Arizona Fan Stories

[Summer Rose]

In this thread, which is vaguely similar to the "Phoenix fan biographies" that got locked, I'm interested in hearing the stories of how you got into the Coyotes, and the story of your fandom. It's meant to be freeform, perhaps posing the simple question of "How did you get into the Coyotes?" to start. I posted something similar to this on the PHNX Discord as well, but Discord limits your messages to a certain length, and I want to be more detailed here. The other question I'd like to answer myself, and hope you'll answer is how the team leaving would affect you. Anyway, here I go.

I first got into the sport of hockey in the middle of the 01-02 season when I stumbled across the Coyotes on Fox Sports Arizona. I was 15 years old at the time. I did previously watch game 4 of the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals on TV prior to that, and while I enjoyed it, it wasn't enough to get me hooked. I was vaguely aware of the Coyotes the following year, however. After the game during the 01-02 season, while I don't recall which game it was specifically that I first watched, I made it to my first NHL game at America West Arena against the Chicago Blackhawks on March 12, 2002. Robert Esche had the net, and we won 3-1. I think I made it to a couple more games that year, including game 4 against the San Jose Sharks, which we lost.

That summer, with the help of my June birthday, I started compiling my own set of hockey equipment, because I had completely fallen for the sport of hockey and wanted to play. On what I think was my 16th birthday or shortly thereafter, I made it to an adult hockey skills class at Oceanside Ice Arena, run by Adam Mims and his Summit Hockey group. Scott Ferris, as well as Adam and a couple other people whose names I don't recall, ran the class. That fall of the 02-03 season, I registered with USA Hockey, signed up for an adult league (despite being still just 16), and my high school (Mesquite High School) even formed a team that year. I joined the team as well. Meanwhile, on the Coyotes front, I convinced my parents to buy an 11-game plan, one of their "Ice Packs." I still have the autographed 8x11 of Wayne Gretzky in a Coyotes jersey in my closet somewhere.

Unfortunately for me, the 2004-05 lockout kind of killed some of my passion for the sport. I watched, though not quite in earnest, the 05-06 season, but the fire had faded quite a bit. Beginning with 07-08, I don't think I watched a single NHL game. It didn't help that the Coyotes sucked during this period. I had also stopped playing for a while. The first game that brought me back was game 7 against Detroit in 2010. However, I again didn't watch a single NHL game of the 10-11 season. The 11-12 season I started following, watching sporadically, and it was during the 2012 playoffs that I discovered HF Boards via the playoff photoshop thread. I bit the bullet and bought a ticket to game 5 against Nashville that year. As the bankruptcy situation and relocation rumors started to really hit me, I decided to vote for the team with my wallet and ponied up for season tickets beginning with the 12-13 season. As a gift for buying season tickets, I was given a pair of tickets to game 5 against the Kings.

Back on the playing front, I had recently moved back in with my parents, and in the shed out back, one day I discovered my set of hockey equipment, including some goaltending gear. Lo and behold, Adam Mims and co. were still running their adult hockey skills class at Oceanside, so I started playing again there. I also signed up for an officiating seminar in November 2012 and began refereeing all across the valley a bit, and joined an adult rec team at Peoria, the Nihilist Ferrets. I still have my jersey from that team, as well as for that matter my high school jersey.

Unfortunately, after the 2013-14 season, I lost my job and had to drop my season tickets. I made it to a few games during 14-15 and 15-16, and watched what I could, but by then I was in full swing with officiating the sport. It helped that the Arizona Hockey Officials Association switched to an online scheduling website called Arbiter, and I started getting assigned to a lot more games. Meanwhile I was no longer on the Ferrets due to financial concerns, but began playing here and there with Cactus Valley Hockey. I even played with Ronda Pearson, that Coyotes fan who got to taser the Glendale mayor after dressing him down during a Glendale city council meeting. My time in the Phoenix area ended in the fall of 2016, when I moved to Payson. By then, I was completely obsessed with all things hockey, and watched as many games as I could for the next few years.

During my time in Payson, I met the man who would later become my husband online, on the Discord server for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Things moved very quickly with him, and I moved to Gainesville, Florida in January of 2020. Meanwhile, I adopted the Tampa Bay Lightning as my second team, as well as, for that matter, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (but this thread isn't about football so that's all I'll say on that front). I got to watch them hoist back to back Stanley Cups, as well as make a third straight trip to the finals, and my obsession with hockey was at an all-time high.

However, as I've gotten older, I've been finding it more and more difficult to stay up late to watch the Coyotes over the past year. I've felt my love for the team start to fade a bit, and at the same time, my love for the Bolts grow stronger. While I've made it to Amalie Arena every time the Coyotes have come to town since moving here, worn my Coyotes jersey to the game and rooted for them, I've felt that my passion for hockey has gotten a little weaker in a sense.

The news of our potential relocation feels different this time, and hit me hard. What I'm most afraid for if the team leaves is the Arizona hockey community, which I sorely miss. If I still lived in Arizona and was still involved in the community, I'd be terrified. I fear for what it'll do for youth enrollment in hockey mainly.

My mind is racing now, and I think this is a good point to simply stop writing. If you read the entire thing, I thank you. I look forward to reading everyone else's stories who cares to post.

 

[LAIslanderFan]

I grew up on Long Island andI'm a lifelong Islanders fan and I've followed them from the moment of their inception in 1972. I move to LA in my late 20's for work and continued my love of the Isles. I could never be a fan of the Kings although I did spilt season tickets with a colleague of mine a few years back.
Back around 2012 I told me wife we should look for a house outside of California (prices are ridiculous there) and the caveat is that it would have to be driving distance from LA and be near a major city. That narrowed the search to Vegas or Phoenix. I left the final decision to my wife, but she knew I put a lot of importance into the city having major league sports, especially the NHL, because that is and has always been my favorite sport. I grew up playing ice hockey on ponds and well as in organized leaguers and when the ice melted, I played roller hockey on inline skates.
I continued to play pickup roller hockey while I was in LA.
In the end she picked AZ. but I know my love of sports and the NHL helped in the decision.

It became apparent almost immediately that the Coyotes weren't the most stable franchise, and it really meant a lot to me that they succeed here. When they played in Glendale I was good for 5 or 6 games a year. Unfortunately, the prices at the Mullett cut the number of games down to 1 or 2 a year. I follow the Coyotes just as much if not more then the Isles. It's also nice to be a hockey fan and be able to watch games 7 days a week (often they play on alternate days), or doubleheaders, the Isles at 4pm, followed by the Yotes at 7pm. When they play each other (only twice a year) the outcome isn't so important. I'm good with either team winning. Lately I get much pleasure watching the Coyotes young guns, as opposed to the calcified players wearing the Islanders jersey (thank you Lou). I don't think I've missed more than 1 or 2 Coyotes televised games in 4 or 5 years. I catch almost every game unless I'm traveling. Oddly enough (or maybe not) I turned on the game the other night against Vancouver and I didn't have the stomach to watch it. It's like when you break up with your girlfriend and you don't want to see her in public because she might be with another guy.

In the end, I'm glad my wife chose AZ, but it's a bit ironic that since the time we bought this house, Las Vegas added an NHL team, NFL team and an MLB team is on the way. And of course, AZ is probably losing their NHL team. My wife actually pointed that out to me the other night when I told her the Coyotes situation.

 

[DustyDangler]

I will have a go at this as it will likely be cathartic.

I got into hockey in the late '70s, (yes, I am old) as I lived in the South Bay of California and I loved the Dodgers, the Lakers and the Kings. There wasn't a lot on tv in those days so it was really all about Vin Scully, Chick Hearn and Bob Miller and all three were great.

That was the tale end of the Triple Crown line with Simmer, Taylor and Dionne and it seemed like each year I was into them one of 'em would retire. I had baseball gear but no hockey gear so I would put on a mitt, pick up a bat and imagine I was Rogie Vachon making saves. The Kings of that era were terrible so I guess that was my introduction into being a fan of bad hockey.

Somewhere along the line my family moved to Spokane and I wound up working on a farm and the guys I worked with and I, most every weekend, would go to a Chiefs (WHL) game for $5 general admission. It was all fighting all the time and I became a huge fan of a 300+PIM guy named Link Gaetz.

We moved back to Cali in early '88 and on August 9, 1988 something miraculous happened. Before Disney destroyed it like they do with every property they touch, ESPN was huge. I remember watching SportsCenter and seeing something that was so unbelievable, so amazing, so crazy...the Kings had traded Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, 3 first-round picks and $15m in cash for Mike Krushelnyski, Marty McSorely and...Wayne Gretzky. At this point, hockey became next level and in 1993 the Kings went to the finals by beating the Toronto Maple Leafs in 7 in one of the most exciting series I had watched to date. They got bounced by Montreal in the finals but it was an amazing year.

Eventually, Gretzky moved on and so did I. I was making a decent living in CA but couldn't afford to live. My mother had moved to Gilbert due to health issues and the drier climate helped her out. On a visit I decided AZ was the place for me. When I was in CA, one of my other interests was beach volleyball and the guy I played with had moved to AZ and we had lost touch. Out of the blue, we ran into each other in a Phoenix parking garage. We reacquainted and we would often find a group of us playing cards, drinking and watching Coyotes games.

This would've been '97-'98 so year 2 for the Coyotes and players like Tkachuk, Roenick, Drake, and Khabibulin would wind up cursing me to fandom for another 25+ years. Amongst my favorite memories was seeing Brian Boucher at AWA pitch one of his shutouts that led to the 332 mins record. I don't remember the year but I went to a game 7 against the Blues where Khabibulin stood on his head but they wound up losing 1-0.

Now, I had been inline skating for some time just going here to there kind of stuff but that eventually led to playing inline hockey. We started out with around 6 of us, playing on a school parking lot. My skates were bad so I would wreck my feet playing and we were too stupid to know when to quit in the heat so exhaustion was our friend. Those 6 would turn into around 20 at its peak and man that was fun. Eventually, we got hooked up with an indoor court in Mesa and there was a stretch where I played on 3 different teams and would often be playing 4 nights a week. Eventually learning to skate backwards and having a slap shot were some of my life's greatest accomplishments I wore 22 as I was a huge Tocchet fan and eventually had a black 22 Kachina.

Each year the Coyotes would get worse and at some point Gretzky followed me to Phoenix to save the day. I, like everyone was excited for his involvement but eventually my respect for him waned. I still blame him for shelfing the Kachina Coyote in favor of the howling one and I loathed the Red Wings knockoff pajamas he made the team wear. This was an affront to the Coyotes identity in my mind and was a disconnect to Arizona in favor of a generic logo. This would be a side note had they won but the on ice product was wretched and there was little interesting about the team. Eventually too, I would come to believe Rick Tocchet should've been imprisoned but skated, at least to some degree, because he was a friend of Gretzky and the friends of Gretzky theme was annoying throughout his Coyotes relationships. Ultimately, the Gretzky years turned into disinterest for me and my Coyotes fandom was fading.

2012 came around and I had broke my ankle playing soccer. Thus, I had lots of time to watch every moment of that wonderful playoff run. My interest had returned and much of my interest centered around the greatest player in Coyote history, Shane Doan. His retirement ceremony was remarkable and emotional for this generally, unemotional, fan.

A few years later we needed to return to my wife's home town to look after some family members so we are now in Southern Idaho where I am pretty confident I am the only hockey fan in a 2 hour drive radius. However, it is a 4 season kind of area so during the winters I have had a lot of indoor time to watch hockey.

My excitement for this team this year achieved those late '90s energies. I believe in Armstrong and his staff and I believe in the current forward group and this team has been more exciting than some of the past teams that had more points (we've never had this depth of goal scoring talent). I had confidence Armstrong was going to fix the defense in a year or three and this group would be a legit, year after year, playoff team. I will continue to be a fan wherever they go and if it is SLC, 3 hour drive for me. However,...

Arizona Coyotes fans are special. It takes a special person to year after year show up for a team that year after year just...blows. It takes a special fan to endure all of the ownership debacles and still stick. It takes a special fan to be slammed by the larger NHL fan base and to have to regularly fight off the trolls. It takes a special fan to watch other teams get all the draft lottery "luck". It takes a special fan to have endured the greatest organizational, penalty in sports history with the 1st and 2nd round pick forfeitures. It takes a special fan to watch their home grown talent get signed by northern teams and those northern teams not appreciate their success has come because hockey was in the desert. The greatest goal scorer in NHL history will likely wind up being an Arizona product. What he is doing this year 2 goals shy of 70, 367 career goals and he is only 26. This was because NHL hockey was right where it belongs, in a state where people care about the sport and are developing elite hockey players. No fan base has endured what Coyotes fans have endured and still stick. No fan base deserves an arena and stable, competent, ownership more than Coyotes fans. I have every belief this franchise is getting it right on ice and success is imminent. The idea this success may come outside of Arizona is a massive slew foot and I grieve with you.

Sad howls and best wishes to all,

Jeff

 

[Prarievarg]

The NHL was huge in Sweden back in the 90s and early 2000s. I collected hockey cards and played EA NHL. That’s when I picked Phoenix as my team based on logo and jerseys. I played NHL 2001 (I think it was) a ton, mostly using the Coyotes, with Doan, Nagy, and Numminen as my go-to guys.

From there (I mightve been around 12 years old maybe) I started keeping up with results and standings in our local newspaper. They had a page for box scores from all over the world.

A few years later, I discovered NHL GameCenter, which allowed me to watch games right from Sweden. Since about 2010, I’ve been using a mix of GameCenter, torrent sites, and local streaming services to catch pretty much all the Coyotes games.

Since the team often struggled, I got into the NHL draft and started looking up info on the Coyotes prospects. That's what led me here to this site. At first, I was all about the prospect grade lists on HF Boards, but then I got into F40 and over the years I've had m couple of accounts, to read stuff, mostly.

I’ve never been to Arizona, so no live game memories, but I’ve got some special ones from the 2012 playoffs when I used to torrent games and watch them on train rides etc. Boedker OT goal against Chicago is one stands out. Doans hattrick, Mike Smith goalie goal etc.

The hate from traditionalists and the relocation crowd turned me from an NHL fan to just a Yotes fan. So in a way it feels like this isn't just losing my favorite team, I'm losing my favorite sport.

I love you guys on this site. Even though I've most of the time been a lurker/liker I've read your messages for 10-15 years. Will miss having this place to visit daily.

Thank you all!
Anton

 

[MIGs Dog]

I attended my first NHL game at the old Madhouse on Madison. I still have the Tony Esposito poster hanging in my garage. I also remember watching the Miracle on Ice in 1980. Other than that, I was not much of a hockey fan until my boys started playing in the late 90s. My youngest played one of the peewee games during the intermission of a Hurricanes game. It was against the Coyotes, and Roenick was knocked out at one point. Not unconscious but left the game with an injury. It wasn't until the 2008 playoffs that I started watching the Coyotes regularly. Before that, I was moving around the country/world with the military, and it wasn't an option. Today, the Yotes are the only pro team in any sport I follow with any intensity. I plan on continuing as a fan when they move to Utah. I want to see this current rebuild hoist the Cup, but sadly it will not be in AZ.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

.the Kings had traded Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, 3 first-round picks and $15m in cash for Mike Krushelnyski, Marty McSorely and...Wayne Gretzky. At this point, hockey became next level...

Great story.

Also, fun fact, Wayne's 20th game as a King in November 1988 was the first hockey game I ever saw live, on my 3rd ever business trip, aged 23, and first trip to California.

https://www.hockey-reference.com/boxscores/198811190LAK.html

At the time, although it was very cool to see, I would tell people "welp, I saw Gretzky score a game winner on a breakaway. I don't really need to ever see another hockey game, right? Plus, I saw Mary Hart! (Entertainment Tonight)"

(it's funny how over the years all of my northern beer league teammates who grew up with the sport will randomly throw out all of these 70s, 80s, 90s hockey references, and I'll just shrug. "yeah, i've heard that name, I guess, but....")

 

[Arizonatah]

Was at the Phoenix Zoo Lights thingy years ago with family. My nephew and I were in line to get a drink (it was night-time and pretty dark where we were at the moment.) I turn around and there's Shane Doan in line behind us, all by himself. Didn't know what to say so I stupidly said, "are you the real Shane Doan or a look alike?" and he said "It's me" and laughed. He shook my hand, we talked about the loss they just had against Dallas and he said "we'll get 'em next time." They did too.

He was genuinely nice. Nothing phony about his image. Everyone knows that, but I got to see for myself.

 

[MayDayMayDay]

Y'all already know my story. Y'all were a part of it.

https://forums.hfboards.com/threads/moving-to-arizona.2644733/

I'm crying so hard right now. Thank you F40. <3

 

[samandbigboy]

Thank you for this thread. Not so much a story, but it will be part of the closure process for losing this franchise twice.

Became a Jets fan when i lived in Winnipeg for a couple of years in the mid 80s since the Jets was all that we had. it was insane when we beat the flames that one year in the first round. hated the oilers since they always beat us like a drum, plus their fortunes with generational talent.

Moved to the states late 80s and "followed" the franchise by reading the box scores in the sports section in the newspaper, it was literally just a score, you couldn't tell who scored. When the jets were sold and moved to Phoenix in the '90s, a friend in Canada sent me the last game on a VHS tape. Easier to follow the team in the 90s with the internet, plus getting to watch 2 games a season on Fox Sports SW when we played the dallas stars. Been living in DC the last 10 years, always go to a Caps game when the Yotes are here and always root for the Yotes. Much easier to follow with NHL Network/ESPN +.

This freaking franchise is cursed as in with poor ownerships, busted draft picks, etc.

Will continue to root for the SLC franchise as you can't just turn off 30+ years of rooting for this franchise and giving up on players that you are familiar with. When you look at the roster, the future is bright; it's sad that the AZ fans don't get to see the fruits of their labor. but in my wildest dream the new franchise hoist Lord Stanley and take the Cup back to AZ and the 'peg for the long suffering fans . . .

Long live the Jets/Coyotes!