Two weeks after the National Hockey League canceled its entire season
for the first time ever, top officials of the sport assembled Tuesday
to consider the previously unthinkable: selling all 30 hockey teams
to a single buyer.


In a half-hour meeting on Tuesday afternoon, three Boston executives,
including Bain Capital partner and Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen
Pagliuca, laid out for hockey's owners and governors a proposal to
purchase the league for $3.3 billion and change the economics of a
game left in crisis by years of losses and a 2004-05 season in which
no puck touched the ice. They received polite applause after the
meeting. But the richest teams in hockey, including the Boston
Bruins, are saying no deal.

''I don't think it's realistic," said Jeremy M. Jacobs, owner of the
Bruins, noting that he can't fathom such a deal in his
lifetime. ''The Bruins are not for sale, plain and simple."

It's a long shot by any measure, even the architects of the proposal
concede. And the price -- which the owners complain is low at an
average of $117 million per team -- is only one of many hurdles.

''Any time you're trying to acquire 30 companies from 30 different
owners, and they happen to be sports teams, I don't think anybody
would think that's an easy thing to do," said Robert L. Caporale,
chairman of Game Plan, the Boston sports advisory firm that conceived
of the buyout idea last spring and brought Bain aboard when the NHL
expressed interest six months ago. But after a season with no games
and a stalemate with the players, Caporale said, hockey needs to
consider a radical solution ''from a business and financial
standpoint -- and for the good of the sport."

The proposal was first reported yesterday by the Toronto Star.

Hockey is plagued with many problems, including anemic television
appeal, a lack of marketing cooperation among teams, and high player
costs as a percent of revenue. All told, the league produces $2
billion in annual revenue, 75 percent of which goes to cover players'
salaries and benefits. In the other major professional sports, player
pay runs from 50 percent to 68 percent of revenue, according to Marc
S. Ganis, president of Sportscorp, Ltd., a Chicago investment banking
firm that focuses on sports teams.

Meanwhile, hockey is sorely testing its fans. Unable to strike a new
collective bargaining agreement with the players union, the NHL
Players' Association, the league on Sept. 15 locked out the players
for the second time in a decade. Even today, management and the
players continue to battle over setting salary caps, which the owners
insist is essential to getting expenses under control. The league has
proposed a $42.5 million ceiling, per team, on spending for salaries
and benefits; the union has asked for $49 million.

Ganis called Bain Capital's buyout offer a culture shock in the
sports world. Bain Capital was founded by Mitt Romney in 1984, long
before he was governor of Massachusetts (he left the firm in 1999 and
no longer has a financial stake in it). Bain makes its money by
acquiring companies like Burger King and KB Toys, cutting their
costs, and reselling them or taking them public in stock offerings.

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When Bain does a large deal, it generally enlists other private
equity firms to chip in. The hockey proposal is attracting interest
not only from other investment firms, according to people involved in
the offer, but from investment banking firms that help raise capital
from Wall Street firms.

Given hockey's financial woes, a buyout is not as outlandish as some
might suggest, Ganis said.

''As the labor situation continues, and the economics of many of the
individual teams deteriorates, there may be a number of team owners
that are more receptive than they are today," Ganis said. Still, he
noted, ''Jerry Jacobs may never change his mind."

A buyout of all the teams in the league would require the agreement
of all of the owners as well as league officials. NHL commissioner
Gary Bettman was open to the proposal, according to people involved
in the meeting, and invited the Boston executives to make the
presentation before the owners earlier this week. But owners of the
richest hockey teams -- such as Cablevision Systems Corp., which
controls the New York Rangers, and Comcast Corp., which owns the
Philadelphia Flyers -- will almost surely reject the buyout at this
price.

The Rangers last year were valued at $282 million, according to
Forbes magazine. The Toronto Maple Leafs were ranked second, at $280
million, while the Flyers were valued at $264 million. The Bruins
ranked number seven, at $236 million.

Under the proposal presented by Game Plan and Bain Capital, there
would be a formula to determine the sale price for each team. The
more valuable teams would fetch higher prices than the less
profitable teams. Game Plan's Caporale said team values have fallen
substantially this year because of the lockout. Last month, Walt
Disney Co. sold its Mighty Ducks hockey team for $80 million, 28
percent below the team's $108 million valuation in 2004.

Harry L. Manion III, a Boston lawyer who worked on the sale of the
bankrupt Pittsburgh Penguins in 1999, said, ''What's a franchise
worth right now, without a season?"

The NHL yesterday declined to comment on the possible buyout of the
league, which would be unprecedented in the major North American
professional sports. Ownership by a single entity is not entirely
new, however. In Major League Soccer, all the teams are owned by a
group of investor-operators, and player contracts are controlled by
the league office, rather than by each team. Shifting hockey from a
traditional structure to single ownership, however, would be
difficult, sports specialists said.

There would be something in this deal for players, people involved in
the offer said -- an equity stake in the team. That means players
could reap gains as the value of the enterprise rose.

Caporale of Game Plan said even the naysayers, like the Bruins'
Jacobs, have to address the woes of the weaker franchises. ''It's
fine to say, 'My team doesn't have financial problems,' " Caporale
said. ''But you can't play yourself."