I think there's one strategic element of this Notice of Motion missing in the conversation - which is that if there is real fear that the Flames are going to pull up stakes and move, they can't now reasonably say there was no interest in finding a deal.
It would not surprise me if Gary Bettman wanted to make an example of a municipality for not laying down to an ownership group on the issue of an arena.
When the idea of this was floated the statement was very much in the vein of "nothing has changed", which had the stink of them finding excuses not to negotiate so they could justify a move.
As a municipality you don't want to negotiate with yourself, but they can avoid that if they limit the scope of this exercise to start with by just inviting them to the table. I also think they have to look at quite a different financing structure than the first go around - not just slosh around more or less public money under the same framework. Something creative like ROFRs on City land, or guaranteed equity stake in vertical development with private partners when City land is sold in the area, or something like that.
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Trust the snake.
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