((HT: KING-TV))
Chris Daniels reported that the NHL Commish, Gary Bettman, and #2 Bill Daly were visiting with Seattle political-types last week to check on how things stand with the idea of a new arena in town...
Are you listening Phoenix...???
They met with King County Executive Dow Constantine and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray. The only caveat that Bettman has ever said was that the town needs to address it's arena issues- even as he admitted the NHL would like to put a franchise in the market at some point.
Chris Hansen and Steve Ballmer have agreed to partially fund a new arena, which is undergoing an environmental review.
The Hansen-Ballmer Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) says construction can begin on a new arena after the review and when an NBA team is approved for the market. It doesn't say anything about an NHL team, even though Hansen-Ballmer aren't interested in the league and others are.
The key thought from Hansen:
A new NHL team would likely have to play at least one year in Key Arena, depending on the status of a new complex. It's unclear if the NHL would be willing to commit a team to Seattle without some sort of guarantee a state-of-the-art, hockey-friendly facility was definitively on the way.
Bryan Stevens, spokesperson for the Seattle Department of Planning and Development, said on Tuesday that the environmental review on the project is now not scheduled to be completed until "sometime this fall". He added, that he believed, that there had been "no measurable movement" in the last few weeks.
Here's a piece that was done back in June 2013 by Daniels suggesting that Key Arena was ready if needed
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