Seeing Stars: Creditors Finally Wonder Why Tom Hicks Isn’t Selling Off His Hockey Team

Five months ago, Tom Hicks’s Hicks Sports Group defaulted on a $525 million loan; at the same time, he acknowledged that, yes, he was looking for someone who might be interested in buying some of the Texas Rangers offa him for the right price. Then, at the end of May, Hicks said he was, in fact, trying to find a taker for his majority stake in the now-wild-card-leading ballclub — while, at the same time, Hicks was restructuring his debt in Liverpool in advance of a looming interest payment from Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia due at the end of July. But all along, there’s been one question that’s gone unanswered:  Why isn’t Tom Hicks selling the Dallas Stars?

For really the first time since the issue of Hicks’s debt and default has arisen, there’s some insight into that very query: the Sports Busines Journal reported this morning in a subscription-only story now available in full via the Dallas Business Journal that more than three dozen of HSG’s creditors last month asked Hicks and the National Hockey League how they’re going to straighten out this financial crisis. Hicks has said he doesn’t have to worry about that till August 2010; the creditors insists that, nope, this bill comes due this October. Says one source, “There will be litigation for sure.”