[Leonsis also said the team plans to retain its veterans, adding that the contract of 35-year-old goaltender Olaf Kolzig won't be bought out. Kolzig is in the final season of a five-year contract that will pay him $4.94 million this season. (Clubs have a one-time opportunity this week to buy out players for two-thirds of their remaining contract and not have it count against their salary cap.)] Out of the gate . . . we are keeping our veterans, ... My goal is to ice a competitive team this year. |
As a league, we will have less TV revenue, and locally I don't think we can expect to increase our ticket revenue. However, our ticket prices are going down even more. That price reduction may help attendance, but we don't anticipate it helping overall revenues. |
From an economic standpoint, the league is much healthier, so as you grow your revenues you can proportionately grow your payrolls. The business model has been right-sized. We are not stressed now about the economics. Now we have to go about reselling the game. |
I asked the brother, 'What did she say? She said 'I'm proud of him, but we have to win the game.' I'm like, 'That's exactly the way to do it. |
I know we have work to do. My goal is to get back to 10,000 or 12,000 season ticket holders in two to three years and to run the team as a break-even proposition, have fun and build a team that can compete for the long haul. |
It never should have happened, ... I remain committed to being an accessible owner. ... Additionally, I accept the league's findings and understand that regardless of the circumstances, I must be held to a higher standard than the general public. |
Look at how much fun he has. |
One day when he's ready, then I can think about deals like that. |
The first check he threw to start the game, I said, 'That's my boy. That's what we want, ... We want our star players to work hard and be a part of the team. Every time we got down, he answered, and that's what superstars do. |
There is this primordial soup brewing of more bandwidth, more storage, more devices and more people creating content which is inherently digital. The lightning that struck is that the people have rapidly adopted all this even faster than we in the industry conceived, and bypassed the traditional media. |
There's going to be a lot of expectations on this young man, being the first pick in the draft, but I ask that we allow ourselves some patience. We're going to build a team around him, a very strong, young, aggressive team, and he is certainly a great fundamental building block for us to go forward on. |
This first year [under the league's salary cap economic system] we're going to see what we have, |
This is not personal; it's business. This course of action was encouraged by our law firm and the NHL. We have a contract with Alexander, and we want his agent and Russian hockey team to honor that commitment. |
We are extremely pleased the NHL and Players Association have reached an agreement in principle and look forward to the ratification process. We are excited about the prospects of returning to the ice and welcoming our fans back to the MCI Center. |
We are making every effort to bring him here, ... George spoke to the agent [Friday] night, as did I. We both want him here. |