Thrasher to Winnipeg…Done?

Late to the party? Me? No way!

Okay, but in my defense, I was watching a hockey game, you know, the playoffs?

Anyway, as we all know by now, Stephen Brunt of the Globe&Mail broke the news earlier that the Thrashers sale to the Winnipeg based sporting group, True North, was a done deal.

That awoke the sports writers everywhere, some agreeing with Brunt, others denying that the deal was complete. If you haven’t heard of any of this yet, go climb back under your rock.

Now, there are a few reasons why I believe fully the deal is completed.

One, Stephen Brunt is as credible as they come. The guy isn’t going to speculate just to be the one who “broke it first”. That isn’t how Brunt is, plain and simple. The guy is very, very reliable and is a truth based writer. He isn’t a beat writer who throws out various tidbits just to get hits on his site. He is very respected in his position. If he were to break this, and it turned out it is untrue, that would follow him his entire writing career.

Two, If any of you follow Evander Kane on twitter, you know this by now. If you don’t, go follow him @EKaneATL9.

Over an hour ago now, the Atlanta Thrasher forward tweeted a link to the story that Stephen Brunt wrote, breaking the deal that the Thrashers were moving to Winnipeg. He hasn’t tweeted since. Very eery to me, as you’d think, why would he tweet the story if it wasn’t true?

Lastly, and this one is a pretty big factor for me. Who owns the Globe&Mail? David Thomsen owns the Globe&Mail. Stephen Brunt writes for, and broke the story on the G&M.

What does that have to do with anything?

Well, who is currently looking at purchasing the Thrashers in order to send them to Winnipeg? That would also be David Thomsen. Now, why would Thomsen’s own paper leak a false report about the team that Thomsen is purchasing?

It makes you think for sure.

Like I said, I believe that the deal is done, it’s only when do they announce that is it complete? Then we have to think about how the divisions will work. Will they keep Winnipeg in the southeast division this season and wait until the 2012-13 season to change things? Or do they fix all of that this off-season as well?

Having a division of Washington, Florida, Tampa, Carolina, and Winnipeg will be quite difficult for the NHL, and will make travel complicated for unnecessary reasons. For my view on how I believe the divisions will match up, you can read that right here.

Going to make a quick edit here, if you need more proof, the NHL isn’t denying it either, actually they are posting it on NHL.com. Seems pretty solid if you ask me.

"According to an unconfirmed and to this point unsubstantiated report in the Globe and Mail, an agreement to sell the National Hockey League’s Atlanta Thrashers to a Winnipeg group which plans to relocate the franchise to the Manitoba capital is done.Sources told the Globe and Mail Thursday night that preparations are being made for an announcement Tuesday of the sale and transfer of the Thrashers to True North Sports and Entertainment, which owns and operates the Manitoba Moose of the American Hockey League and the MTS Centre arena, which would become the NHL team’s new home."

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