We don’t want that.”

Melnyk said he isn’t sure if this is an attempt by the other group to take over the team, but if that’s the case DCDLS shouldn’t bother.

“They can do whatever they want,” said Melnyk. “I own it, it’s not like it’s a public company. It’s 100% owned by me. I don’t know what they think they’re doing and why they refer it to as NHL, I don’t know. It’s misleading. It’s not very credible. I frankly only care about my submission.

“We worked very hard on ours. To jump in at the last minute and say, ‘We want to build you a rink.’ Why? Not interested.

"God bless them. All I can say.”

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