Nenshi says possible Flames move won’t ‘destroy my city’ in Bettman meeting

Mayor Naheed Nenshi is countering the version of events offered by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman regarding a March meeting about a new Calgary Flames arena, suggesting Bettman made a threat and that a team move would destroy the city.

Bettman told Postmedia that when he brought up the possibility that the end result of negotiations would be the team moving, Nenshi simply replied then that’s what would happen.

The commissioner said he knew then that the Flames had no chance of getting a deal that made sense, but Nenshi remembers the meeting differently.

“I remember him saying, ‘you know if you screw this up and the team is forced to move, that will destroy your city and it’ll be very, very bad for politicians who allow that to happen,’ how do you respond to that?” Nenshi said. “By saying look, that would be awful and we’re not going to screw it up, but you know what? That’s not destroying my city, this is a resilient place. And we will continue to work hard on the things that matter to people.”

Nenshi added Bettman was shocked by his response.

“I don’t think he’s used to politicians not caving in to him,” Nenshi said, adding he believes Bettman’s line of questioning was a threat.

“I mean what else would it be? Whenever anyone starts a sentence by saying, ‘I’m not threatening you, but’ it means they’re threatening you,” he said.

The mayor also differs with how Bettman described what happened a few weeks later, claiming Nenshi’s office called his for help in dealing with the Flames, knowing they wouldn’t like the deal the city was going to offer.

“Again, that’s not exactly how things went,” Nenshi said, claiming Bettman asked to be kept up to date and for the city to reach out if he could help. “So we did indeed contact him and say look, this offer is going in, we think it’s a very fair offer, here’s why and if you can help explain that, that would be helpful.”

But according to the Flames, talks broke down in the summer and Bettman joined Flames president and CEO Ken King earlier this month to announce the team was no longer pursuing an arena deal with the city.

ELECTION IMPACT

The arena issue has turned into one of the biggest topics in the election, but Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt said it’s helping Nenshi.

“I thought he was vulnerable on certain grounds, but this has heightened him,” he said.

Looking long-term if Nenshi wins, Bratt said negotiations will get more difficult.

“The Flames have clearly chosen a side during this campaign and I don’t think either of them are going to forget that fact, but at the end of the day these are tough negotiations involving hundreds of millions of dollars, I think a deal will get struck,” he said.

Bratt suspects the arena debate will increase voter turnout.

“The arena is something that everybody has an opinion of, it’s not an esoteric discussion about property taxes or urban sprawl,” he said.

The 2013 turnout was 30 per cent, a decrease from 53 in 2010.

“If I was to split the difference, I’d say in the mid-40s,” Bratt predicts.

Mayoral candidate Bill Smith has said the saga is a reflection of Nenshi’s integrity and councillor Diane Colley-Urquhart said this week that Nenshi made this an election issue by including a new arena as part of his future vision for the city.

But Nenshi said he regrets nothing, while he can’t say the same for the Flames.

“I suspect they regret a lot of what they’ve done over the last several weeks and months,” he said. “I’m not sure this is playing at all the way that the Flames owners thought it might.”

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