Arizona (Phoenix) Coyotes 1996-2024

[These Are The Days]

Yeah. Mods please do something. I haven't complained in 10 years but I'm not here for folks talking about how this should have happened so long ago and just acting like

This is bullshit. A team is leaving. We don't need to rehash that there was problems

 

[njdevils1982]

interviewer with some horrible questions

 

[Voight]

The NFL has had 3 relocations in the last decade. The MLB has one on the horizon. The NBA had one in 2008 and another in 2012...before that, 2002 and 2001. The NHL is bad at stuff but they're not some big exception here.

Ehh the Nets moving from NJ to Brooklyn wasn't much of a relocation IMO.

 

[Gregor Samsa]

I’ve said a few times but things probably would have been different if there was some type of success. A few deep playoff runs could have been huge. That one is on management that they were never able to create excitement (minus the wcf run) over decades

The fans and players don’t deserve the shit they’ve had to deal with. Their ownership and management has been terrible and the reason this all happened

I never want to see fans lose a team. Maybe some years down the road they’ll get a team back and do it right. Fans will support a winning team no matter the region

 

[Leonardo87]

Yeah. Mods please do something. I haven't complained in 10 years but I'm not here for folks talking about how this should have happened so long sgo snd just acting like

This is bullshit. A team is leaving. We don't need to rehash that there was problems

Doing everything we can, have already posted a warning. If Folks don't want to play nice and be respectful they will be forced to sit this thread discussion out.

 

[Zirakzigil]

Yeah. Mods please do something. I haven't complained in 10 years but I'm not here for folks talking about how this should have happened so long sgo snd just acting like

This is bullshit. A team is leaving. We don't need to rehash that there was problems

Doing everything we can, have already posted a warning. If Folks don't want to play nice and be respectful they will be forced to sit this thread discussion out.

 

[nbwingsfan]

Or if they won the McDavid lottery.

That too.

I just look at what happened to Nashville after even a failed playoff run. That city was abso Buzzing that post season and has seemingly kept that momentum going despite little success since then

 

[jeffff]

That's a 10 hour drive without stopping...way easier to fly.

Thanks tips...

 

[StreetHawk]

That too.

I just look at what happened to Nashville after even a failed playoff run. That city was abso Buzzing that post season and has seemingly kept that momentum going despite little success since then

Have to get the business side taken care of first. Never did that. Feel most badly for the residents of Glendale having to pay off that arena.

NHL knew that going in. All we heard was Scottsdale and then they took the deal with Glendale.

Expansion into nba markets depends on being like smith and SLC. NBA owner has to both want and be willing to pay what the nhl wants.

That’s kept the nhl out of places like Houston, Portland who have arenas that can truly host nhl teams.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

There's one in Glendale they got kicked out of because they didn't want to sign a lease. They rejected an arena they already had and couldn't finance a new one.

but that's water under the bridge.

Sure but them playing in Glendale was part of the problem. That's not an easy arena for much of the areas like Tempe, Mesa, Scottsdale to get to for a weeknight game.

All in all I feel bad for the fans. You have to be a diehard fan for a non-traditional team and they deserved better.

 

[Satans Hockey]

Ehh the Nets moving from NJ to Brooklyn wasn't much of a relocation IMO.

Driving to Brooklyn on a weekday is absolute hell during rush hour, can be even worse depending where you're coming from. It's entirely two different fan bases and the amount of people in NJ who are still season ticket holders in Brooklyn is probably minimal.

Team was dead to me as soon as they announced the arena and that they were moving.

 

[Saga of the Elk]

You say this as if relocation is something we only see with the NHL.

Ask Montrealers about the Expos, or Rams fans in St. Louis.......hell, maybe you'll find some Grizzlies fans still sore about losing their team too.

Huh? I didn't bring up every example of relocation because.... this is a hockey board and a thread about the Coyotes, not a broader discussion of why billionaires get to move their teams and exploit fans in other sports. But since you complained: they'll continue to do it of course, ripping off taxpayers, making tons of money for themselves and then being promised by scoundrels like Gary Bettman the opportunity to pull the same scam again. It's actually a scam on another level too: where the product of "professional hockey" gets diluted again and again through expansion by forcing teams to play replacement-level guys. Much like a food product that is downsized or made with worse ingredients but charged the same price.

 

[Dr Pepper]

Huh? I didn't bring up every example of relocation because.... this is a hockey board and a thread about the Coyotes, not a broader discussion of why billionaires get to move their teams and exploit fans in other sports. But since you complained: they'll continue to do it of course, ripping off taxpayers, making tons of money for themselves and then being promised by scoundrels like Gary Bettman the opportunity to pull the same scam again. It's actually a scam on another level too: where the product of "professional hockey" gets diluted again and again through expansion by forcing teams to play replacement-level guys. Much like a food product that is downsized or made with worse ingredients but charged the same price.

I didn't "complain", I just pointed out - and I'll do it again here - that relocation happens in other leagues too.

The way you phrased your post (and this one, by the looks of it), made it look like it was a problem only in the NHL, when it's really everywhere.

 

[JetsWillFly4Ever]

I always thought I would be happy when the Coyotes moved.

The Jets 1.0 went there, the team struggled to fill seats. Bettman bent over backwards to try to make it work for years on years. Felt like they were getting treatment our Jets never got. I was bitter. Getting the Jets back took the edge off that, and having some attendance issues ourselves this year gave me perspective I never had before.

Watching the highlights of the game and seeing the fans I felt nothing but sadness. Whether or not it is logically and business wise the right move (which it is), seeing fans have their team taken from them is just an awfully sad sight to see. I wish things went better for them.

 

[Megustaelhockey]

The Phoenix area is a HUGE market, no matter what the Canadian media keep shamelessly telling fans elsewhere to believe. If hockey can flourish in Tampa, Nashville, Carolina, and more, it can work in Arizona.

The problem was with how this team was run for decades.

 

[McGarnagle]

For like 8 years this board has just been full of posts about how Arizona was a failed market, embarrassing franchise, and they need to move. Now that they're actually moving everyone is claiming how they feel for them and always liked them.

I never cared much for the Coyotes and am excited for Utah, but whenever a team that's been there for 25 years ceases to be, it's noteworthy. I've only been to 3 NHL games in person, but one of them involved the Coyotes so I'll always be able to say I saw them.

 

[Svechhammer]

It always amuses me that those who say hockey doesn't belong in the desert, south or in the Bible belt are also the same ones that whine endlessly about why the league isn't more popular.

This franchise failing because of a series of horrible owners who did absolutely nothing to dedicate themselves to holding up their end of the bargain in putting a competitive product on the ice should piss everyone off. The fans and the league are losers here. Phoenix has a very large market, the game had 30 years to grow and despite the best efforts of the league to not have that happen there is still somehow a dedicated following there. This should have worked and it's a colossal f***up for the league that it didn't, just like it was when it failed in Atlanta by giving a franchise to owners who very loudly said they didn't want it.

Tom Dundon spending to the cap in what was deemed a failed market in Raleigh now seeing an arena sold out every night during the regular season and a completely rejeuvenated market shows that it really isn't hard to make it work in these places. You just need to actually try. And I hope this is a learning lesson to everyone involved that the best way to make the game grow is to hold each other accountable and stop protecting the ones who are in it just to cut costs and take profits.

I hope Arizona gets another franchise and it's owned by someone who actually cares about making it a winner. The fans who stuck with that mess for 30 years absolutely deserve to see a sustained period of winning hockey.

 

[Lt Dan]

For like 8 years this board has just been full of posts about how Arizona was a failed market, embarrassing franchise, and they need to move. Now that they're actually moving everyone is claiming how they feel for them and always liked them.

Let's talk about the first paragraph.

The first sentence was always two different camps.
The second sentence is also two different camps.


Regardless of anyone's feelings about the coyotes or hockey in AZ, NO ONE should be dancing on their grave and everyone should really be putting themselves in their shoes, because , once again, I've been there and it's brutal

 

[StreetHawk]

The Phoenix area is a HUGE market, no matter what the Canadian media keep shamelessly telling fans elsewhere to believe. If hockey can flourish in Tampa, Nashville, Carolina, and more, it can work in Arizona.

The problem was with how this team was run for decades.

End of the day, despite being a HUGE market, could not attract a quality owner with the money or connections to get an arena built. Obviously, there are challenges with the Suns Arena and Glendale already operational. Would a 3rd one in the region have truly made financial sense?

Who knows. But, Houston is also a large market and once Les Alexander did not get an expansion team in the late 90's he didn't push to land the Thrashers when they needed a new home. And he was in the process of selling off the Rockets when the NHL expanded to LV. Now Houston's NHL future rests on whether Fertitia will pay the price the NHL wants for a team.

NHL ran into obstacles in the AZ market. Not the perfect storm like in Denver/Dallas with an aging arena that needed to be replaced which then leads to sharing a new one with the NBA club.

There was no Ballmer who buys the team and drops a billion to build a new arena.

 

[Pure West]

Everything seemed to spiral out of control when they moved Glendale. Arena location is very important for a 41 home game a season league and you'd have to think a lot of teams would struggle with this. If they would have been able to get the arena built in the early 2000s in Scottsdale/Tempe/Downtown Phoenix it would have made a big difference. I have lots of snowbird family down there so I've been visiting the Valley a lot, and that's a tough trek to make in rush hour in particular. Vancouver has lots of public transit that feeds the arena and that makes getting in for the game from the suburbs on a weeknight much easier, let alone the amount of people living in walking distance. Phoenix area has next to no public transit. It took me 3 hours to go from Mesa to see the Cardinals that included getting a 20 minute ride to the light rail station (before the days of uber).

I don't know all the details of why any arena deals that were more central fell through, but it seems to me they went chasing the maximum taxpayer funding they could receive at the expense of their long-term sustainability. This combined with the losing just spiraled things out of control, and money-losing businesses seem to just attract more charlatans as owners.

The league did what they could to save the team (aside from fixing the McDavid lotto), but the series of bad decisions just made things untenable. I'm pretty confident there will be an expansion team there at some point, just too big of a market that now has some hockey infrastructure in place.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

RIP in pepperoni.


And just when they finally went back to their great jerseys full time .


Utah better come out with a sick look.

 

[ManofSteel55]

I bet 90% of the fans who will be stopping by with sympathetic comments are the same ones who have been shitting on Arizona for years and constantly reminding everyone why they should be relocated lol

We can feel empathy towards the fans for losing their franchise, while believing the league and players will be better off in a different city (even if it is with a different owner really, but I digress).

As a neutral fan the Oilers postgame thread on their board shitting on the team and their fans is disgusting and makes me happy they haven't come close to a Cup in my lifetime.

Sorry. I wasn't in there last night, but sorry nontheless.

Signed, an Oilers fan.

 

[Rich Nixon]

Ehh the Nets moving from NJ to Brooklyn wasn't much of a relocation IMO.

...but it is. The team is no longer in the same state as its fanbase, nor is it nearly as accessible for that fanbase, nor does it "belong" to them anymore. It now plays in a dense urban core rather than a giant smelly suburban parking lot, so it's not even in the same cultural environment its fanbase identifies with. They were New Jersey Nets fans because they're from New Jersey, they didn't love the team for its name or something.

Many/most English Premier League teams in the London area are within a few miles from each other—picking one of them up and dropping it in a whole other part of town would be a big deal. The Knicks are now closer/more accessible to former Nets fans than the team they used to have.

 

[bov]

RIP Yotes. Fun team to root for through all the thick & thin, best wishes to their fans. Can't help but think of Shane Doan and the Mike Smith goal when I reminisce about the team. Not to mention their playoff stint with the whiteout & awesome crowd.

Looking forward to the Utah chapter.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Who would have thought, Jets 1.0 fans and Coyotes fans united in grief over the same cursed franchise.

4 WHA teams moved to the NHL. 3 of them have relocated, one of them now doing it twice.

*sideyes the Oilers*