Bears-of-the-Week
Losing 4-0 to Manchester City in the second leg of a UEFA Champions League final — and 5-1 on aggregate — isn’t a great look for a heritage brand such as $5.32-billion Real Madrid, a 14-time winner of the European club championship. Yet that was an embarrassment for the second-richest soccer club in the world.
It’s also a bear market for Canadian-based teams in the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoffs. The second-round departures of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the east and the Edmonton Oilers in the west create huge holes for Rogers Sportsnet coverage of the final two rounds in the playoffs. It’s true that the large majority of players in the conference finals are Canadian, yet that only translates into television viewing audiences when national teams carry the flag in international competition.
Yet the biggest loser in the business of sport this week is clearly the Arizona Coyotes, who saw their plans for an arena, entertainment and residential development in Tempe scuttled by a public referendum on Wednesday. That means back to the drawing board for the Coyotes, who are currently a bad joke in North American major league sport, forced into playing at Mullet Arena , a spartan varsity arena seating 5,000 people at Arizona State University.
Forget about any fantasy pitches by fast-growing Surrey, B.C. to land the Coyotes in a relocation over the next 18 months. That simply won’t happen. Hockey economics suggest the next best place for an NHL franchise is to establish a second one in Greater Toronto. Hockey demographics would also make a good case for the Quebec Nordiques 2.0. Yet hockey politics and NHL governance will likely put the Coyotes into Houston, where Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta wants to join the club.