Eugene Melnyk is the owner of two Ontario Hockey League teams that play in the same division.

Melnyk, who also owns the NHL's Ottawa Senators and their home rink, Scotiabank Place, has purchased the Mississauga IceDogs from Mario Forgione and NHL defenceman Chris Pronger.

Melnyk plans to eventually flip the team to new owners who will move it out of Mississauga and thus make room in the city's Hershey Centre for his St. Michael's Majors, which currently play in the tiny and aging St. Michael's College School Arena in downtown Toronto.

Melnyk, a St. Mike's alumnus, needed unanimous consent from OHL owners to own two teams at once and got that last month.

The league did not set a deadline for Melnyk to sell the IceDogs.





''That would be most unfair and unreasonable,'' OHL commissioner David Branch said Wednesday. ''It's clearly understood that from a league perspective and Mr. Melnyk's that sooner is clearly better.''

Melnyk, the majority shareholder of the pharmaceutical company Biovail, has been looking for a way to get the Majors into a bigger and better building since he bought the team in 2001, including a failed bid for Maple Leaf Gardens.

He had also looked at building a new arena in Vaughn and Markham as well as on the St. Michael's campus.

''This is an interim step, but a step at least for the Majors to move into a great arena,'' Melnyk told The Fan 590, an all-sports radio station in Toronto.

Forgione bought the IceDogs for $4.2 million in 2003 and Melnyk paid an estimated $9 million for the team, according to the Mississauga News.

It was cheaper to buy the IceDogs and move into their building than to build a new arena.

The OHL's constitution discourages dual ownership, said Branch, but there is room for it if there is unanimous consent.

The league set conditions on Melnyk doubling up and one of them is that the teams cannot trade players or draft picks to each other for up to a year after the IceDogs are sold to new owners.

The OHL will also choose an independent governor to oversee the IceDogs next season.

''The uncomfortable part is I'm sure there is going to be people on the outside that, optically, are going to say `hold on here, this isn't right,''' Branch said. ''We've really worked diligently to ensure that there is going to be absolutely no cause for concern as to the competitive aspects of these two franchises in relation to themselves and the league.

''It will be business as usual and two distinct, separate hockey operations.''

The teams will continue to operate out of their respective home rinks for the upcoming season.

Where the IceDogs end up is important to the league and the owners must approve Melnyk's sale to the new owners.

''There's a couple of areas that jump out that are going to be considered, upstate New York, the Niagara peninsula, North Bay as an example as well,'' Branch said.

The Majors' record was 32-26-6-4 while the IceDogs went 21-40-5-2 last season.

The Majors will be called the Mississauga St. Michael's Majors once they move into the Hershey Centre.

The Niagara Falls Review has reported that the company JDS Delcor is in negotiations with that city to try and bring an OHL franchise there.

After Mississauga and the Brampton Battalion both joined the league for the 1998-99 season, the OHL put the lid on further expansion.

The North Bay Centennials were sold and moved to Saginaw, Mich., in 2002.

The St. Michael's arena has a capacity of about 1,600, but averaged between 800 and 900, and the ice surface is not regulation size.

Melnyk said the building was affecting the team's ability to draft players and get Europeans to play for the Majors.