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During a lengthy deposition on April 16, one of the Seattle SuperSonics co-owners said that contrary to the e-mails and statements that have emerged in a lawsuit against the team, he and other team owners had "poured our heart and soul" into trying to keep the team in the Seattle area.

Sonics co-owner Aubrey McClendon was questioned for six hours by Paul Lawrence, an attorney for the city of Seattle, which is seeking to force the Sonics to honor their KeyArena lease and play there through 2010. The trial in the city's lawsuit against the Sonics' owners is scheduled to begin June 16.

The content of two more e-mails was revealed in the transcript of the deposition, which was released Friday afternoon in response to public disclosure requests from the Seattle-area media.

According to the Seattle Times, McClendon believed the situation would actually improve the likelihood of moving the Sonics to Oklahoma City, telling Roth in an e-mail: "The reality is it just improves OKC's chances of getting them [the Sonics] here year after next."

Roth responded in the e-mail: "Yes, and then we all win."

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For the past few years, hockey has been drifting into a quiet irrelevance, starting with the disastrous lockout, losing its ESPN contract and watching the stars from its glory days hang up their skates. Heck, the South Sound even saw the Tacoma Sabercats fold.

But times have changed.

All of a sudden, hockey is hot again. No, it will never reach the heights it had say around 1995, when people were predicting it might overtake basketball for No. 3 in the sports hierarchy. Yes, the TV contract is still terrible (have you found Vs. on your cable guide yet?).

But with an exciting stable of young stars, captivating storylines, and the Pittsburgh-Detroit Stanley Cup Finals capping off an exciting postseason, hockey is enjoying somewhat of a renaissance both on and off the ice.

And thus, it's a perfect time for Seattle to take advantage.

With the Sonics seemingly on their way to browner pastures, the opportunity is wide open for the NHL to plant a team into a major media market in the northern half of the country, create a fantastic natural rivalry and scoop the NBA by entrenching itself as the sole winter sport in a fairly solid sports town.

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SEATTLE -- Clay Bennett wants his SuperSonics to play in Oklahoma City next season because it's his hometown. That, and about 80 million other reasons.

The Sonics owner says his team would make almost $20 million if it played in Oklahoma City during the next two years. He suggests the team will lose more than $60 million -- about 20 percent of what he paid for it -- if it stays in Seattle for two more "lame duck" seasons.

That was among the revelations from Bennett's testimony in a 13-hour, 373-page deposition obtained by the Associated Press late Friday night. The deposition was given in advance of the June 16 trial of the city of Seattle's lawsuit, which seeks to have the team play out the remainder of its KeyArena lease.

Bennett is expected to testify in the trial before U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman.

The Oklahoma businessman was videotaped and appeared in court transcripts to have remained composed throughout the persistent, often repetitive questioning April 23 in Oklahoma City by Paul Lawrence, an attorney representing Seattle. Lawrence and Bradley Keller, a lawyer for Bennett's Professional Basketball Club LLC, traded accusations and barbs throughout the testy day.

Testimony revealed the Sonics lost $23 million in 2004 and $29 million in 2005, when they were owned by Starbucks Corp. chairman Howard Schultz and 57 other Seattle-area investors.

Bennett and his co-owners paid $350 million for the team in July 2006. He said his Sonics lost $32 million in the 2007-08 season amid fan apathy, anger and the worst record (20-62) in the franchise's 41-year history in Seattle.