FanHouse HenrySamueli

After hearing the news this week, you might be asking the same questions that I am. How is it that crooks and hooligans such as William "Boots" Del Biaggio and Henry Samueli are allowed into the exclusive NHL Owner's Club and a seemingly stand up guy (unless you're from Nashville/Pittsburgh) who actually has money thanks to Blackberry, Jim Balsillie, is not.

Yes, Balsillie tried to grab the Predators and run to Hamilton. Yes, he tried a similar escapade with the Penguins. Patience is obviously not something in his vocabulary. But when you look at what some NHL owners have done in recent days, you begin to wonder what in the world the selection process to become one entails. I imagine it's got a lot more to do with sweet talking NHL HQ and having the appearance of riches than what your management principles and moral values are.

Now don't get me wrong. There are a ton of great owners in the NHL (Charles Wang, Ted Leonsis, Mike Ilitch are just a few that come to mind). The majority are stand up guys and the two that have run into trouble are the small, small minority here. All I'm wondering is how, 12 years after John Spano managed to buy the Islanders with barely $2 million to his name and subsequently went to jail for fraud, that the NHL hasn't tightened it's approval process.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Anaheim Ducks owner Henry Samueli has pleaded guilty to charges that he lied to representatives of the Securities and Exchange Commission while they were investigating his role in the backdating of stock options at Broadcom, the company he co-founded. As part of a plea agreement, Samueli will serve five years probation and agree to pay a $12.2 million fine.

So what does it mean for the Ducks? Not a whole lot. Sure, this is an embarrassing and humiliating experience for Samueli -- a man who some would argue didn't do anything at Broadcom that plenty of other high-tech companies were doing at the same time -- but NHL Vice President Bill Daly has already said it wouldn't affect his ownership of the Ducks. While a $12.2 million fine would sting anybody, Samueli, whose net worth was pegged by Forbes back in 2003 at about $2.3 billion, can afford it pretty easily.