Hockey First A No-Go For SoDo

For those of you who were hoping that the memorandum of understanding between the city of Seattle and Chris Hansen's group could be reworked to accommodate an NHL-first scenario, Art Thiel has some bad news.  Seattle City Council member Tim Burgess told Sportspress Northwest that he doesn't believe the MOU could be modified to allow an NHL team to go first. "During our initial consideration of the MOU, it was quite clear that the financial risk to the city increased dramatically with the NHL-first scenario."

And alas, it appears Chris Hansen has no desire to make it work that way, either.  Thiel, quoting a source within Hansen's group, said that "Chris has not proposed changing anything. He's always said he's a basketball guy."  It seems all the recent talk of NHL expansion still came with a caveat, and that caveat has now seemingly been eviscerated.

Many of us had hoped that the MOU could be altered to make the arena viable with just an NHL team, at least until an NBA team arrived, after the Kings relocation was voted down by the NBA Board of Governors.  We were hoping that, to paraphrase Shoeless Joe Jackson, "if we built it, they would come."  It appears we must now go back to what we are best at, waiting.  Waiting for an NBA team to either be uprooted and relocated with the NBA's blessing, or handed to us on a platter via expansion  Waiting for a possible restructure of the MOU where Hansen, Ballmer, et al take on more risk and reduce the public's involvement.  Waiting for the final EIS to be published.  Waiting... waiting... waiting...

Council: Arena deal won't be re-done for hockey | Sportspress Northwest