Honestly this is an important experiment for us. We're going to find out here in these next exciting years whether this can be a hockey town. Frankly, I was very heartened by what's transpired in Tampa, the way that city has embraced hockey. |
I would be happy today if Joe Johnson were an Atlanta Hawk today, but we are working as hard as we can to make that happen. |
I would hope, when our fans look at us, they see the Maloof brothers. |
I'm just glad to be up here on this stage with Mr. Knight. |
In the end, I think that's good for us. There's a buzz about the team. People are at least interested in how things are going to turn out. |
There absolutely will never be a situation like this again. |
This is the biggest free-agent signing in the history of the Atlanta Thrashers. |
We have a partnership agreement and we have an agreement with the NBA that governs how we operate. Those agreements make sure that we do our business, and we're doing our business. It doesn't mean that every bit of business will be done as perfectly as we'd like to get done, but we'll get it done. |
What we talked to Don about was ... whether we were getting fair value in return. That was our focus. |
You go through a lot of ways of rationalizing something like this. You go through all of the mathematical calculations. We did buy this team in hopes of having a rationalized business. We're not just going to throw money away, but this was an investment in the future of this team. |