P.E.I. group presents offer to keep Rocket; city and province might be on board

The P.E.I. Rocket could live on to become the P.E.I. Islanders after all, instead of the return of les Éperviers de Sorel.

P.E.I.'s flagship newspaper, The Guardian, reports that a prospective group has come forward with a letter of intent to purchase the P.E.I. Rocket franchise and keep them in Charlottetown. Both the league and the current owners of the Rocket have read the letter, and the ball is in their court to respond.

From the looks of things, the group’s structure is set up similarly to the new Acadie-Bathurst Titan ownership. Grant Sonier, a Prince Edward Island native and former NHL employee in various positions, is acting as the leader of the group and the group’s spokesman.

Sonier was interviewed during in the first intermission of Game 4 between the Halifax Mooseheads and the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies by Mooseheads play-by-play man John Moore. Sonier feels that the group has put their best offer forward.

"We've stepped up to the plate and we feel we've done all the due diligence to make as attractive of an offer as we can,” Sonier said to Moore.

“We'll wait between now and the noon deadline. If it means we're up all night working, then we're up all night working ... We went public because we want people to understand that we're serious."

Later Thursday, Moore tweeted that he’s heard the group now has support from the city of Charlottetown and the provincial government.

The league instituted an April 26 deadline for the sale of the Rocket before the league would buy the franchise. It was then heavily rumoured that the league would sell the franchise to a Sorel-Tracy, Que.-based group including NHL players Marc-André Fleury and François Beauchemin.

Outgoing president and governor Serge Savard, Jr., said that the price tag on the team was in the same neighborhood as the Titan, around $3.5 million. Two weeks ago, the Titan were sold to group of local investors led by Léopold Thériault, a steel businessman. The group includes several NHL players, including Titan alumnus Patrice Bergeron of the Boston Bruins.

Sonier is confident that the group putting the offer forward will be able to deliver with a successful hockey team to Charlottetown.

"The group has a great deal of people who have hockey knowledge and hockey experience and it has a great deal of business experience," Sonier reiterated to Moore.

"Those are two of the major reasons we feel we can make this work, above and beyond that we feel if we put a good product on the ice, the people of Prince Edward Island will support this team.

"We’re working in hours, not days or weeks."

Mike Sanderson is QMJHL correspondent for Buzzing The Net.