Rumors: Luongo and a new arena
Luongo?
On one hand, Holland is saying, “He’s [Pavel Datsyuk] going through a process on how to be successful in the playoffs. He loves to play hockey and he loves to compete. I believe Pavel will have a breakout in the playoffs next year that Henrik [Zetterberg] had this year…We feel we have some good building blocks, but we won’t completely overhaul.” He has yet to name the possibility of trading Datsyuk away. Yet, speculation about this move/rumor is running rampant around the blogosphere.
BUT, would Holland trade Datsyuk? Would Holland give up one of our “good building blocks” for a better goaltender? While the idea of having Luongo in net is appealing to me, I would not be willing to give up Datsyuk and Howard for him. Sure Datsyuk hasn’t had a breakout playoff performance, yet. He did have an injury to start the playoffs and I want to see what he’ll do next year (healthy) before I write him off. Plus, Howard is going to be a great goaltender (or so we believe) and I don’t want to lose our first solid goalie prospect in years. We can’t trade away our future for a goalie who isn’t really proven come playoff time, although a good goalie. Give me a decent goaltender who doesn’t have confidence issues and a gritty physical defenseman. That’s what I want.
Aside from Detroit, who else is in the running for Mr. Luongo? The LA Kings. Paul at Kukla’s Korner has informed the blogosphere that both Leafs Lunch and the LA Times are reporting that LA forwards Alexander Frolov and Dustin Brown and goaltender Mathieu Garon have been ‘offered up’ in exchange for Luongo.
New Wings Arena?
The LGW forums are full of speculation regarding the future of the Wings arena. Will they renew their contract with the Joe? Will they build a new arena? Will they fix up JLA, which is the fifth oldest NHL arena?
The arena is currently in a 30 year lease with the city of Detroit through 2009. The Detroit News speculates that naming rights and luxury boxes for a new arena could bring $10 million more a year in revenue to the Wings.
Chris Ilitch, President & CEO of Ilitch Holdings, owner of the Red Wings will have a heart-wrenching decision to make soon — whether to consign Joe Louis Arena to the wrecker’s ball.Since it opened in December 1979, “The Joe” has been a name synonymous with hockey excellence. But renovating the old facility might be financially unfeasible compared to building a new one.
“We’re conducting parallel feasibility studies,” spokesman John Hahn said Tuesday. “One for rehabilitating Joe Louis, and another for building a new arena. But it’s far too premature to predict any decision. We do hope to have the studies done and ready for consideration by the end of the year.”
One LGW user (Sepster) summarized a recent Crain’s Business Detroit article regarding the future of the Wings and JLA.
With regards to renovating the Joe, two companies that build and renovate stadiums (one of which did a cost and feasability study for the Illitch’s about six years ago) said it would cost between $180 to $200 million to bring the Joe up to speed. They said that the main problem is that structurally it is completly outdated. The gentleman who’s company did the cost/feasability analysis said, “there is no way I would dump $200 million down the drain to renovate that building.” That, coupled with the fact that the city wants to use that area for expansion of Cobo Hall (which Olympia Entertainment also operates and whose lease also expires in 2009) pretty much requires that a new stadium will be built.The other option, of course, is build a new stadium. The article addresses the Tiger Stadium site by saying that the land is owned by the city and that Illitch would most likely want to build on land he already controls, plus the announcement that Mayor Kilpatrick made about future reatil and residential use, squashes that idea.
Check out the rest of the summary for two locations where we might find the new arena.
We know that the new arena will be downtown because Ilitch has too much invested in the city to go elsewhere. The most popular place to put the arena would be the Ilitch owned land behind the Fox Theater. This post on LGW has two wonderful satellite photographs to help us picture where the arena could potentially go.
The Crain’s article also reported that the “two companies said a 18,000 seat stadium would cost $250 million with an additional $100 million for parking structures and lots” [again, that was not an exact quote of the article]. We should an expect an announcement on this very issue by the end of the year.
A new arena sounds exciting, but I’ll miss the Joe [even though it desperately needs to be updated]. And a new arena will probably result in a funky sounding name. The JLA was the perfect arena name.
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