Efforts to sell the Thrashers locally or bring in new investors were hampered by a long-running dispute within the ownership group. A settlement was finally reached in December to buy out Boston-based Steve Belkin, who had broken with other owners in after he objected to an NBA move, the signing of Hawks star Joe Johnson. Also, any potential owner would have become a tenant at Philips Arena, a major impediment because it would cut into much-needed revenue from sources such as concessions, parking, luxury suites and other events.
Late last week, Thrashers President Don Waddell raised the prospect that someone could still emerge to buy the team -- at a greatly reduced price -- to keep it in Atlanta. Skip to main content Skip to navigation. Thrashers sold, will leave Atlanta for Winnipeg. Nationals silver whets Geeta Phogat's appetite for Paris Olympics.
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One day, like so many other people do, the Atlanta Thrashers showed up as a guest of Ted Turner, who's from Cincinnati. Lots of Atlantans who were born in Atlanta or elsewhere liked them. I've watched one hockey game in my life, the overtime Olympic gold medal game against Canada in It was awesome. You can take my lifelong disinterest in hockey as evidence against Atlanta being a hockey market, since, after all, I run an Atlanta sports website.
There are even people here who don't like college football, believe it or not. Though he was the best or second-best team owner Atlanta has ever had -- New York native Arthur Blank is worth considering -- Turner handed the Thrashers keys to a bumbling collection of associates. They immediately set to work suing themselves while trying to unload the hockey thing.
The on-ice product was so listless you'd almost allege they were trying to force Atlanta to get rid of it for them. Well, their decisions with the NBA team were just as confounding -- they're paying the fifth- or sixth-best basketball player in their own division more money than they'll get from the sale of the Thrashers.
I don't like Atlanta hockey, but I like Atlanta hockey fans. It would suck to see the city forever deprived of the NHL due to seven or 12 or so selfish rich guys. The league promised Atlanta would host an all-star game to expose Atlanta's new fan-base to the stars of the league.
The date was set to , which was cancelled due to that year's lockout and couldn't be rescheduled until The league then refused to sell to anyone wishing to relocate the team. Atlanta was not provided the same luxury, mostly because the Thrashers had some of the worst owners in sports.
Two years after buying the team , the partnership developed a dispute involving a trade with the NBA's Phoenix Suns. A circuit court in Maryland the corporate home of the Atlanta Spirit ruled that Steve Belkin was entitled to buy everyone out but was later overturned. Belkin would be bought out, but no one agreed on a price. From , the Atlanta Spirit spent more time in court than watching their team, except for partner Bud Seretean who died in In fact, the remaining owners became very vocal that hockey wasn't going to work in Atlanta, helping them lower the price of buying out Belkin.
Don Waddell remained general manager through their distraction and apathy. Heatley asked the Thrashers to trade him after he and another member of the Thrashers were involved in a fatal automobile accident in Heatley's car that left Dan Snyder dead at The results again were clear—a draft selection resulted in a net loss for the Thrashers.
Heatley is still booed unmercifully every time he returns to Ottawa and more importantly he cannot seem to nudge the Sharks to a Stanley Cup Finals appearance despite the strong lineup in San Jose and his obvious scoring ability. Central Scouting rated him the top player in the draft and the Thrashers selected him with their No.
Kovalchuk has immense offensive talent, but Thrasher fans got used to not knowing whether they would see the Kovalchuk that possessed superstar talent or the other player who showed up from time to time. That other player sulked and displayed a bad attitude. The team made several mistakes in pampering the Russian star, including appointing him captain of the team and not trading him well before his contract was up for renewal.
When the Thrashers finally traded Kovalchuk to New Jersey , you could almost feel the weight lifted off the team. The Thrashers without Kovalchuk began to win hockey games as a team and celebrate as a team.
Boris Valabik could have been the next Zdeno Chara. After all he is 6'7" and weighs pounds. He was a intimidating force, or should have been. He was selected 10th overall in the first round and was considered by NHL scouts to be in the top 40 during his junior hockey career, moving up in ranking in his final year of juniors. Valabik could never crack the Thrashers lineup in five years, causing GM Rick Dudley to finally make a decision someone else should have already made.
He is also infamous for a YouTube post which features him getting pummelled in a fight with Rick Rypien.
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