[browna]

All this being said, from the moment he bought the Oilers, lost in some of the "drive for 5" predictions that Edmontonians heard he was going to spend money, was the fact that he said, at some point in the near future (and that was 5 years ago), there had to be a new arena, and had to have just-as-engaged public and public levels of government as him to keep the Oilers in Edmonton...or at least to keep him as an owner and make it a worthwhile business venture for all involved.

Everyone assumed at the time it was just lipservice, that a local guy as big a fan as him with the money he had, wouldn't actually ever think about doing anything but holding onto the team no matter if a new arena became reality or not.

Each step of the way though he was making that clear...following through with his original plan, pushing to gain that equality with the city and province to get a new arena approved. He got the city reluctantly on board, but over the course of 4 months its gone from a grandiose drawing of a new rink, to suddenly scaled back, to a bunch or eraser marks and not far from thrown in the trash. With that project now looking to be in limbo, as promised, he's just following through again on the caveat's he made in the press conference announcing his purchase, about not being the owner in a market that isn't showing the same level of interest as him in keeping hockey as a viable business in Edmonton.

This isn't out of the blue and everyone expects because me makes millions of dollars in his other buisness', that it should just flow that through to the Oilers and subsidize the other partners. He made it clear from the start that it wasn't his plan, for better or worse, so no one should be surprised now that push is coming to shove, that he's just stating what he said at the original presser.