Lips locked in St. John's over failed deal with N.B. hockey team
The city-owned corporation that tried in vain to transfer a New Brunswick hockey team to St. John's is refusing to divulge any details on what it was prepared to spend.
St. John's Sports and Entertainment announced a tentative deal with the owner of the Bathurst-Acadie Titan hockey team earlier this month, only to see it fall apart a couple of days later.
Owner Leo-Guy Morrissette decided in the end to sell his team, which plays in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, to his children.
St. John's Sports and Entertainment, which manages Mile One Centre as well as a nearby convention centre, said it cannot afford to release any details of the prospective deal because it would handcuff the corporation in future negotiations.
"We don't want that information out in the public because then it becomes the start of negotiations the next time we have a team," general manager Bill Thistle told CBC News.
Earlier this month, Coun. Art Puddister said the negotiations with Morrissette were not in vain because the city now had a "template" that it could offer to prospective business partners.
Deputy Mayor Ron Ellsworth, who represents the city on the Sports and Entertainment board, said he does not have a problem with keeping the information confidential.
"When you're negotiating deals and offers, there's lots of variables that play into it," Ellsworth said.
"In this case, it was felt that all the bits and pieces that were brought together to make this deal may not be all the bits and pieces that are brought together to make another deal."
St. John's Sports and Entertainment is not covered under provincial access to information legislation. Even so, the city solicitor's office says the hockey deal would be exempt because releasing the information could "harm the financial interests of a public body."
Mile One has not had an anchor tenant since the St. John's Fog Devils were sold to a new owner in Quebec in 2008.
The city agreed to build Mile One largely to keep the former St. John's Maple Leafs in the city. However, the parent Toronto Maple Leafs pulled their farm team at the end of the 2006 season.