A rendering of the proposed CalgaryNEXT arena.

The National Hockey League’s Calgary Flames need a new stadium. At least their owners say they do. The 35-year-old Scotiabank Saddledome is perfectly functional, but the team owners’ dream project was CalgaryNEXT, a new Bow-riverside complex home to the Flames and the Canadian Football League’s Stampeders that may also pull in more concert revenue. The proposed multiplex made a compelling pitch until the price tag appeared—$890 million, of which Flames ownership would pitch in just 22 percent. The remainder would come from taxpayers.

Yet even $890 million proved optimistic, as the wildly underestimated price tag inflated to $1.8 billion, with Calgarians assuming two-thirds of the bill. The Flames would also pay no property tax.

An unimpressed municipal government replied with a deal offering a rough 50/50 split in cost with the team paying taxes. Talks quickly broke down when Flames’ ownership opted not to negotiate in good faith, but instead reacted like children denied a new toy. Led by CEO Ken King, the team walked away from negotiations, called in NHL commissioner Gary Bettman to threaten the city, and inappropriately inserted themselves into Calgary’s 2017 mayoral election.

When arena-skeptic Naheed Nenshi was elected to a third term, the Flames’ media relations director tweeted, “Having @nenshi as mayor is worse than @realDonaldTrump being president,” using the hashtags “#arrogant” and “#outoftouch.” Murray Edwards and Clayton Riddell, two of the team’s owners, are worth a combined $4.8 billion. Edwards, Calgary’s second-richest man in 2016, would not have seen a nickel of his tax dollars fund CalgaryNEXT—his legal home is in the United Kingdom.

King’s most recent tactic has been to make the (likely) empty threat of moving the Flames from Calgary, where they have played since 1980. The relocation is improbable. Despite Bettman privately suggesting to Nenshi that the Flames jumping ship could destroy his political career, 75 percent of NHL owners would have to approve the move and open up the logistical mess of reformatting the league’s schedule. One of the most commonly cited possible destinations, Seattle, is now receiving an expansion team, leaving few potential markets offering both Calgary’s size and proven rabid fanbase.

Research from the Washington-based Brookings Institution and others have shown for at least two decades that publicly funding stadiums never works out in taxpayers’ favour—the proposed benefits never materialize anywhere near the extent of making up for costs. Only owners profit. While not new, the debate over taxpayer-funded stadiums has taken an ugly turn in Calgary: Supporters of the NEXT project, like the right-leaning Calgary Sun, have criticized the municipal government for investing in the supposedly wasteful evils of public libraries and bicycle paths. These are services that the majority of Calgarians support and anyone can use, regardless of whether they can afford pricey hockey tickets. The Sun has since deleted the offending article.

All of this could be setting a nasty precedent for Canadian sports cities: that billionaire owners, instead of sitting down to negotiate, can bluff, threaten, and lie to get their way. Historically, Canadian cities have done well in standing up to pro-sport bullying, but the tide is shifting. Quebec City built a $400-million stadium almost entirely with public money to fill a Nordiques-sized hole in their heart, solely in the vain hope of enticing an NHL team back to town. The 2012 renovation of Vancouver’s BC Place also went over budget, up from an initial estimate of $365 million to a final whopping $514 million price tag, all paid for with public cash.

While Calgary has yet to crack under the pressure, the NHL’s Oilers strong-armed the City of Edmonton into paying the majority share of a new arena by threatening to move. Their new rink, whose budget ballooned to $604.5 million, was pitched as part of an urban revitalization project for downtown Edmonton. Dubbed the Ice District, it consists primarily of luxury condos, hotels, and corporate headquarters, and its development is being handled by a real estate company controlled by none other than Oilers owner Daryl Katz.

Taxpayer-funded arenas simply do not benefit taxpayers, as the Calgary saga has shown. But in the face of underhanded tactics and open threats from billionaires denied vanity projects gifted by fans and non-fans alike, the faulty math is worth remembering. Sports franchises, while powerful social institutions and potential sources of civic pride, are simply another form of entertainment. You pay for a film ticket—you don’t subsidize the movie theatre.

With swine flu in the air, the Calgary Flames went to the front of the line. Are they the mythical "Second Tier"?

[Editor’s note: today we introduce “Body Politic,” a new blog column about medicine and public health, written by Lyndsie Bourgon. Visit her website or follow her on Twitter. Body Politic will appear every other Thursday.]

As the Calgary Flames hit the ice this weekend they appeared to show no great superpower, which is what I was hoping would happen when they got their H1N1 shots before the rest of us.

Both the Flames and Maple Leafs made the news for stepping ahead of the pregnant, young, old and needy for flu jabs recently, and in doing so they became unwilling examples of what could happen if a two-tiered health care system were adopted in Canada — that is, if it hasn’t been already.

As flu clinics were overwhelmed and shutting down in Calgary’s Brentwood community, the Flames and 100 of their closest associates and family members lined up for the shot separately. And it’s no surprise that it’s an Alberta team that was one of the first to get caught asking for a preferential care during a global pandemic.

Alberta’s health care policy plays an important role in the debate surrounding two-tiered health care in Canada. For years Albertan politicians have argued that the “third way” of health care could be the saving grace of a backed-up, overwhelmed medical system. What better way for the privileged to get the care they need than by paying for it? And those poor people can still receive their public option, too.

Officials fired the two top health care workers related to the case, and Ontario is “investigating” how players received the shot. But it was Alberta Liberal opposition leader David Swann who hit the real issue:

“It’s a failure of leadership that we are providing vaccines willy-nilly to whoever has money, to whoever has access, when cancer patients, when chronic lung patients, when pregnant women and their children can’t get it… It’s a violation of the basic principles of public health care.”

While it’s true that two-tier health care could theoretically relieve some strain on the health care system by lessening wait times and work loads at public facilities, the H1N1 vaccine debacle shows what’s likely to happen when the idea is exploited in Canada — during true medical emergencies, those with enough money will trump those who are in true need of treatment that cannot (or will not), for whatever reason, jump the line.

But who can blame them? What’s wrong with this scenario is not just that the Flames or the Leafs decided to hunt out the H1N1 shots for themselves. It’s the idea that players are somehow socially exempt from waiting in line with us common folk because they can pay for something more. It’s the same treatment that skips them to the front of months-long wait lists for MRIs and reconstructive surgeries.

Hockey might be our national pastime, but our players shouldn’t be treated like superheroes when it comes to the health system.