THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Wow.  Item 2 in the NHL constitution says the the league will be operated as a NOT FOR PROFIT. But the franchises are obviously for profit.  That makes the NHL itself simply a “management” company, that has no profits.  Interesting.

Wow.  At 3-1, teams are required to play the “highest possible playing caliber”.  If this means that MLB has the same thing, Evan Longoria would have started the season with the team.  And it begs the question as to how does Sidney Ponson get so many tries?

Interesting.  You need three-fourths majority (23 of 30 teams) for membership, and for relocation.

3.5 also has the loophole that any team listed on the stock exchange will have the requirements for transfer waived!  So, the Coyotes could list their stock on the NYSE, Ballsillie could come in and buy up the entire float, and boom… Hamilton.

Wow.  3.9.a.i: by filing for bankruptcy, membership is terminated!

AND in the next section, then can suspend or terminate if they didn’t pay the league back its loans when asked to.  Coyotes owe lots of cash to the league.

Wow.  3.13: you are not allowed to go to court to fight your termination!

I’m not surprised that there’s a privative clause (3.13), although I doubt that it’s particularly enforceable - courts don’t like to be told to piss off.  I don’t claim to understand 3.9.a.i - if the Coyotes are no longer members of hte league, what is Balsillie buying?

Wasn’t a similar clause to 3.13 upheld in the case Charlie Finley brought against Bowie Kuhn after he voided the sales of Blue, Rudi and Fingers? 

3.9.a.i., though, is an “ipso facto” clause and not enforceable in bankruptcy.

It also doesn’t look like “territorial” rights is really defined.  And in any event, it looks like you just need three-fourths majority anyway to simply decide.

This happened with the LA Kings / Anaheim, where Anaheim paid the standard (at the time) 50MM$ application, of which half went to the Kings.  Basically, the Kings won’t put up a fuss if the three-fourths vote to bring in Anaheim forced half that money to the Kings.  It of course helped that McNall (Kings) brokered the deal.

Just a note - the links for the bylaws are mixed.  Your “Part 1” link takes me to the second half of the bylaws, and “Part 2” takes me to the first half.