[Drury18]

You sort of get an idea of how bad it must be when you think of it this way: They are willing to throw more money at something already bleeding them out money because that actually is the best solution.

Again, if this is the case, I'm really curious to see what the numbers are for the buyout. The original deal guaranteed the Heat $5.7 each year, and then over the last 4 years the tax payers of Abbotsford paid an additional $5.24M. Abbotsford has already put probably close to $35M ($5.7 x 5 plus $5.24M plus $1.3 (estimated based on previous years) for losses this year) into the team. The deal after 10 years would probably run them about $70M, assuming attendance didn't pick up and losses continued as they have over the last 5 years, so what would be the magic number to make it all go away. Because really, for Calgary this was a sweet deal and I'm sure any buyout clause would be generous to them, not Abbotsford.

I agree though. Probably too many Canuck fans hung up on it being "Calgary's Team" rather then it being good hockey. If you look on Abbotsford's ticket page, any suites or packages for Utica games were actually marked up in price over other teams because of more interest from locals. It was far too much of the mindset of being Flames in Canucks territory. Which is a shame, Abbotsford was a good team this year with entertaining hockey and if people could get over the mindset, I think they would have done well.