Balsillie's Fatal Flaw: Impatience

I'll get to my full opinion of what I think the Judge is going to do a little later. Obviously though it's my hope and my opinion that the team stays here in the end. I'm got more than a few reasons why the team should stay here, but let's look first at why Jim Balsillie doesn't own a team yet and likely won't own this one. The main reason is that he can't seem to wait to do anything. If at any time he slowed down to think about what he was doing, or those around him did (See Richard Rodier) he would probably already be attending games at Copps Colusium. He's been in the mix for now three different teams and has come out on the short end each time (Yes I'm assuming I'm right for now) Here's the breakdown.

Pittsburgh: Balsillie's first attempt at gaining control on an NHL team when the Penguins looked as though they would never get a new arena. In this case, much like the one in Phoenix, The league stepped in, though towards the end of the process, to demand that the sale of the team include that the team would stay in the City of Pittsburgh and that the league would take control of the team if necessary. Balsillie pulled out and Pitt got Crosby and Malkin and a new arena deal. How did this show impatience? Well if Balsillie had got on board he would have been in the club at least. Then with him in control of the team if no arena deal materialized within a few years the team could have possibly been moved out of the igloo and to Hamilton.

Nashville: In his second go round Balsillie targeted a non-traditional hockey market which was having huge issues trying to survive at the time. The league was nearly ready to go along with moving the team. All that had to happen was for the Predators attendance to drop to an acceptable level in order to break the lease on the Sommet Center. Balsillie, or his group, being ready to move the team immediately decides it would be a great idea to start selling season tickets and suites for the team in Hamilton before the league had even granted approval to buy the team. He jumped the gun and the league found instead, a buyer that could keep the team in Nashville for the time being.

Phoenix: While we're far from resolved here in the desert, one of the biggest points that the Judge has been making throughout the proceedings is that in this process Balsillie has yet to be wronged in any way by the league. His team of attorney's have been arguing that the NHL is violating Anti-Trust laws by not letting the team move. The Judge however, has questioned on multiple occasions the validity of those claims because Balsillie hasn't let the NHL go through the process of reviewing any of the applications either for the transfer or for relocation. Since he hasn't been denied anything as of yet then how can he claim he was wronged? While the NHL may be saying that they don't want to move the team, that in and of itself isn't enough. They actually have to reject the applications in order to be in violation. This seriously hurts the arguments of the attorneys in trying to prove their 363 and 365 claims, which the judge specifically said would have to be very strong indeed in order for him to rule in favor of Moyes/Balsillie. Had Jim simply let the process of submitting his applications go through the normal process he probably could have gotten through this case rather easily had the NHL rejected everything out of hand. Instead he rushed everything put an express timeline in and ended up hosing himself. Not that I'm complaining, but it doesn't get him where he wants to go.

While wanting things and making things happen right the second he wants them may have been successful for Balsillie in the business world, that same set of tactics has yet to be successful when it comes to getting himself a hockey team. And it's all because he couldn't just wait for the team to come to him...