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If the NCC turns to them, they’ll have to take another pass through their financials and confirm the participation of some of the players outside the core group (the Ripley’s Aquarium people, for instance), but DCDLS is ready to talk, Poulin said. Assuming the commission makes up its mind soon. The longer DCDLS waits, the greater the risk.

“We could lose some players and it would not be our fault,” Poulin said.

Photo by Tony Caldwell / Postmedia Network

Financing a first-rate new arena, which is the core of both bids, is challenging, Poulin said.

“The NCC requires no public money (be built into any bid). It has to be private financing for every aspect of it. And that’s not easy to do,” Poulin said. Especially with Mayor Jim Watson’s having said firmly that the city’s not sinking any of its money into a Senators rink, either.

“I’m sitting right now in front of the new stadium they built here in Vegas. It’s the new milestone, the bar is at $500 million,” Poulin said.

Public figures put the construction cost for the Las Vegas Golden Knights’ shiny new hockey arena at about $470 million Cdn, but close enough. Although a privately owned sports franchise’s value is hard to peg unless somebody buys it, Forbes magazine just in December estimated the Senators’ worth at about $525 million Cdn.

So a new rink for the Senators would cost about as much as the franchise is worth. Melnyk has the team in hand but he’s not as rich as Desmarais, Laliberté and Sinclair put together.

The first time around, Melnyk said flatly, again and again, that the Senators aren’t for sale.

Poulin on Friday repeated the offers DCDLS made then: to simply hand land at LeBreton over to Melnyk and the team to build a new arena on their own; to build an arena and invite the Senators in as tenants; to buy the team if Melnyk changes his mind.

“(National Hockey League commissioner Gary) Bettman is a good friend of André Desmarais, you know,” Poulin remarked, oh-so smoothly. “I’m sure between those three guys, something could be worked out. We’re creative, you know.”

dreevely@postmedia.com

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