Hansen States He Has No Interest In Amending MOU for Hockey, Donates Arena Land To Non-Profit

Per Chris Daniels Twitter account, Chris Hansen says he has no interest in owning a hockey franchise in Seattle or in amending the MOU for a "hockey first" option.

Daniels also reports that Hansen is donating land slated for the Seattle Arena to a non-profit for youth basketball. Aaron Levine says this is only part of the land, not the entire parcel, and is in fact not on the same block as the main building.

Daniels hints more is to come from his conversation with Hansen, so stay tuned.

My opinion, if you're interested: The NBA has made it clear that there will be no team coming to Seattle before 2016-17 at the earliest. This has always been a long game and will continue to be so.

I cannot speculate on whether Hansen's passion for the project has cooled, but this does clarify that he was never interested in ownership in the NHL as some had hoped. Speculation that an endgame for an NBA franchise in Seattle would be hastened by amending the MOU for NHL first always seemed far-fetched to me, but after today's announcement it would seem that the NHL coming to Seattle has been put on the back burner.

The long game continues.