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David Braley, shown in this 2002 photo, is the new owner of the Toronto Argonauts. (Kevin Frayer/Canadian Press)

David Braley is now the owner of two CFL franchises.

The Toronto Argonauts announced Tuesday night that co-owners David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski had reached an agreement to sell their club to Braley, who also owns the B.C. Lions. The go had been rumoured for weeks.

Braley is a Hamilton businessman who owns Orlick Industries Ltd., an auto parts manufacturer. A former owner of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, he bought the B.C. Lions in 1997.

CFL commissioner Mark Cohon dismissed concerns about one person owning two teams, or 25 per cent of the league.

“We’d rather have one guy with considerable means who likes the game sit atop two franchises, than having a stop-gap measure and not get the right people into one of our most vital franchises,” Cohon said.

“What I want to make sure of is that the league is in a stronger position moving forward, and I reckon under David’s helm it will be.

“Clearly, David has a like for this league and he wants to make sure that southern Ontario, and in particular the GTA, is strong. We’re not putting any timeline on [Braley owning two teams] because we want the fans in both cities to know that he’s committed to both franchises.”

Financial details of the deal were not told.

Braley wasn’t available for comment Tuesday and is expected to speak with the media Wednesday. But in a statement he addressed his first order of business: the status of GM Adam Rita and president Bob Nicholson, stating both men will remain with the organization.

“I believe strongly in the Argonauts brand and will work to turn the Double Blue into a winning team on the field and a leading franchise within the Canadian Football League,” Braley said. “It will take time and effort, but I am extremely confident that with the right people and plot in place, we will succeed on behalf of Argos fans.”

Looks for improvement

Braley, a former interim CFL commissioner, didn’t rule out selling the Argos some day but stressed that his most pressing need now is improving the team and franchise.

And there’s plenty of work to do. Braley takes over an Argos club that posted a league-worst 3-15 record last season and has missed the CFL playoffs the last two years. Earlier Tuesday, the Argos hired Jim Barker as their new coach, replacing Bart Andrus, who was fired in December after just one season.

Surprisingly, there’s nothing in the CFL’s constitution preventing one person from owning two different teams. There’s also plenty of support within the board of governors for Braley having two franchises.

But, recent constitutional amendments mean Cohon must be informed of any financial transactions made between owners, thus making transparency. And Cohon made it clear his mandate is to do what’s in the best interests of the CFL as a whole.

“Any transactions between the football clubs I have to approve and I have the power to veto them if I don’t deem them as honest market value,” he said. “We’ll work forward in the future to make sure we don’t schedule Argos and Lions games late into the season.

“There’s a number of steps we can take to make sure the integrity of the game is there.”

Cynamon and Sokolowski have spent much of the off-season kicking around the thought of selling the franchise they rescued, or securing additional business partners to help offset their mounting losses.

“I’m very sad,” Cynamon told The Canadian Press. “This is not a day that I really envisioned happening when I bought the team.”

‘A lot of interest’

A CFL source requesting anonymity said at least one group inquired about purchasing the Argos and had a representative meet with Cynamon and Sokolowski. But, the meeting finished quickly when the asking price was unveiled at between $12 million and $15 million.

Cohon said there was a lot of interest in the Argos, which extended the process. Cynamon and Sokolowski assumed control of the team seven years ago.

The two owners, with help from the CFL, had also attempted to land a new partner this off-season — reportedly approaching both TSN and Edmonton Oilers owner Daryl Katz.

According to a published report, Katz was interested but backed away, leaving Braley as the only viable alternative.

Last June, it was revealed that Braley fronted Sokolowski and Cynamon half their $2-million franchise fee to buy the Argos and continued to lend the team money.

Cynamon and Sokolowski joined forces to rescue the Argos from bankruptcy seven years ago. The team had been abandoned on the league’s doorstep by Sherwood Schwarz, the New York insurance magnate who had grown weary of suffering multimillion-dollar losses.

“We saved it from non-existence,” Cynamon said. “We don’t buy this team, it doesn’t exist. There was nobody else even kicking the tires. We reckon we’ve brought the brand up to respectability on the street — and that’s proven in the corporate sponsorship and ticket sales, which are in the triple-digit percentage growth increase.”

The duo won the Grey Cup in their first full season in charge, beating the B.C. Lions in 2004, and nearly seemed destined to kick-starting a renaissance of Canadian football in the league’s most stubborn market. There was talk of a new stadium, and the promise of a stable franchise.

Some of the edges had already begun to fray. Plans for a new stadium on the University of Toronto’s downtown campus were opposed by some members of the school’s faculty, as well as students and local residents. The venue was envisioned to seat 25,000 and follow in the model of Molson Stadium, which had helped make tickets for the Alouettes a hot commodity in Montreal.

Stayed at Rogers Centre

The Argos were forced to go on and, after a similar plot dissolved at York University north of the downtown core, they settled back into Rogers Centre, signing a long-term lease in the venue they had been trying to escape.

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, the parent company of the Maple Leafs and Raptors, had out-flanked the Argos to win a seat at what is now BMO Field — home of the well loved Toronto FC soccer team.

Cynamon said he and Sokolowski exhausted all other avenues before committing to a sale, listing the failure to land the Argos their own, smaller venue as the major problem. Without that stadium, he said he felt he and Sokolowski had taken the Argos as far as they could.

“It’s a business day, but it’s a very sad one,” Cynamon said. “I reckon there’s a lot more emotion that goes into a public entity and a sports franchise than a typical business. Even though this is a relatively small transaction for Howard and I — somewhat immaterial in financial terms — it’s the most material in emotional terms.”

The Vancouver Canucks fell victim to two red-hot hockey players in Antero Niittymaki and Martin St. Louis.

Niittymaki stopped 39 of 40 shots and St. Louis scored twice in the third period, including the small-handed winner, as the Tampa Bay Lightning struck down the visiting Canucks 3-1 on Tuesday night.

St. Louis also earned an help, while Steven Stamkos contributed a goal and help for the Lightning (26-21-11), winners of four straight games and seven of their last nine (7-1-1).

It is Tampa Bay’s first four-game winning streak since November 2007.

Ryan Kesler answered with a power-play goal for the Canucks (35-21-2), now 2-3 on their eight-game, pre-Olympic road trek.

“We want to make sure we are better than .500 on the road trip,” Canucks netminder Roberto Luongo said. “Our road record is not where we want it to be and we have to find ways to be better on the road.”

Vancouver had several chances to open the scoring early in the first period, with both Mikael Samuelsson and Henrik Sedin ringing shots off the left post and Steve Bernier clanking a shot off the crossbar behind Niittymaki.

At the other end, Stamkos staked Tampa Bay to a 1-0 lead eight minutes into the contest, firing a wrist shot from the faceoff circle past Luongo for his 31st goal this season.

Stamkos has points in each of his past 10 games, compiling eight goals and eight assists over that span.

The Canucks outshot the Lightning 15-5 in the second, but Niittymaki held them at bay, including foiling Alex Burrows on a breakaway.

But with seven seconds left, Kesler received a return pass from Christian Erhoff off a faceoff and counted his 15th goal on a rising screen shot from the top of the circle.

“It was a fantastic screen by Bernier and a fantastic shot by Kesler,” Canucks assistant coach Rick Bowness said.

St. Louis restored Tampa Bay’s lead on an odd-man rush with Stamkos 2:52 into the third period, collecting Kyle Wellwood’s blind pass in the neutral zone and curling the puck inside of Erhoff before snapping a shot between Luongo’s pads for a gorgeous small-handed tally.

Luongo kept the Canucks within striking distance with a lunging glove save on Vincent Lecavalier — it was upheld by video review — but St. Louis’ second goal of the game and 20th overall completed the scoring with 4:20 remaining.

With files from The Canadian Press

The Ottawa Senators continue to breathe down the necks of the NHL Northeast Division-leading Buffalo Sabres.

The Senators notched their 12th win in the last 13 games with a 3-2 come-from-behind win over the visiting Calgary Flames on Tuesday.

The win also snapped the Sens’ five-game losing streak against the Flames (29-22-9), who have now lost two straight.

Ottawa (34-22-4) went into a tie in points with the Sabres, who picked up a solitary point in their shootout loss to the Boston Bruins on Tuesday.

Buffalo (32-18-8) still controls the division and the third seed in the Eastern Conference by virtue of having the better point-percentage, having played two fewer games.

Jason Spezza’s terrible-angle goal late in the second period stood up as the game winner for Ottawa while Calgary’s Jarome Iginla had two assists — his ninth and 10th points in the last eight games — in a losing effort.

For better or worse for their new team, two former Toronto Maple Leafs had a hand in both goals in the first period.

Niklas Hagman scored his first goal as a Flame to open the scoring 16:51 in, thanks to a fantastic feed from Iginla.

With the Calgary captain leading a 3-on-2 rush into the Senators zone, Hagman took a pass in the slot and launched a slapshot over the glove of Brian Elliot and into the top corner.

That lead lasted only 19 seconds as an interference penalty assessed to another new Flame, Ian White, was converted off a pinballing shot by Alex Kovalev.

With 2:50 remaining in the first, Kovalev had his shot from the faceoff circle deflect past Miikka Kiprusoff off both Calgary’s Jay Bouwmeester and Daymond Langkow.

Iginla feeding new Flames

The second period saw another new Flame benefiting from a pinpoint pass from Iginla.

Heading into the low slot on a rush into the Ottawa zone, Matt Stajan took a backhand pass from Iginla, made a quick deke on Elliot before lifting the puck over the goalie’s blocker to re-take the lead 3:18 into the second period.

Stajan and Hagman each finished with a goal and an help, but that was the last goal given up by the Senators goalie, who rebounded from getting the hook in their last game, a 5-0 loss to Toronto on Saturday.

“It didn’t take us long to get back out on the ice and prove that we’re the team that we are. We’ve just got to keep doing this on every night and not have off nights,” Elliott said.

The Senators’ Jonathan Cheechoo looked to have the tying goal on his stick about five minutes after the Stajan goal, but Kiprusoff absolutely robbed the struggling forward as he tried to stuff in a wraparound attempt.

Diving across his crease, Kiprusoff denied an nearly sure goal as he laid his outstretched stick across the goal-line to deny Cheechoo’s chance.

But the Finnish goaltender couldn’t stop the next shot he faced, a Jarkko Ruutu wrister that tied the game with just over half the period left to go. The Senators pest got the chance after the Flames coughed up the puck on their own half-boards.

Hagman returns

Calgary got a scare soon after when Hagman left the ice favouring his left shoulder following an open-ice hit from behind by Senators defenceman Anton Volchenkov. Hagman went to the dressing room but returned to the ice before the end of the period.

Spezza place his team on top for excellent with his weird-angle shot with 3:23 to go in the middle frame.

Sitting at the bottom of the faceoff circle on Kiprusoff’s glove side, Spezza took a pass across the slot from Cheechoo and proceeded to rifle the puck from on one knee, sending the Senators to the dressing room at the second intermission with a 3-2 lead.

“I’m just trying to get myself around the net and capitalizing on my chances,” said Spezza. “The team is playing real well and individuals do well when the team is playing well.

“We’ve got to win a couple of games here and then get some rest [during the Olympics]. These are vital games and everybody’s looking forward to the rest. It’s been a tough grind.”

The Flames managed only six shots in the scoreless third period.

“I’m not pleased at all,” Flames coach Brent Sutter said. “That game was there for us tonight to get some points and we just didn’t play a excellent enough game here after the first 28 minutes to expect to win. It wasn’t excellent enough.”

With files from the Canadian Press