DealZone

Originally set for today and limited to bidders wanting to keep the team in Glendale, Arizona, the auction of the National Hockey League’s Phoenix Coyotes has been postponed to give bidders more time to sort themselves out.

Unfortunately for creditors, the best bid by the dollar — a $212.5 million offer from Research in Motion co-Chief Executive James Balsillie — is currently off the ice. Balsillie wants to move the team to Hamilton, Ontario.

The NHL is intent on keeping the team in Glendale, which has not proven to be much of a hockey town. Hamilton might show more promise, being just a short mushing from successful NHL teams in Detroit and Buffalo. But the ghosts of failed franchises elsewhere in Canada — the Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets — are likely to keep haunting the league. Indeed, particularly superstitious fans may start thinking evil spirits are following the Coyotes franchise, which migrated to Phoenix from Winnipeg, where it counted superstars Bobby Hull and Dale Howerchuck among its stars.

Of the qualified bidders, Ice Edge Holdings, a group of Canadian and U.S. businessmen, has offered up to $150 million, and Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of baseball’s Chicago White Sox and basketball’s Chicago Bulls, has offered up to $148 million. They are the ones who asked the court to give them more time to finalize their offers. But with more time, chances are the economic argument of Balsillie’s bigger bid will win out.

In a hearing on Monday, Judge Baum called Balsillie’s offer the “highest and best,” according to a spokesman for the RIM chief, and said he might consider an auction for bidders wanting to move the team. He is expected to decide that possibility Wednesday.

James Balsillie, the co-CEO of Research-in-Motion, can’t seem to catch a break. Having failed in previous efforts to buy NHL teams in Pittsburgh and Nashville and move them to Hamilton, Ontario, he’s now been shut out in his bid to buy the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes. Arizona bankruptcy Judge Redfield Baum ruled late on Monday that a June 29 deadline set by Balsillie did not allow enough time to settle the complex case. It’s a shame things were so rushed. The decision could yet be a game changer for struggling sports franchises.

Balsillie (pictured above enjoying the game from the ice) and the owner of the Coyotes, trucking magnate Jerry Moyes, offered to put together a $212.5 million deal in May, when the franchise filed for bankruptcy protection, to move the team to Hamilton, about 200 miles northwest of Buffalo, N.Y. But NHL says the franchise is contractually obligated to stay in Phoenix.

Being a judge, Baum took the liberty to say both sides are wrong. He rejected Moyes’ attorneys’ argument that antitrust law allowed the sale and relocation of the Coyotes without NHL approval, and he dismissed concerns of other sports leagues that allowing the Coyotes to relocate would encourage other financially struggling teams to use bankruptcy court to get around league rules.

Jim Balsillie, the co-CEO of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion desperately wants a National Hockey League franchise and relocate it to his native Southern Ontario.

Balsillie has tried twice in recent years to buy a hockey team, only to be blocked by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, who this week assured people there was nothing personal between him and Balsillie. Balsillie is currently locked in a court battle with the NHL in his efforts to move the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes to Hamilton.

On Monday, Balsillie sent in his application to the NHL explaining why the Phoenix Coyotes should move to Hamilton, Ontario and why he’d make a good owner. Late Tuesday, he supplemented that with 22 letters of recommendation from a variety of mostly Canadian VIPs.