[sureLoss]

Potential Seattle owner Ray Bartoszek is getting impatient waiting for a new arena to be built. Has turned his attention to a plan to revamp Key Arena

http://seattletimes.com/html/hockey/...yndication=rss

Less than a year ago, investment banker Ray Bartoszek was prepared to buy and move the Phoenix Coyotes to Seattle overnight.

Today, the Coyotes remain in the desert and Bartoszek sits in his office in a distant New York suburb, with an NHL dream but no team. That ownership dream still involves Seattle, but Bartoszek now wants to radically change his game plan.

He’s done listening to the prevailing wisdom that told him the quickest way to land a team post-Coyotes was by playing ball with the Chris Hansen-Steve Ballmer duo in trying for an NHL expansion franchise. The idea sounded good: He’d land the expansion team for their proposed Sodo arena, while they navigated political red tape and got a venue built.

Now, he’s not so sure.

With no Sodo arena deal in sight to entice the NHL to award a franchise, Bartoszek is seeking alternatives: the most eye-catching being a proposal to pump tens of millions of dollars into overhauling KeyArena into a modern, NHL-only facility.

“I think we’ve got to get away from this idea that the key to this is through that real estate,’’ Bartoszek said of the Sodo project, still awaiting political approval in a stalled process. “I assumed those guys held the keys to the city and the ability to get this all done. Now, it’s time to look at other approaches.’’