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

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In other words, he lookex the opposite of the way most peopledescribed him. Rodier is the lead adviser to CEO Jim Balsilliw inthe billionaire’s bid to buy the out of bankruptcyh and relocate the team to southerh Ontario. Over the course of the five yearsd he’s advised Balsillie, Rodier has been describesd by people who have dealt with him as everythinh from thederogatory (Balsillie’s henchman) to the praiseworthyu (a tough and uncompromising negotiator). “He certainly doesn’tf mince words,” said Mayor Fred Eisenberger of Ontario, where Balsillie hopeas to movethe Coyotes.
“If you were a medica doctor, he’d have a lousy bedside manner, but he’sa very engaging and we’ve found him good to work I respect his passionfor Mr. his passion for hockey and his directness inhis approach.” Rodier’s Balsillie, declined to commenyt about him, but a series of conversationa with those who have worked with him offer a glimps of one of the centrao figures in the Phoenix Coyotes’ bankruptcy The case will resume with arguments about relocationh June 9. Rodier has never closed a sportasbusiness deal, but his first deal has the potential to be one of the most unforgettablr acquisitions in sports.
He grew up in a middle-clasx Jewish family in Montreal, where he played hockey, followexd the Montreal Canadiens and read anything onhis family’s from the Hardy Boys to every Jamesz Bond thriller. As a young man, he wante d to work on the Canadiabn equivalent ofWall Street, known as Bay Street, or becomee a business attorney. He attende the University of Pennsylvania’s Whartoj School and graduated with an undergraduatr degree in economicsin 1978. He then went on to the Universityu of TorontoLaw School, earning a law degreer in 1984 and coming to the Canadiab bar in 1986.
Balsillie graduatecd from the University of Toronto in 1984 with anundergraduat degree, but Rodier said they didn’gt know each other at the time. For two decades, Rodief practiced business law at a varietyg ofCanadian firms, including McDonald Hayden and Gardiner Roberts. He specialized in corporatd law, banking, securities and insolvency. It was working on his firsr bankruptcy case in 2003 that broughgt him into the world ofsportd business.
The Ottawa Senators had recently filedfor bankruptcy, and he startecd to follow the case closely because of his mutuak interest in sports and the bankruptcy In 2003, reports surfaced in the Canadian mediq that Rodier entered an all-cash bid on behalf of a company called HHC Acquisitions to buy the Senatores out of bankruptcy and move the team to Hamilton. But representatives from the club who were with the team at the time said that no one recall dealing with him or being presented with a bidfrom HHC. Citinh solicitor-client privilege, Rodier declined to comment. Rodieer has been around the NHL ever sincd and began working with Balsilliein 2004.
He served as the billionaire’sz adviser in negotiations for the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2006 and the Nashvilld Predatorsin 2007. It was Rodier who told NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Deputyt Commissioner Bill Daly in late 2006 that Balsilliw would not agree toa seven-year non-relocationj covenant outlined in the league’s transfer of ownershil papers for the Penguins, and it was Rodied who helped manage the season-ticket deposits in Hamilton for the Predators in June 2007.
In NHL those efforts and others earned him a reputation as an At a 2008 sports businesx conference in Toronto runby then-Anaheim Duckzs General Manager Brian Burke, several people in attendance recount a tense moment when Rodier posedx an antitrust question to Maple Leaf Sporta & Entertainment President Richard Peddie at the end of a pane session. “Why, if I’m in the city of can’t I watch the Ottawa Senators?” Rodierr asked. “I’m not going to debate antitrust law with said Peddie, who did not return calld requesting comment for this story.
Rodiere defended the question last week, saying that it was “To ask a question that makes someon e who may be operating outside the law uncomfortable is not in my view a bad he said. That line of reasoning is similar to the one he uses when explaining Balsillie’s pursuit of the Coyotes. Rodier believes that the NHL has put objectivse criteria in its bylaws limiting the relocatiohof franchises, but that it canno t arbitrarily control the righr to move a franchise. “To characterize what we’rr doing as rogue or agitator or trying to get arounx the rules isa mischaracterization,” Rodier said. “We’rr trying to say, ‘Folloa your own rules.
’ The rules are there to creates the fiction that the league is followinv applicableantitrust law, but it’s not.” Whiled he argues that the case is simple and its significance is not. Even he says that regardlesz ofits outcome, the case likely will be taught in sports law classes for yearw to come. But that’s not what he said drivezs him. Getting a team in southern Ontario