opinion

The puck stops here: Glendale about to take a shot to the shorts

Roughly two years after approving a 15-year, $225 million arena lease agreement with the Phoenix Coyotes, the Glendale City Council has turned gold into dust by declaring the deal null and void.

This is what happens when you think you're negotiating in good faith with Glendale—a city that at one time threw itself at the feet of the Coyotes in order to gain a seat at the table as a big league player, but that has now managed, single-handedly, to reduce itself to the level of a bush league crybaby.

Welcome to The West's Most Whiney Town. Care for some catered sour grapes?

Looking for an excuse to flush its way out of the contract, Glendale had an incentive to be inventive: It's been hemorrhaging bookoo bucks on the Coyotes (an estimated $16.8 million covering this year and last). So, Glendale went for broke by breaking its agreement with the Coyotes.

It did so on the thin reed of a supposed "conflict of interest," claiming it was entitled to void the contract within three years of its signing if anyone who was appreciably involved in drawing up or producing the agreement subsequently became a rep or employee for the other party to the deal.

Here's the city's spin:

Glendale City Attorney Craig Tindall officially severed his employment with this westside wonderland in April 2013, then was hired a few months later by the Coyotes. The alleged conflict of interest? He had previously worked on an agreement (one that ultimately went nowhere) between Glendale and sports exec Greg Jamison, who had tried to buy the team after it was placed into bankruptcy. Tindall also had advised some Phoenix city councilmembers on the now-broken Glendale-Coyote contract a few days before it was approved.

Here's the Coyotes' anti-spin:

Glendale is using a loophole to get out of its contractual obligations to the team. The city's secretly planned torpedoing of the deal is illegal because Tindall's severance with Glendale included a waiver where the city swore off all conflict of interests with him. The burden of proof therefore is on Glendale to show that Tindall played a significant role in negotiating its current (but now corpsed) lease agreement with the Coyotes.

The Coyotes aren't howling at the moon on this one. Rodney Smith, director of sports law and business at ASU's college of law notes that "one of the words that [Glendale] will need to focus on in that statute is the word 'significantly.' They're going to have to prove that [Tindall] had a significant level of involvement, and I think it will be a very uphill battle for the City of Glendale."

Sure-as-shootin,' Sherlock. Tindall left Glendale government long before the Coyotes began negotiating their deal with the city—and, according to KTAR legal analyst, Monica Lindstrom, before the "lion's share of the work for this particular contract" was undertaken. FOX Sports Arizona reports that "two sources familiar with the situation said Tindall had no role in drafting the current agreement, although it is similar to one he helped draft when Greg Jamison attempted to buy the team. One source said Tindall had a limited role as an advisor on the current agreement."

Glendale thinks it's been losing too much money on the Coyotes? It's about to see what it means to lose its shirt.

Not wanting to mix metaphors (but I will), the Coyotes have got Glendale on the ropes. They've announced their intention to file an injunction against the city's boneheaded move, along with a $200 million lawsuit. Maybe the one-two punch will bring Glendale to its senses—assuming it has still has any.

Outside counsel for the Coyotes, Nick Woods, explains the reasoning behind the team's reaction:

"At this point, the damage has been done. How do we negotiate our way out of being shot in the head by the city?"

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman sums up the sorry situation this way:

"I'm not really concerned about the Arizona Coyotes. If I lived in Glendale, I would be concerned about my government."

A government that may have just made its own date with bankruptcy court.

What do you think?

--Steve Benson