Sports Franchise Owner
On August 26, 2003, Melnyk purchased the Ottawa Senators hockey club of the NHL and their arena, Scotiabank Place out of bankruptcy. He is the sole owner and holds the titles of governor and chairman.
Melnyk's first sports franchise purchase was the St. Michael's Majors of the Ontario Hockey League in 2001. Until 2007, the club played at the St. Michael's College School's Arena in Toronto, but has now relocated to Mississauga, Ontario. As there was a club already in Mississauga, the IceDogs, Melnyk purchased the IceDogs in 2006 and resold them in 2007 to move the Majors into the IceDogs home arena. The new ownership of the IceDogs has relocated the team to St. Catharines, Ontario and is now known as the Niagara IceDogs. On May 10, 2012, Melnyk sold the St. Michael's Majors to Elliott Kerr for an undisclosed price.
On September 16, 2008, Melnyk proposed plans for an Ottawa Major League Soccer professional soccer team, and a new soccer-specific Ottawa Soccer Stadium.
Read more about this topic: Eugene Melnyk
Famous quotes containing the words sports, franchise and/or owner:
“In the past, it seemed to make sense for a sportswriter on sabbatical from the playpen to attend the quadrennial hawgkilling when Presidential candidates are chosen, to observe and report upon politicians at play. After all, national conventions are games of a sort, and sports offers few spectacles richer in low comedy.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“To-day women constitute the only class of sane people excluded from the franchise ...”
—Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842–1906)
“Those Maine woods differ essentially from ours. There you are never reminded that the wilderness which you are threading is, after all, some villager’s familiar wood-lot, some widow’s thirds, from which her ancestors have sledded fuel for generations, minutely described in some old deed which is recorded, of which the owner has got a plan, too, and old bound-marks may be found every forty rods, if you will search.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)