When its time to show your cards, the Flames will lose.
Nenshi and other councillors who side with him score points with at least 90% of Calgary citizens by taking a hard line against spending their money on hockey players and their owners. I'm assuming 100,000 people really care enough about the Flames in this city to worry about a threat that the team is sold and moved. And that is generous. And corporate Calgary has probably figured out that if the City pays for a substantial portion of the rink ... it is going to repaid to the City in the form of higher business tax or special commercial property tax levies. So I think the overwhelming majority of residents and taxpayers in this City support the position no municipal funding towards this.
Why can't the Flames find a corporate sponsor to fund the majority of this anyways in exchange for naming rights? Hmmm ... like the CNRL Centre.
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