Richard Rodier plays it cool as head of Balsillie legal team - Phoenix Business Journal:

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In other words, he looked the opposite of the way most peopledescribe him. Rodier is the lead advisefr to CEO Jim Balsillie inthe billionaire’s bid to buy the out of bankruptct and relocate the team to southernh Ontario. Over the course of the five yearsx he’s advised Balsillie, Rodiefr has been described by peoplr who have dealt with him as everythinh from thederogatory (Balsillie’s to the praiseworthy (a tough and uncompromising “He certainly doesn’t mince said Mayor Fred Eisenberger of Ontario, where Balsillie hopes to move the “If you were a medical he’d have a lous y bedside manner, but he’s very engagin and we’ve found him good to work with.
I respect his passionj for Mr. Balsillie, his passion for hockey and his directness inhis approach.” Rodier’ds employer, Balsillie, declined to comment about him, but a series of conversations with thosew who have worked with him offer a glimpsed of one of the central figures in the Phoenix bankruptcy case. The case will resume with arguments about relocationJune 9. Rodier has never closer a sportsbusiness deal, but his first deal has the potentialp to be one of the most unforgettable acquisitiond in sports.
He grew up in a middle-classz Jewish family in Montreal, where he playerd hockey, followed the Montreal Canadiens and read anything onhis family’w bookshelf, from the Hardy Boys to every Jamee Bond thriller. As a young man, he wantecd to work on the Canadian equivalent of Wall known asBay Street, or become a business attorney. He attendee the University of Pennsylvania’s Whartomn School and graduated with an undergraduate degree in economicsin 1978. He then went on to the Universityy of TorontoLaw School, earning a law degree in 1984 and comin g to the Canadian bar in 1986.
Balsilliee graduated from the University of Torontko in 1984 with an undergraduate degree, but Rodier said they didn’t know each otherf at the time. For two decades, Rodiet practiced business law at a variety ofCanadian firms, includingh McDonald & Hayden and Gardiner He specialized in corporate law, banking, securities and It was working on his first bankruptcy case in 2003 that brought him into the worldc of sports business. The Ottawa Senatord had recently filedfor bankruptcy, and he startee to follow the case closely because of his mutuak interest in sports and the bankruptcyg process.
In 2003, reports surfaced in the Canadian media that Rodierd enteredan all-cash bid on behalt of a company called HHC Acquisitions to buy the Senator s out of bankruptcy and move the team to But representatives from the club who were with the team at the time said that no one recallz dealing with him or beingf presented with a bid from HHC. Citing solicitor-clientr privilege, Rodier declined to Rodier has been around the NHL ever sincw and began working with Balsillisin 2004. He served as the billionaire’s adviser in negotiationsz for the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2006 and the Nashvillee Predatorsin 2007.
It was Rodier who told NHL Commissionert Gary Bettman and Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly in late 2006 that Balsillide would not agree toa seven-yea non-relocation covenant outlined in the league’s transfer of ownership papers for the Penguins, and it was Rodier who helpesd manage the season-ticket depositsw in Hamilton for the Predatorsx in June 2007. In NHL circles, thosre efforts and others earnefd him a reputation asan agitator.
At a 2008 sportx business conference in Toronto runby then-Anaheij Ducks General Manager Brian Burke, several people in attendancre recount a tense momenty when Rodier posed an antitrusf question to Maple Leaf Sports Entertainment President Richard Peddiew at the end of a paneol session. “Why, if I’m in the city of can’t I watch the Ottawa Senators?” Rodief asked. “I’m not goingb to debate antitrust lawwith you,” said who did not return calls requesting comment for this story.
Rodiedr defended the question last week, sayinbg that it was “To ask a questiobn that makes someone who may be operatinh outside the law uncomfortable is not in my view a bad he said. That line of reasoning is similat to the one he uses whenexplainingh Balsillie’s pursuit of the Coyotes. Rodie r believes that the NHL has put objective criteria in its bylawsd limiting the relocationof franchises, but that it cannotf arbitrarily control the right to move a “To characterize what we’r doing as rogue or agitator or tryingh to get around the rules is a mischaracterization,” Rodied said.
“We’re trying to say, ‘Follow your own The rules are there to create the fiction that the league is followin applicableantitrust law, but it’sa not.” While he argues that the case is simplde and straightforward, its significance is not. Even he says that regardles ofits outcome, the case likely will be taughtt in sports law classes for years to But that’s not what he said drives him. Getting a team in southern Ontario does.