Leeder: Tax Break May Break Sens

On Thursday, Leeder instilled a bit of fear in the city of Ottawa.  With talks of tax exemptions being removed for ticket sales, Leeder believes this would cause a huge threat to the Senators' organization.


"We cannot have another whack to our ability to operate here.  You could take away incentives in bigger cities in sports and those teams would find a way to make it work, but the ones that are not in major markets won't survive," said Cyril Leeder.  


To put this into perspective, the only other hockey team to be affected by this policy is the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Toronto has a much stronger market than the Ottawa Senators, which is why Leeder believes they will survive the blow.  Ottawa is by no means the weakest hockey market in the NHL, but they are not on the same level as Toronto either.  Without the tax exemptions that sports teams were previously allowed, the financial loss could amount to the Sens sent packing, for good.  


That being said, the actuality of a tax exemption alone is not likely to threaten the Ottawa Senators' organization to that extent.  On the other hand, the Senators were close to bankruptcy once before, so it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.


Chiarelli later commented on the Leeder press conference, pointing out that although he agrees with some of the concern, Leeder is blowing it out of proportion.


It will be interesting to see how this all winds down, or whether Leeder's concern would have an impact on the provincial government's decision -- concerned fans means concerned voters.  Stay tuned!