January 10, 2003
Ottawa's woes have arena roots
With the Ottawa Senators filing for bankruptcy protection on Thursday, it's worth noting the role of arena shenanigans in the team's plight. Follow the bouncing puck:
When politically connected computer titan Rod Bryden bought the Sens in 1992, he borrowed heavily to pay for the construction of the $225 million Corel Centre (built, perhaps not coincidentally, by one of his other companies, the Palladium Corporation). Rather than pay off this debt, which has since ballooned to $376 million, he first demanded government subsidies for Canadian hockey teams from his old cronies in Parliament - a plan that went awry only when Canadians deluged their MPs with angry calls and faxes, causing legislators to back down. With a bailout off the table, Bryden ultimately filed for the Canadian equivalent of Chapter 11, which will allow him to sell the Sens for a tidy sum, while stiffing the banks that funded his construction project in the first place. Now all that's left is to see if Bryden can make a clean getaway...
—Neil deMause
