As a Buffalo Sabres fan, my team is on the line just as much as your team is here.  Hamilton, Ontario is but an hour and a half drive from downtown Buffalo (and my team already declared bankruptcy several years ago).  A team moving to Southern Ontario would seriously, seriously damage the Sabres financial future.  So to a certain extent, we are in this together.  Let me try to lift your spirits and say why I think a team will not move to Southern Ontario (which in turn means that it is more likely to stay in Pheonix):

1.  Hamilton is a 40 minute drive from Toronto, the most powerful team in the league.  I seriously doubt they'd welcome the competition.  Add on to that what I've already said about the proximity to Buffalo, and you'd piss off two teams by moving someone to Southern Ontario.

2.  Hamilton is a town of 600,000..given that it will be hard pressed to draw from Toronto or Buffalo with established teams already there...I'm wondering where the fan base would come from.

3.  The Conferences would be all sorts of messed up.  If Hamilton got a team, they (presumably) would no longer want to play in the Western Conference.  However, dirty little secret...they would be the farthest west team in the Eastern Conference, meaning someone even farther east would have to play in the Western Conference.

4.  The NHL hates this Ballsack guy.  He already tried to do this with Nashville, and the deal breaker was that he wanted to move the team to Ontario.  The NHL simply doesn't want a team there if it can avoid it for all the reasons I've mentioned above.  Therefore, I think the NHL will likely fight Ballsack in every step of the way.

5.  The NHL does not want to lose out on hockey in the Arizona.  It would prove their expansion strategy of the last 20 some odd years was idiotic if they let Arizona go under and move out.  I expect them to work with city business leaders much like they did with Nashville and find some sort of way to keep this team out of Ballsack's hands and in Pheonix.

Good Luck Guys.  I'm rooting for you!