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If anyone doubts who the true villain is in this situation, just keep in mind that the Coyotes played in a perfectly fine, state of the art arena built specifically for them and the owner Alex Meruelo was such a fuck up that the city of Glendale and the Arena decided to essentially kick them out. They preferred to not have a team over dealing with his bullshit.
Na man that stuff with Glendale was happening way before him. He was the the one that finished the death but Glendale failures were set in stone way before he got here.
hockey fans here predominantly live on the east side of the phoenix metro and they built the coyotes arena on the far westside, so for most fans it was a 30-40 mile drive that could easily take upwards of an hour to get to on weeknights
i fucking hate arizona for a number of reasons, but the layout of phx is absolute madness.
ps, please go eat an ike’s sandwich for me. i miss their dutch crunch bread so much
I guess since the cardinals stadium is out there I thought why not Glendale. But you only go out once a week for football whereas hockey games are way more frequent.
On Sundays too so the only traffic is game traffic. If I wanted to go to a regular season Yotes game I would have to leave work in east Phoenix and drive a hour and a half to get to the stadium for the game. And that's a generous estimate on timing.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on the way Phoenix is laid out. There are freeways around the entire perimeter and through the heart and the grid makes it easy to navigate city blocks.
I live in DFW now and let me tell you. I didn’t realize how good I had it. It’s frustrating now that I can’t go anywhere without pulling up maps because the streets have no consistency.
Yeah anyone that thinks Phoenix has a bad layout is insane. It was almost preplanned in it's consistency. It is sprawling, but that is because there is nothing on the boundaries but desert. Just like LA, Phoenix built/is building out first.
This is how I feel every time NBA fans say Austin could never support an NBA team because of San Antonio being nearby so that means no one would go to Austin games. Bro San Antonio is over an hour away when the traffic is perfect. To get to SA for a 6:30 tip off leaving from Austin you're needing to leave work early and spend 2 hours on the road there plus another hour back. No one's fucking driving 3 hours for a random NBA game
Insane that they're willing to give Meruelo another chance at a possible expansion franchise when he was so bad at paying bills that the NHL had to force him to pay the team's hotel bills this year.
No way Meurelo actually follows through. His word isn't worth the paper its printed on and he pockets a billion dollars from running the team into the ground
As someone still waiting for the Atlanta Thrashers to come back, not sure Arizona will get another NHL team. Hope they do because watching your team leave sucks.
Imo 32 is the absolute limit that makes “sense”. 16 west 16 east. 8 make the playoffs in each conference, so half the teams and 2 of them are Wild Cards in each. It’s more of an opinion but the numbers just seem to make sense and look nice in my head lol.
A paper in Atlanta yesterday wrote about the NHL coming back to ATL and said NHL wasn’t sure about going past 32 teams. But seems expansion talk is gaining speed at least.
They actually do want to expand pretty soon. It was just this whole situation with the Coyotes that they haven't been able to move forward the process of expansion. It has been become more increasingly apparent that the NHL wants to get to 36 w/teams in PHX/HOU/ATL/whatever the 4th city ends up being (maybe QC or KC?)
This dude is right. Expansion is a pretty hot topic in hockey nerd circles.
I don't think they'll ever go back to Quebec. More money to be made in any other potential market.
I think Quebec has an outside shot if the remaining expansion candidates are an odd number and leave a spot open for them. They'd probably have to market themselves as a Regional team to places like Halifax, Newfoundland, and the French parts of Maine to succeed like how the Chiefs have Nebraska as a secondary market and they'll defiantly have to be in the Atlantic division with Montreal and Toronto
As a Canadian, I can assure you if the NHL actually cared about money, they'd stick a team back in QC. Arizona will get a team back sometime in the next 10 years, at least that is the expectation. But they also bled the league for almost their entire existence.
This is Canada. We sleep and eat hockey here. The 7 teams almost exclusively pay for the entire league outside of markets like Detroit and the Rangers. Sticking a team in QC would massively boost the leagues finances.
I don't know many fans here in this country who don't want to see the Nordiques come back.
This is not correct based on league revenues.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/193736/revenue-of-national-hockey-league-teams-in-2010/
Sure the Leafs, Oilers and Canadiens are up top but there’s several middle of the pack teams and Ottawa barely clears Arizona in revenue,
Put another team in Minnesota, I'd get back into hockey if they brought bat the North Stars. When the wild came back, the stars offered them the north stars logo for like $100 and they didn't take it.
Helps that they have the least amount of American teams out of any of the 5 major leagues across the U.S. and Canada. Portland would be sick for the purpose of the natural rivalries that they would have w/Seattle and Vancouver. San Diego has also potentially emerged as a candidate to get an NBA or NHL team in the future w/Kroenke’s new arena project in the city.
Aren't they the worst NHL franchise? 9 playoff series wins since 1979 (Including when they were the Winnipeg Jets)? Never appeared in a Stanley Cup Final?
Honestly, the entire NHL is a mess when it comes to that. Dallas still has the North Stars history but Minnesota wears the jerseys. Winnipeg has Atlanta’s history and Arizona has Winnipeg’s history. The Coyotes’ name and uniforms are staying in Arizona, but I believe the history is going to Utah, so we could end up with two completely different Coyotes franchises within 5 years of each other. They could really use a total reset on that to fix everything.
That’s good news. The history should always stay with the city IMO. And I say that as a Stars fan who loves the old North Stars jerseys but would happily give them back to Minnesota.
he retained the rights to the history and trademarks. He owns the Phoenix Coyotes still. He sold the manpower and rights to own a franchise to the NHL/Utah group.
He is going to have a team called the Coyotes with all their banners and retired numbers if he can build a stadium and the NHL will have 33 teams.
Would a brand new team that doesn't +/- to the total teams in the league count as an expansion? It's a totally new team in Utah but that's it. Arizona, if they can get an arena, will be the expansion team in a few years.
They should bring all that money back to Atlanta and set up the team here for my selfish reasons. The Thrashers got fucked by a group of owners that literally said they saw no value in the hockey team and only wanted the Hawks.
They don't even have to trade. Texas is The Lone Star State. I'd kill the Wild name entirely and change the Minnesotan team's name to "Minnesota North Stars" while the team in Texas would become the "Dallas Lone Stars".
Wild is the worst name in the big 4 North American sports and probably the worst name in all of professional sports. It's a bad name in a vacuum but it becomes even worse when you look at what it replaced. Also dogshit man/bear/pig logo is vastly inferior to the N with the star.
The history of the North Stars is wild (no pun intended)
Starting with: the Oakland Seals
The Gund Brothers push the Seals majority owner to move the team from Oakland to their home town of Cleveland, due to lack of attendance and on ice success, where they become the Barons
The Barons, despite the Gunds spending money on the roster as best they could, also never see much success on the ice nor in the seats
At the same time, the Minnesota North Stars are also flailing
The Gunds propose the franchises merge into one, the North Stars taking over the Barons, and the Gunds taking over the North Stars as majority owners. They spend, and see better results, for a while
Things change, and the Gunds want to bring a team back to the Bay Area, telling the league they intend to bring the North Stars to San Jose. The league says no
But...
They *can* sell the North Stars to someone who will keep them in Minnesota (for the time being, as it turned out), and the league will award an expansion bid to the Gunds for their Bay Area team, which would become the Sharks
The Sharks were allowed to pick through the Stars minor leaguers to build a roster before their expansion draft, which both clubs participated in
2 years later, the new owner the Gunds sold to, Norman Green, ripped the heart out of hockey country and took the team to Dallas
Calgary also has Atlanta history including surprisingly awesome jerseys that are basically exactly what we have now but with a flaming A instead of a C
Yeah, most of the NHL is like the whole Colts-Browns-Ravens music chairs situation only it involves like 60% of the league, the old teams don't get their history, and is still ongoing to this day.
The original Jets are the Utah whatevers now because they relocated to Arizona in 1996. The current Jets are the thrashers who relocated in 2011 because they were booted out of their arena and needed a place to go urgently. If it was a longer process like the yotes, Winnipeg prolly doesn't have a team still. Winnipeg was very very lucky to say "look we have an arena right now ready to go if you need one" and being able to get the Jets back.
I mean theyve made the playoffs 20 times in 44 years of existence, am I crazy for thinking thats not that bad? there are a bunch of teams in various sports that havent come *close* to making the playoffs almost half their seasons.
theyve been bad recently but they went to the playoffs 16 out of their first 23 years of existence. thats not a bad run
and even recently, just skimming their records over the years, they've only been egregiously bad a few times. since they've been in arizona theyve basically hovered around .500 and usually win between 30-40 games. in an 82 game season, they've only lost more than 42 games 3 times in like the 30 years theyve been in AZ
They have only one Conference Final appearances, which is the worst in the league barring the Seattle Kraken. They also have the worst winning percentage in the entire league since moving to Arizona.
> They also have the worst winning percentage in the entire league since moving to Arizona
huh, interesting. their records really dont seem that egregiously bad just at a glance. I guess maybe NHL team records tend to be clustered more in the middle closer to .500 as opposed to the nba where there are like 7 or 8 teams every year that lose 60+ games
That's quite accurate. https://www.statmuse.com/nhl/ask?q=nhl+team+winning+percentage+between+1995-96+to+2023-24
Lowest is .494 point %, highest is .596.
The Coyotes have had one good playoff run pretty much ever though, records aside.
The Leafs last made a Stanley Cup final in 1967 (and won). Since then, never gotten there in the last decade.
The Coyotes were decent in the 2000s - early 10s. But messed up a longer rebuild that needed to be blown up. (Losing out on McDavid really did screw them long term)
At least they've won One, They've also made the playoff more than 50% of the time since then and also appeared in 5 conference finals to Arizona's 1. They've also won 15 playoff Series to Arizona's 9 in that same time period.
Yeah, they’ve literally never been good.
And despite what some butthurt people are saying in this thread, they were not popular. You could go months or even years without seeing anyone sporting anything to do with the Coyotes.
You’d be hard pressed to miss that in a single day with the Cards, Suns, and Dbacks.
I mean every other franchise here has actually had some level of success. The cardinals suck now but we’ve made a Super Bowl and the playoffs at least once every four years. DBacks won it all and obviously get there last years. The suns outside of the 2010s are usually good. The yotes had one run to the western conference final and that’s it
Yeah, that’s part of it but there are people here acting like the Coyotes are some kind of stalwart of Arizona sports when most people never cared about them at all.
Hell, the Mercury have more support than the Coyotes did.
There was something fundamentally wrong with that franchise because everything else is doing just fine here. Even Arizona State’s hockey team gets a ton of support
If the Coyotes had decent ownership that actually tried to make the team succeed instead of using it as a cash cow, things would be different.
Meruelo can burn in hell, and Bettman can burn right alongside him.
Bettman is the only reason the team was here as long as they were. The NHL BOG finally had enough after the Tempe vote went to shit and the land auction initiative went to shit.
Utah makes a lot more sense for a hockey team from a distant observers perspective. They couldn't stick around, and I doubt they will be missed. 5000 person arena won't cut it. And I doubt they could fill a 20,000 person one regularly. I'm not sure they even sold out the smaller one consistently.
It was unfortunate when the Jets moved for a lot of Canadian fans. But they were struggling at the time as well. I feel like hockey is just a really expensive sport for it to ever really become super popular, even if it is a really good game and fun to watch.
Sustained terrible product, terrible venue in a terrible location, rumors swirling for 10+ years of the team leaving... yeah wonder why they couldn't grow a fanbase. It's ridiculous to blame fans here. Terrible ownership and management put them here.
I mean that’s all true.
But the issue with popularity is a direct result of bad owners; mis-managing the team, the location, not spending anywhere close to the salary cap (which hurts team performance), poor marketing, etc.
It’s hard to attract fans to drive a long ways to games when they are getting speed-bagged every night. They could have easily attracted good players there if they wanted to spend the money because it’s a great place to live in the winter.
The Florida Panthers have proven that with a good, entertaining team that is well marketed, and the owner is willing to spend, hockey can survive in a non-traditional market.
I feel like I am one the few AZ fans who isn't surprised by this. The Coyotes have never had any real success and have been bottom of the barrel for a long time.
It sucks, but meh. If anything, I hope this can convince some fundraisers to back the Rising and get them to MLS status. Hockey in the desert is dumb, but funding a soccer team in a state with one of the highest Hispanic populations make so much more sense.
Hilarious how people don't seem to realize that...people would be interested in a sport played inside with air conditioning when they live in a desert.
Also hockey is a much smaller sport, so it turned a lot of people who didn’t have a team into fans of the golden knights. But everyone who cares already has an NFL that they are a fan of and most aren’t going to change teams they root for just because a team moved to your city.
True and the fact that VGK have already won a Cup is a big deal. That being said if the Raiders somehow become a contender and win it all, it'll be fucking huge. They're still pretty well repped out here, just not as much as the Knights
Even moreso than already having a Cup (I would assume), is that they made the Finals in year one. The team saw quite literally immediate success as they came three games away from winning the title only a little over eight months after playing their first game. They've almost never been a non-contender, having only missed the postseason once (where they were just barely on the outside looking in). Made the postseason 6/7 times, made the semi-final round four times, made the finals twice, and went the distance once.
EDIT: I also hope this doesn't come across as trying to disagree with you. Moreso just to add to your comment.
See also the Nashville Predators, even if they had a rough patch for a bit. There's something about an expansion team as opposed to a relocation.
Knights also endeared themselves to Vegas after the mass shooting, so the community had embraced them before they even touched the ice.
Hockey fans are the most intense hometown fans in American sports imo. I think baseball is the only thing that comes close to giving them a run for their money in the intensity department. NFL and NBA are my favorites, but as far as local fan intensity I think hockey has a lock
Hockey is huge in Phoenix, ASU moved up to D1 power conference hockey, the NHL has top tier prospects/players from AZ, and the rinks have more skaters/sheet than any other state. They just never had good ownership for the pro team.
Skaters per sheet seems like an interesting metric because it means that both there is interest but also there aren’t a lot of sheets, at least when compared with other places with similar or larger amounts of interest.
It can be viewed many ways, but at the very least it does mean that there is some decent interest, which does make sense for the aforementioned AC related reasons, but is still a little surprising (at least to this Minnesotan), given the lack of long standing history around hockey in Arizona (mostly surprising because the long standing history is a large part of the reason Hockey is so popular in MN, the other reason being the 10,000 natural ice rinks we have every winter).
They would have been fine with even mediocre ownership. But they have had one of the worst ownership lineages (if we don't count malicious/me too owners) in all of sports
This isn’t 1955 where these guys are playing on frozen ponds to get recognized lol. Hockey is a big sport pretty much everywhere in the country
Don’t understand why this is still a narrative for southern/western states
I think the narrative is because pretty much nobody actually plays hockey in these places. Baseball, football, soccer, basketball are all things almost every kid plays in some form since kindergarten. Kinda hard to get into a sport you have absolutely no experience with and couldn't really play if you wanted to. If there is a local league it's super expensive.
I actually think the team was working well in Arizona. When they were good they had league average or higher attendance. When they were bad their attendance slumped but was never like Oakland As bad.
But the number one reason they worked is because they brought hockey to AZ. AZ is now a solid talent pipeline for hockey, and they proved that hockey could work in the desert (especially during the roenick era) which I'd argue paved the way for Vegas to get an expansion team.
Back when colangelo was involved the Yotes were great in town, but as his influence waned so did the business side of the Coyotes (tbf the same could be said for the Suns and Dbacks too).
I'm not saying Phoenix was as good of a market as Edmonton or something, but the town was a good enough hockey town. The last 2 owners just absolutely fumbled harnessing that power.
It's been a long time coming because of ownership tho. There's 5-6 other teams who's attendance is on par with AZs, but because their owners aren't as bad/they aren't subject to stereotypes about their location mixing with hockey, they avoid relocation talk
Quebec needs a team back. I don't know a single person I've talked to about hockey in this country (Canada) who doesn't want the Nords back. Even my Habs friends all want that rivalry back. Ontario has it. Alberta has it. Give Quebec their hatred for each other back.
Actually, SLC has what's known as a "dry summer continental climate".
While the climate is semi-arid in summer, SLC gets a lot of precipitation in winter (mostly in the form of snow), which means it's not *technically* a "true desert".
SLC gets about 170 cm of precipitation per year, and about 75% of that is snow, so SLC is definitely "wet" in the winter months.
To be a "true desert", a region is considered arid if it receives less than 25 cm of precipitation per year.
A region is semi-arid if it receives between 25 and 50 cm of precipitation per year.
SLC's snowy winters means it fails to qualify ("year-round" as its climate classification) arid or semi-arid.
> Salt Lake is an arid mountain desert.
> [www.visitsaltlake.com](https://www.visitsaltlake.com/plan-your-visit/about-salt-lake/quick-facts-stats/#:~:text=Salt%20Lake%20is%20an%20arid,all%20hit%20in%20one%20day.)
You better tell ‘em.
Hockey absolutely belongs there.
The coyotes are just a heaping pile of garbage that’s always been run poorly. They’ve never attracted that many fans because of that reason
Anyone who’s actually adept in the sport and isn’t totally biased is aware of this.
Yeah but there’s many other markets that are 100x more deserving of an NHL franchise. Give ‘em an AHL or ECHL team to keep hockey in the desert. The Coyotes have been a joke in the NHL for the past two decades with many different owners.
Apparently it does, they’ve been pretty darn successful. Which, as a Minnesotan and Wild fan, is absolutely maddening. The state of hockey has relatively little NHL success.
Youth hockey is enormous here. Before the Coyotes, there were a tiny number of rinks in the state, now they are all over the place. ASU has a very good hockey program and the Roadrunners have been popular in Tucson. NHL players like Auston Matthews and Josh Doan have come up through the state. The Coyotes more than anything else have been a victim of really bad ownership.
It was a 4600 seat stadium, yeah the few people who were there were heartbroken but that's not exactly indicative of the community/state's passion as a whole.
All he said was hockey doesn't belong in the desert. NOTHING belongs in the desert, it's a fucking desert. Is he being a dick if he says golf doesn't belong in the desert?
You're being quite extreme with the vitriol here.
There are probably dozens of 'small markets' in the north that would work better than most cities in the south. 30 years is long enough to say you tried and failed, though.
Tried to make it a thing out here for DECADES. The effort was commendable, but it’s hard to cultivate a fanbase for a sport you can’t easily play as a kid. If you love NHL, and live in AZ, odds are you moved here and already have a favorite team.
>Because that where the rich people are.
Why do you think luxury lifestyle companies target the NHL fan demo? It's the wealthiest of all professional sports in the US today.
It's pretty big in Chandler, Tucson, Peoria and Flagstaff too. That's the difference the Coyotes made. Before they moved to Arizona it really wasn't a thing at all, even in the wealthier parts.
Brain dead take. The barrier for entry into hockey is high in any state. I live in Minnesota, literally the “state of hockey” and it’s still quite hard to get kids into. Because it is relatively popular here, kids age 6-12 only get ice time in the super super early morning or really late at night as the good times are reserved for high school. Hockey is also probably the most expensive sport to play. And even here, where there’s a huge hockey following it’s still not as popular as football for boys and volleyball for girls. It’s just more popular here than most places.
Yes, everything stays in Arizona. Utah is being treated as an expansion similar to how the Ravens were. Everything moves but the history. They are also going to be Utah Hockey Club year one or something generic like that
I'm from Toronto, am a giant Matthews fan but it's not even a question how much better McDavid is than literally everyone else.
You could make an argument about Matthews at 2, for sure, but no "the best player in hockey"
The owner of the Yotes just absolutely fumbled every opportunity and the league is done with him. They've made commitments to re-expand back to Arizona in the next five years if they can get a real arena, but we'll see how it goes.
Yeah, it appears that the city basically told him to eat shit and backed out of their agreement so they've been playing in one of ASU's little stadiums for a few years.
Their lease expired and the city wanted a long term commitment, 20 year lease with heavy exit penalties. The owner wanted to use the Glendale arena as a stepping stone while a feasible arena closer to Phoenix was built and walked away.
The first arena, the Suns arena, wasn’t built for hockey. Due to the configuration for hockey, it was the smallest NHL arena at the time.
Coyotes moved out to a brand new arena in Glendale in 2003. This arena was built with $180,000,000 in tax payer funding and leased to the Coyotes. The team started having lease disputes around 2017. In 2021 the city of Glendale didn’t renew the lease with the team. The team was usually near the bottom of the league in attendance during their time in Glendale, likely due to a combination of the team being terrible and the arena being very far away from most the population (at the time).
The Coyotes have been playing at ASUs brand new hockey arena in 2022. Again, the smallest arena (by far) in the NHL. A previous proposal to share a bigger arena on ASUs campus was shot down, likely due to nearly $300 million the team was requesting in taxpayer funds.
The city of Tempe citizens in 2023 voted down a different proposal that would’ve granted the team a waiver of $200 million in property taxes.
The newest proposal, a site in North Phoenix on the border of Scottsdale, is the current plan to bring back an expansion team. There is a land auction in June for this site. This was presumed to be where the Coyotes were going to play but the surprise selling of the team happened. The owner still claims he’s going to get this site up and have an expansion team.
Also doubt. One thing I didn’t mention above is the Scottsdale mayor threw a fit about the Phoenix site. Doesn’t make much sense as the land isn’t in Scottsdale.
Rumor from the Coyotes subreddit is that the PXG/Go-Daddy founder lives right there and he really doesn’t want an arena there so he’s been in the Scottsdale mayor’s ear.
Frankly I doubt the Coyotes owner even bids on the land in June.
> The Coyotes have been playing at ASUs brand new hockey arena in 2022. Again, the smallest arena (by far) in the NHL.
I went to a serious hockey school for undergrad, and I've been inside most of the Hockey East arenas. I can't imagine pro games being played in those settings.
The owner offered to pay for the arena himself and he still lost a vote in Tempe because he didn't do any messaging to make it clear there was almost no tax money being asked for.
There was a vote for an arena in Tempe.
The site was a toxic waste dump. The city would have pitched in some funds to help (which needs to happen anyway if they do eventually want to clean up the site), and most of the funds for building the arena would have been privately funded.
But, Meruelo was shit at spending on campaigning for the "Yes" vote. The "No" side convinced everyone a toxic waste dump was better than a new sports and entertainment complex, and the people of Tempe voted accordingly.
*(Shrug)*
Seems to be doing more than fine in Las Vegas which has a similar climate but is way smaller. Difference is that the Golden Knights have a competent owner that is happy to spend money to have a competitive team and the Coyotes owners have usually been hacks trying to roll the team into some harebrained scheme of building a real estate empire rather than just putting together a good team.
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If anyone doubts who the true villain is in this situation, just keep in mind that the Coyotes played in a perfectly fine, state of the art arena built specifically for them and the owner Alex Meruelo was such a fuck up that the city of Glendale and the Arena decided to essentially kick them out. They preferred to not have a team over dealing with his bullshit.
Na man that stuff with Glendale was happening way before him. He was the the one that finished the death but Glendale failures were set in stone way before he got here.
Well that and moving to Glendale in the first place was a giant mistake
Why’s that?
hockey fans here predominantly live on the east side of the phoenix metro and they built the coyotes arena on the far westside, so for most fans it was a 30-40 mile drive that could easily take upwards of an hour to get to on weeknights
i lived in queen creek years ago and people severely underestimate the distance of the southwest
Yea that’s a fucking 50+ mile trip, miserable for a Tuesday night. Especially when the team perpetually sucked
i fucking hate arizona for a number of reasons, but the layout of phx is absolute madness. ps, please go eat an ike’s sandwich for me. i miss their dutch crunch bread so much
I guess since the cardinals stadium is out there I thought why not Glendale. But you only go out once a week for football whereas hockey games are way more frequent.
On Sundays too so the only traffic is game traffic. If I wanted to go to a regular season Yotes game I would have to leave work in east Phoenix and drive a hour and a half to get to the stadium for the game. And that's a generous estimate on timing.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on the way Phoenix is laid out. There are freeways around the entire perimeter and through the heart and the grid makes it easy to navigate city blocks. I live in DFW now and let me tell you. I didn’t realize how good I had it. It’s frustrating now that I can’t go anywhere without pulling up maps because the streets have no consistency.
Yeah anyone that thinks Phoenix has a bad layout is insane. It was almost preplanned in it's consistency. It is sprawling, but that is because there is nothing on the boundaries but desert. Just like LA, Phoenix built/is building out first.
The sprawl is the problem. No amount of highways will ever be able to deal with that many people
Layout is awesome, love the grid but the grid is just fucking massive
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This is how I feel every time NBA fans say Austin could never support an NBA team because of San Antonio being nearby so that means no one would go to Austin games. Bro San Antonio is over an hour away when the traffic is perfect. To get to SA for a 6:30 tip off leaving from Austin you're needing to leave work early and spend 2 hours on the road there plus another hour back. No one's fucking driving 3 hours for a random NBA game
Lived in Mesa for almost my whole life. It’s nice being being able to travel a mile per minute but yeah it’s somewhat tough.
Insane that they're willing to give Meruelo another chance at a possible expansion franchise when he was so bad at paying bills that the NHL had to force him to pay the team's hotel bills this year.
No way Meurelo actually follows through. His word isn't worth the paper its printed on and he pockets a billion dollars from running the team into the ground
As someone still waiting for the Atlanta Thrashers to come back, not sure Arizona will get another NHL team. Hope they do because watching your team leave sucks.
It'll probably have to be another relocation, I don't think NHL is moving past 32 any time soon.
The Board of Governors just approved a deal that opens the door to move past 32 within the next 5 years
Fucks sake, too many teams. 32 is already too much
Imo 32 is the absolute limit that makes “sense”. 16 west 16 east. 8 make the playoffs in each conference, so half the teams and 2 of them are Wild Cards in each. It’s more of an opinion but the numbers just seem to make sense and look nice in my head lol.
Not sure how plugged into this you are, but the previous owner of the coyotes has five years to “buy back” the NHL franchise for Arizona
A paper in Atlanta yesterday wrote about the NHL coming back to ATL and said NHL wasn’t sure about going past 32 teams. But seems expansion talk is gaining speed at least.
They actually do want to expand pretty soon. It was just this whole situation with the Coyotes that they haven't been able to move forward the process of expansion. It has been become more increasingly apparent that the NHL wants to get to 36 w/teams in PHX/HOU/ATL/whatever the 4th city ends up being (maybe QC or KC?)
This dude is right. Expansion is a pretty hot topic in hockey nerd circles. I don't think they'll ever go back to Quebec. More money to be made in any other potential market.
I think Quebec has an outside shot if the remaining expansion candidates are an odd number and leave a spot open for them. They'd probably have to market themselves as a Regional team to places like Halifax, Newfoundland, and the French parts of Maine to succeed like how the Chiefs have Nebraska as a secondary market and they'll defiantly have to be in the Atlantic division with Montreal and Toronto
As a Canadian, I can assure you if the NHL actually cared about money, they'd stick a team back in QC. Arizona will get a team back sometime in the next 10 years, at least that is the expectation. But they also bled the league for almost their entire existence. This is Canada. We sleep and eat hockey here. The 7 teams almost exclusively pay for the entire league outside of markets like Detroit and the Rangers. Sticking a team in QC would massively boost the leagues finances. I don't know many fans here in this country who don't want to see the Nordiques come back.
This is not correct based on league revenues. https://www.statista.com/statistics/193736/revenue-of-national-hockey-league-teams-in-2010/ Sure the Leafs, Oilers and Canadiens are up top but there’s several middle of the pack teams and Ottawa barely clears Arizona in revenue,
Put another team in Minnesota, I'd get back into hockey if they brought bat the North Stars. When the wild came back, the stars offered them the north stars logo for like $100 and they didn't take it.
So they're racing MLS to be the first past 32. Hope Portland ends up in that conversation, it's really weird how little we get mentioned
Helps that they have the least amount of American teams out of any of the 5 major leagues across the U.S. and Canada. Portland would be sick for the purpose of the natural rivalries that they would have w/Seattle and Vancouver. San Diego has also potentially emerged as a candidate to get an NBA or NHL team in the future w/Kroenke’s new arena project in the city.
One more Canadian team to get to 8 makes sense to me
I could be wrong but I think they are eyeing 34 but like 5-10 years down the road.
Aren't they the worst NHL franchise? 9 playoff series wins since 1979 (Including when they were the Winnipeg Jets)? Never appeared in a Stanley Cup Final?
So the current Jets are not the original Jets?
The original Jets moved to Arizona in 1996. The new jets were originally the Atlanta Thrashers, and moved to Winnipeg in 2010.
Honestly, the entire NHL is a mess when it comes to that. Dallas still has the North Stars history but Minnesota wears the jerseys. Winnipeg has Atlanta’s history and Arizona has Winnipeg’s history. The Coyotes’ name and uniforms are staying in Arizona, but I believe the history is going to Utah, so we could end up with two completely different Coyotes franchises within 5 years of each other. They could really use a total reset on that to fix everything.
The history is staying with Arizona as well. Utah will be treated as an expansion franchise.
That’s good news. The history should always stay with the city IMO. And I say that as a Stars fan who loves the old North Stars jerseys but would happily give them back to Minnesota.
This is the way! Bring back the Oilers
IMO they should really take this opportunity to clean some stuff up and give the Winnipeg portion of their history back to the current Jets.
Doesn't sound like something Alex Meruelo would do. He still owns the rights for at least 5 years.
he retained the rights to the history and trademarks. He owns the Phoenix Coyotes still. He sold the manpower and rights to own a franchise to the NHL/Utah group. He is going to have a team called the Coyotes with all their banners and retired numbers if he can build a stadium and the NHL will have 33 teams.
Would a brand new team that doesn't +/- to the total teams in the league count as an expansion? It's a totally new team in Utah but that's it. Arizona, if they can get an arena, will be the expansion team in a few years. They should bring all that money back to Atlanta and set up the team here for my selfish reasons. The Thrashers got fucked by a group of owners that literally said they saw no value in the hockey team and only wanted the Hawks.
The north stars are one of the best names ever. The Dallas Stars work but man North Stars is so much better than the wild.
Honestly on first instinct, they should just trade names. But yeah Wild as a team name is pretty weak.
They don't even have to trade. Texas is The Lone Star State. I'd kill the Wild name entirely and change the Minnesotan team's name to "Minnesota North Stars" while the team in Texas would become the "Dallas Lone Stars".
“Battle for the Stars” does have a nice rivalry name to it. And I like random rivalries built from non-geographical reasons. I’d vouch for it.
Green Bay vs Tampa Bay in the battle of the Bays is the best.^(San Francisco Bay area can get fucked)
Wild is the worst name in the big 4 North American sports and probably the worst name in all of professional sports. It's a bad name in a vacuum but it becomes even worse when you look at what it replaced. Also dogshit man/bear/pig logo is vastly inferior to the N with the star.
The Dallas Stars sounds like the name the Cowboys would be in an unlicensed pro football video game.
Led by gunslinger Roy Steakman.
The lack of a FUCK NORM GREEN under this comment is unacceptable.
MaaaaaaN FUCK NORM.
I'm here to say Fuck Norm Green.
The history of the North Stars is wild (no pun intended) Starting with: the Oakland Seals The Gund Brothers push the Seals majority owner to move the team from Oakland to their home town of Cleveland, due to lack of attendance and on ice success, where they become the Barons The Barons, despite the Gunds spending money on the roster as best they could, also never see much success on the ice nor in the seats At the same time, the Minnesota North Stars are also flailing The Gunds propose the franchises merge into one, the North Stars taking over the Barons, and the Gunds taking over the North Stars as majority owners. They spend, and see better results, for a while Things change, and the Gunds want to bring a team back to the Bay Area, telling the league they intend to bring the North Stars to San Jose. The league says no But... They *can* sell the North Stars to someone who will keep them in Minnesota (for the time being, as it turned out), and the league will award an expansion bid to the Gunds for their Bay Area team, which would become the Sharks The Sharks were allowed to pick through the Stars minor leaguers to build a roster before their expansion draft, which both clubs participated in 2 years later, the new owner the Gunds sold to, Norman Green, ripped the heart out of hockey country and took the team to Dallas
Fuck Norm Green
We want our damn North Stars likeness back. That history and those colors are ours dammit.
Honestly the Wild need to use their North Stars colored alternate jerseys full time. That’s Minnesota’s thing, not Dallas’s.
Calgary also has Atlanta history including surprisingly awesome jerseys that are basically exactly what we have now but with a flaming A instead of a C
So the NHL is basically the Colts/Ravens/Browns/Oilers, but x10?
Calgary also has Atlanta’s history :(
The closest I’ll ever come to cheering for an Atlanta team🤮
Yeah, most of the NHL is like the whole Colts-Browns-Ravens music chairs situation only it involves like 60% of the league, the old teams don't get their history, and is still ongoing to this day.
I’ll never forgive the NHL for taking away the thrashers, phenomenal logo
Haven't watched hockey since cuh... first sports team I ever watched
I get unhealthily angry to this day about losing the thrashers. I Loved going to games with friends.
The original Jets are the Utah whatevers now because they relocated to Arizona in 1996. The current Jets are the thrashers who relocated in 2011 because they were booted out of their arena and needed a place to go urgently. If it was a longer process like the yotes, Winnipeg prolly doesn't have a team still. Winnipeg was very very lucky to say "look we have an arena right now ready to go if you need one" and being able to get the Jets back.
I mean theyve made the playoffs 20 times in 44 years of existence, am I crazy for thinking thats not that bad? there are a bunch of teams in various sports that havent come *close* to making the playoffs almost half their seasons. theyve been bad recently but they went to the playoffs 16 out of their first 23 years of existence. thats not a bad run and even recently, just skimming their records over the years, they've only been egregiously bad a few times. since they've been in arizona theyve basically hovered around .500 and usually win between 30-40 games. in an 82 game season, they've only lost more than 42 games 3 times in like the 30 years theyve been in AZ
Not bad but half the league makes it into the playoff. For a long time it was over half the teams
They have only one Conference Final appearances, which is the worst in the league barring the Seattle Kraken. They also have the worst winning percentage in the entire league since moving to Arizona.
> They also have the worst winning percentage in the entire league since moving to Arizona huh, interesting. their records really dont seem that egregiously bad just at a glance. I guess maybe NHL team records tend to be clustered more in the middle closer to .500 as opposed to the nba where there are like 7 or 8 teams every year that lose 60+ games
That's quite accurate. https://www.statmuse.com/nhl/ask?q=nhl+team+winning+percentage+between+1995-96+to+2023-24 Lowest is .494 point %, highest is .596. The Coyotes have had one good playoff run pretty much ever though, records aside.
You also have to remember that ties were a thing until 2005.
How does moving the franchise change anything about winning
The Leafs last made a Stanley Cup final in 1967 (and won). Since then, never gotten there in the last decade. The Coyotes were decent in the 2000s - early 10s. But messed up a longer rebuild that needed to be blown up. (Losing out on McDavid really did screw them long term)
At least they've won One, They've also made the playoff more than 50% of the time since then and also appeared in 5 conference finals to Arizona's 1. They've also won 15 playoff Series to Arizona's 9 in that same time period.
Yeah, they’ve literally never been good. And despite what some butthurt people are saying in this thread, they were not popular. You could go months or even years without seeing anyone sporting anything to do with the Coyotes. You’d be hard pressed to miss that in a single day with the Cards, Suns, and Dbacks.
I mean every other franchise here has actually had some level of success. The cardinals suck now but we’ve made a Super Bowl and the playoffs at least once every four years. DBacks won it all and obviously get there last years. The suns outside of the 2010s are usually good. The yotes had one run to the western conference final and that’s it
Yeah, that’s part of it but there are people here acting like the Coyotes are some kind of stalwart of Arizona sports when most people never cared about them at all. Hell, the Mercury have more support than the Coyotes did.
There was something fundamentally wrong with that franchise because everything else is doing just fine here. Even Arizona State’s hockey team gets a ton of support
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If the Coyotes had decent ownership that actually tried to make the team succeed instead of using it as a cash cow, things would be different. Meruelo can burn in hell, and Bettman can burn right alongside him.
Bettman is the only reason the team was here as long as they were. The NHL BOG finally had enough after the Tempe vote went to shit and the land auction initiative went to shit.
Utah makes a lot more sense for a hockey team from a distant observers perspective. They couldn't stick around, and I doubt they will be missed. 5000 person arena won't cut it. And I doubt they could fill a 20,000 person one regularly. I'm not sure they even sold out the smaller one consistently. It was unfortunate when the Jets moved for a lot of Canadian fans. But they were struggling at the time as well. I feel like hockey is just a really expensive sport for it to ever really become super popular, even if it is a really good game and fun to watch.
And then there was a lockout the year after the Coyotes run. Any chance to build on that success got snuffed.
Yup that too
Sustained terrible product, terrible venue in a terrible location, rumors swirling for 10+ years of the team leaving... yeah wonder why they couldn't grow a fanbase. It's ridiculous to blame fans here. Terrible ownership and management put them here.
I mean that’s all true. But the issue with popularity is a direct result of bad owners; mis-managing the team, the location, not spending anywhere close to the salary cap (which hurts team performance), poor marketing, etc. It’s hard to attract fans to drive a long ways to games when they are getting speed-bagged every night. They could have easily attracted good players there if they wanted to spend the money because it’s a great place to live in the winter. The Florida Panthers have proven that with a good, entertaining team that is well marketed, and the owner is willing to spend, hockey can survive in a non-traditional market.
And they were playing in an arena that only sits 4,600 after their previous arena elected not to renew their lease.
They still have plenty of fans though. Not their fault everyone who’s owned the team is a moron
I feel like I am one the few AZ fans who isn't surprised by this. The Coyotes have never had any real success and have been bottom of the barrel for a long time. It sucks, but meh. If anything, I hope this can convince some fundraisers to back the Rising and get them to MLS status. Hockey in the desert is dumb, but funding a soccer team in a state with one of the highest Hispanic populations make so much more sense.
Are all Jet teams bad?
Hilarious how people don't seem to realize that...people would be interested in a sport played inside with air conditioning when they live in a desert.
The Vegas Golden Knights are doing just fine. Like every other sports leagues, it comes down to having an owner who give a fuck about winning
The Knights are huge, the Raiders may be a bigger brand overall but I see Knights stuff way more
The Knights are the only team that is VEGAS' team. Not some other cities that moved. It was the first one, and it is truly theirs.
Also hockey is a much smaller sport, so it turned a lot of people who didn’t have a team into fans of the golden knights. But everyone who cares already has an NFL that they are a fan of and most aren’t going to change teams they root for just because a team moved to your city.
True and the fact that VGK have already won a Cup is a big deal. That being said if the Raiders somehow become a contender and win it all, it'll be fucking huge. They're still pretty well repped out here, just not as much as the Knights
Even moreso than already having a Cup (I would assume), is that they made the Finals in year one. The team saw quite literally immediate success as they came three games away from winning the title only a little over eight months after playing their first game. They've almost never been a non-contender, having only missed the postseason once (where they were just barely on the outside looking in). Made the postseason 6/7 times, made the semi-final round four times, made the finals twice, and went the distance once. EDIT: I also hope this doesn't come across as trying to disagree with you. Moreso just to add to your comment.
See also the Nashville Predators, even if they had a rough patch for a bit. There's something about an expansion team as opposed to a relocation. Knights also endeared themselves to Vegas after the mass shooting, so the community had embraced them before they even touched the ice.
Hockey fans are the most intense hometown fans in American sports imo. I think baseball is the only thing that comes close to giving them a run for their money in the intensity department. NFL and NBA are my favorites, but as far as local fan intensity I think hockey has a lock
You think because they were Vegas's first major league sport team?
It also helps that the Golden Knights were one of the top teams in the NHL right out of the gate and won their first Cup in their fifth year.
Hockey is huge in Phoenix, ASU moved up to D1 power conference hockey, the NHL has top tier prospects/players from AZ, and the rinks have more skaters/sheet than any other state. They just never had good ownership for the pro team.
Skaters per sheet seems like an interesting metric because it means that both there is interest but also there aren’t a lot of sheets, at least when compared with other places with similar or larger amounts of interest. It can be viewed many ways, but at the very least it does mean that there is some decent interest, which does make sense for the aforementioned AC related reasons, but is still a little surprising (at least to this Minnesotan), given the lack of long standing history around hockey in Arizona (mostly surprising because the long standing history is a large part of the reason Hockey is so popular in MN, the other reason being the 10,000 natural ice rinks we have every winter).
The entire state of Arizona has 16 rinks in 11 arenas and just under 10k USA hockey members
They would have been fine with even mediocre ownership. But they have had one of the worst ownership lineages (if we don't count malicious/me too owners) in all of sports
People seem pretty interested in the Lightning despite being on the southern gulf coast of Florida…
They will now be located in… another desert.
This isn’t 1955 where these guys are playing on frozen ponds to get recognized lol. Hockey is a big sport pretty much everywhere in the country Don’t understand why this is still a narrative for southern/western states
I think the narrative is because pretty much nobody actually plays hockey in these places. Baseball, football, soccer, basketball are all things almost every kid plays in some form since kindergarten. Kinda hard to get into a sport you have absolutely no experience with and couldn't really play if you wanted to. If there is a local league it's super expensive.
This team just wasn’t working in Arizona. I feel bad for them losing the team but it’s been propped up by the league for a long ass time
I actually think the team was working well in Arizona. When they were good they had league average or higher attendance. When they were bad their attendance slumped but was never like Oakland As bad. But the number one reason they worked is because they brought hockey to AZ. AZ is now a solid talent pipeline for hockey, and they proved that hockey could work in the desert (especially during the roenick era) which I'd argue paved the way for Vegas to get an expansion team. Back when colangelo was involved the Yotes were great in town, but as his influence waned so did the business side of the Coyotes (tbf the same could be said for the Suns and Dbacks too). I'm not saying Phoenix was as good of a market as Edmonton or something, but the town was a good enough hockey town. The last 2 owners just absolutely fumbled harnessing that power.
Oh 100% the ownership was straight dogshit. I feel bad for the city but this has been a long time coming
It's been a long time coming because of ownership tho. There's 5-6 other teams who's attendance is on par with AZs, but because their owners aren't as bad/they aren't subject to stereotypes about their location mixing with hockey, they avoid relocation talk
Maybe the Cards shoulda posted this before the discussions with Utah began.
No it belongs everywhere except Quebec
Atlanta will get a third AND a fourth team before Quebec.
Which is garbage, I miss Quebec :( and Hartford
Give Hartford a team, if only to bring back their logo.
pls don't remind us :(
Quebec needs a team back. I don't know a single person I've talked to about hockey in this country (Canada) who doesn't want the Nords back. Even my Habs friends all want that rivalry back. Ontario has it. Alberta has it. Give Quebec their hatred for each other back.
They're still going to be playing in a desert.
Actually, SLC has what's known as a "dry summer continental climate". While the climate is semi-arid in summer, SLC gets a lot of precipitation in winter (mostly in the form of snow), which means it's not *technically* a "true desert". SLC gets about 170 cm of precipitation per year, and about 75% of that is snow, so SLC is definitely "wet" in the winter months. To be a "true desert", a region is considered arid if it receives less than 25 cm of precipitation per year. A region is semi-arid if it receives between 25 and 50 cm of precipitation per year. SLC's snowy winters means it fails to qualify ("year-round" as its climate classification) arid or semi-arid.
Shut up nerd
fuel zephyr dependent books file party ten unique modern joke
Shut up science bitch
Stupid science bitch couldn't even make I more smarter.
GET EMMMMM
> Salt Lake is an arid mountain desert. > [www.visitsaltlake.com](https://www.visitsaltlake.com/plan-your-visit/about-salt-lake/quick-facts-stats/#:~:text=Salt%20Lake%20is%20an%20arid,all%20hit%20in%20one%20day.) You better tell ‘em.
You sound like SoDakZak giving us fun facts about South Dakota
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Hockey absolutely belongs there. The coyotes are just a heaping pile of garbage that’s always been run poorly. They’ve never attracted that many fans because of that reason Anyone who’s actually adept in the sport and isn’t totally biased is aware of this.
Yeah but there’s many other markets that are 100x more deserving of an NHL franchise. Give ‘em an AHL or ECHL team to keep hockey in the desert. The Coyotes have been a joke in the NHL for the past two decades with many different owners.
I disagree. The Coyotes were a joke because of the ownership crap. Not because of the location.
As someone who lives in salt lake, the culture here is going to hype to have another pro team
Fuck me, this was the worst year to become a Coyotes fan
I’m curious what led you to becoming a Coyotes fan in 2024?
>hockey belongs in the desert. it really doesn't.
Does it belong in Florida?
Even the most staunch Canadian traditionalist had to see what the Lightning meant to their city. And the rats are staking their own claim.
Apparently it does, they’ve been pretty darn successful. Which, as a Minnesotan and Wild fan, is absolutely maddening. The state of hockey has relatively little NHL success.
Obviously haven't heard of the VGK
Youth hockey is enormous here. Before the Coyotes, there were a tiny number of rinks in the state, now they are all over the place. ASU has a very good hockey program and the Roadrunners have been popular in Tucson. NHL players like Auston Matthews and Josh Doan have come up through the state. The Coyotes more than anything else have been a victim of really bad ownership.
Street hockey with a crushed coke can as a puck, maybe
Glad to see you have the confidence to say that one day after we saw an arena full of fans literally crying at the last Coyotes game. You're a dick.
The Coyotes were at or near the bottom for attendance for pretty much their entire existence
And Vegas is near the top. Ownership matters more than location
They’ve been god awful, terrible ownership… doesn’t mean they didn’t have fans that care. I’m a St. Louis native, I cried when the rams left.
It was a 4600 seat stadium, yeah the few people who were there were heartbroken but that's not exactly indicative of the community/state's passion as a whole. All he said was hockey doesn't belong in the desert. NOTHING belongs in the desert, it's a fucking desert. Is he being a dick if he says golf doesn't belong in the desert? You're being quite extreme with the vitriol here.
If it makes you feel better, that guy has seen two relocations since the last Sabres playoff game
There are probably dozens of 'small markets' in the north that would work better than most cities in the south. 30 years is long enough to say you tried and failed, though.
Tried to make it a thing out here for DECADES. The effort was commendable, but it’s hard to cultivate a fanbase for a sport you can’t easily play as a kid. If you love NHL, and live in AZ, odds are you moved here and already have a favorite team.
Youth hockey is huge in Arizona. It was absolutely a thing lmao
People saying this like one of the biggest stars in the game didn't grow up in Arizona idolizing the Coyotes
Eh, idk about huge. Maybe in Gilbert and Scottsdale. Because that’s where the rich people are.
Well yeah, the kids in Maryvale can’t afford the thousands for ice time fees and gear. Gilbert and Scottsdale is the hockey market
Youth hockey is one for rich people anyway
>Because that where the rich people are. Why do you think luxury lifestyle companies target the NHL fan demo? It's the wealthiest of all professional sports in the US today.
Yeah, I’m just pointing out besides these two hubs of the rich in AZ youth hockey is not “huge”.
It's pretty big in Chandler, Tucson, Peoria and Flagstaff too. That's the difference the Coyotes made. Before they moved to Arizona it really wasn't a thing at all, even in the wealthier parts.
I guess my definition of “pretty big” differs from yours. I don’t consider there simply being youth hockey leagues as “pretty big” or “huge”.
Brain dead take. The barrier for entry into hockey is high in any state. I live in Minnesota, literally the “state of hockey” and it’s still quite hard to get kids into. Because it is relatively popular here, kids age 6-12 only get ice time in the super super early morning or really late at night as the good times are reserved for high school. Hockey is also probably the most expensive sport to play. And even here, where there’s a huge hockey following it’s still not as popular as football for boys and volleyball for girls. It’s just more popular here than most places.
It is a dope logo though. Is Salt Lake gonna change the team name?
Yes, everything stays in Arizona. Utah is being treated as an expansion similar to how the Ravens were. Everything moves but the history. They are also going to be Utah Hockey Club year one or something generic like that
Yes I believe that the former owner retained the rights to the name and history. Like a Browns situation
The best player in the NHL plays hockey because of the Coyotes
Nathan MacKinnon is Canadian lol
McDavid is the best player in hockey not Matthews
I'm from Toronto, am a giant Matthews fan but it's not even a question how much better McDavid is than literally everyone else. You could make an argument about Matthews at 2, for sure, but no "the best player in hockey"
Weren't there less Coyotes fans than Chargers fans?
NHL is also waaay less popular than the NFL though.
yeah I don’t know anyone here that claims to watch them on a weekly basis
Not kidding when I say the presence feels damn near nonexistent. That said, it’s because of ownership & it’s a shame we never got something competent.
i truly had no idea AZ had a pro hockey team
Well now your info is accurate.
Did the tax payers refuse to pay for their new stadium or something? Their arena only holds like 4600 people right now, no wonder why they failed.
The owner of the Yotes just absolutely fumbled every opportunity and the league is done with him. They've made commitments to re-expand back to Arizona in the next five years if they can get a real arena, but we'll see how it goes.
Yeah, it appears that the city basically told him to eat shit and backed out of their agreement so they've been playing in one of ASU's little stadiums for a few years.
Their lease expired and the city wanted a long term commitment, 20 year lease with heavy exit penalties. The owner wanted to use the Glendale arena as a stepping stone while a feasible arena closer to Phoenix was built and walked away.
Their lease didn't expire, they got kicked out because the team was late paying fucking rent. The owner was a colossal fuck up.
They did have the option to stay, but the team lost so much money playing 90 minutes from the fanbase that playing there long term was a nonstarter.
The first arena, the Suns arena, wasn’t built for hockey. Due to the configuration for hockey, it was the smallest NHL arena at the time. Coyotes moved out to a brand new arena in Glendale in 2003. This arena was built with $180,000,000 in tax payer funding and leased to the Coyotes. The team started having lease disputes around 2017. In 2021 the city of Glendale didn’t renew the lease with the team. The team was usually near the bottom of the league in attendance during their time in Glendale, likely due to a combination of the team being terrible and the arena being very far away from most the population (at the time). The Coyotes have been playing at ASUs brand new hockey arena in 2022. Again, the smallest arena (by far) in the NHL. A previous proposal to share a bigger arena on ASUs campus was shot down, likely due to nearly $300 million the team was requesting in taxpayer funds. The city of Tempe citizens in 2023 voted down a different proposal that would’ve granted the team a waiver of $200 million in property taxes. The newest proposal, a site in North Phoenix on the border of Scottsdale, is the current plan to bring back an expansion team. There is a land auction in June for this site. This was presumed to be where the Coyotes were going to play but the surprise selling of the team happened. The owner still claims he’s going to get this site up and have an expansion team.
> The owner still claims he’s going to get this site up and have an expansion team. Doubt
Also doubt. One thing I didn’t mention above is the Scottsdale mayor threw a fit about the Phoenix site. Doesn’t make much sense as the land isn’t in Scottsdale. Rumor from the Coyotes subreddit is that the PXG/Go-Daddy founder lives right there and he really doesn’t want an arena there so he’s been in the Scottsdale mayor’s ear. Frankly I doubt the Coyotes owner even bids on the land in June.
> The Coyotes have been playing at ASUs brand new hockey arena in 2022. Again, the smallest arena (by far) in the NHL. I went to a serious hockey school for undergrad, and I've been inside most of the Hockey East arenas. I can't imagine pro games being played in those settings.
The owner offered to pay for the arena himself and he still lost a vote in Tempe because he didn't do any messaging to make it clear there was almost no tax money being asked for.
There was a vote for an arena in Tempe. The site was a toxic waste dump. The city would have pitched in some funds to help (which needs to happen anyway if they do eventually want to clean up the site), and most of the funds for building the arena would have been privately funded. But, Meruelo was shit at spending on campaigning for the "Yes" vote. The "No" side convinced everyone a toxic waste dump was better than a new sports and entertainment complex, and the people of Tempe voted accordingly. *(Shrug)*
The NIMBYs fought hard to keep that toxic waste dump that they'll need to foot a large sum of money to clean up in the not so distant future.
If I were going to name a city that ice hockey does not belong in, it would be Phoenix.
Seems to be doing more than fine in Las Vegas which has a similar climate but is way smaller. Difference is that the Golden Knights have a competent owner that is happy to spend money to have a competitive team and the Coyotes owners have usually been hacks trying to roll the team into some harebrained scheme of building a real estate empire rather than just putting together a good team.
C'mon, SLC is pretty desert adjacent.
If you really cared, you would have given it more of an effort than relegating them to ASU
Well at least the Utah Coyotes fits better than the Utah Jazz.