Report: Vegas in mix if Senators are sold

Thursday, Dec. 2, 1999 | 10:38 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

The Ottawa Senators apparently are up for sale again, and Las Vegas apparently is on the short list of potential buyers.

Senators owner Rod Bryden plans to put the NHL team up for sale, the Ottawa Sun reported.

A source close to the team said Bryden would announce today that he is ready to entertain formal offers from U.S. buyers, including five already on the table at NHL headquarters in New York.

The team source said the five bids before the NHL are from Las Vegas, Cleveland and Portland, Ore., plus two from Houston.

Details regarding the Las Vegas bid were not available. San Diego Padres owner John Moores has been working behind the scenes with Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and other city officials to bring an NBA or NHL -- or both -- franchise to the city.

The Senators moving to Las Vegas would appear to be a long shot, if for no other reason that the other U.S. cities on the bidding list are better equipped for hockey. There is no permanent hockey arena here, and the Thomas & Mack Center and MGM Grand Garden are the only facilities that could host hockey on a temporary basis.

In addition, there are gambling issues that would have to be resolved although NHL commissioner Gary Bettman indicated in an earlier meeting with Goodman that those did not seem to be insurmountable.

The NHL would likely require a UNLV-type rule in which no bets would be accepted locally on the team.

Moreover, the Ottawa Citizen said Bryden, while looking for potential buyers, would keep the team in Ottawa if he gets the tax breaks he has been lobbying for various levels of government.

The Senators called a news conference for today at the Corel Centre in Ottawa. Bryden, who won an 85 percent tax cut from the regional government on Wednesday, would not answer questions about the planned announcement.

The NHL Board of Governors meets Tuesday in Boca Raton, Fla., and it is expected that Bryden will ask for permission to move the Senators.

Bryden has said repeatedly he would begin looking for buyers in December if he did not get $6.8 million to $8.2 million in tax breaks from all levels of government.