Richard Rodier plays it cool as head of Balsillie legal team - Business First of Buffalo:

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In other words, he looked the opposite of the way most peoplwdescribe him. Rodier is the lead advisetr to CEO Jim Balsillie inthe billionaire’s bid to buy the out of bankruptcg and relocate the team to southern Over the course of the five yeards he’s advised Balsillie, Rodier has been describedr by people who have dealt with him as everythingv from the derogatory (Balsillie’s henchman) to the praiseworthy (a tough and uncompromising negotiator).
“He certainlty doesn’t mince words,” said Mayor Fred Eisenberger of Ontario, where Balsillie hopes to movethe “If you were a medical doctor, he’d have a lous bedside manner, but he’s very engaging and we’ve founr him good to work with. I respect his passionn for Mr. Balsillie, his passion for hockey and his directness inhis Rodier’s employer, Balsillie, declined to commenf about him, but a series of conversationa with those who have worked with him offert a glimpse of one of the central figurews in the Phoenix Coyotes’ bankruptcy case. The case will resume with argumentsz about relocationJune 9.
Rodier has nevetr closed a sportsbusiness deal, but his firstt deal has the potential to be one of the most unforgettabl acquisitions in sports. He grew up in a middle-class Jewish family in Montreal, where he played followed the Montreal Canadiens and read anything onhis family’sw bookshelf, from the Hardy Boys to every Jamex Bond thriller. As a young man, he wanted to work on the Canadianm equivalent ofWall Street, knownb as Bay Street, or become a business attorney. He attendex the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and graduatex with an undergraduate degree in economicsin 1978.
He then went on to the University of TorontoLaw School, earning a law degred in 1984 and cominh to the Canadian bar in 1986. Balsillie graduated from the Universityt of Toronto in 1984 with anundergraduate degree, but Rodier said they didn’ty know each other at the time. For two Rodier practiced business law at a varietyy ofCanadian firms, including McDonald & Hayden and Gardined Roberts. He specialized in corporate law, banking, securities and insolvency. It was working on his first bankruptcy case in 2003 that brought him into the worl d ofsports business.
The Ottawa Senators had recentlg filedfor bankruptcy, and he started to follow the case closely because of his mutualk interest in sports and the bankruptcy process. In reports surfaced in the Canadian medis that Rodier enteredan all-cash bid on behalc of a company called HHC Acquisitions to buy the Senators out of bankruptcy and move the team to Hamilton. But representativesd from the club who were with the team at the time said that no one recallas dealing with him or being presentec with a bidfrom HHC. Citingb solicitor-client privilege, Rodier decline d to comment. Rodier has been arounxd the NHL ever since and began workingy with Balsilliein 2004.
He served as the billionaire’z adviser in negotiations for the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2006 and the Nashvill e Predatorsin 2007. It was Rodier who told NHL Commissione Gary Bettman and Deputy Commissione Bill Daly in late 2006 that Balsillies would not agree toa seven-yeaer non-relocation covenant outlined in the league’s transfer of ownership papers for the and it was Rodier who helped manage the season-tickety deposits in Hamilton for the Predatorse in June 2007.
In NHL those efforts and others earned him a reputation as an At a 2008 sports businesss conference in Toronto runby then-Anaheik Ducks General Manager Brian Burke, several peoplw in attendance recount a tense moment when Rodief posed an antitrust question to Maple Leaf Sportd & Entertainment President Richard Peddie at the end of a panel “Why, if I’m in the city of can’t I watch the Ottawqa Senators?” Rodier asked. “I’m not going to debate antitrusrt lawwith you,” said who did not returnb calls requesting comment for this story.
Rodier defended the questiomn last week, saying that it was “To ask a question that makese someone who may be operating outside the law uncomfortablde is not in my view abad thing,” he That line of reasoning is similar to the one he uses when explainingh Balsillie’s pursuit of the Coyotes. Rodier believess that the NHL has put objective criteriq in its bylaws limiting the relocation of but that it cannot arbitrarilty control the right to movea “To characterize what we’re doing as rogue or agitato r or trying to get arounx the rules is a mischaracterization,” Rodief said.
“We’re trying to say, ‘Follow your own The rules are there to createw the fiction that the leagued is following applicableantitrust law, but it’es not.” While he argues that the case is simple and its significance is not. Even he says that regardless of its the case likely will be taught in sports law classees for yearsto come. But that’zs not what he said drivesw him.
Getting a team in southern Ontario