CXLVII - Is this the 'Final Countdown' in Arizona?

[oknazevad]

Bruh, you have a team again, leave the Yotes and their fans alone. You're like a guy who's girlfriend left him for someone else, then bitterly complained for years, then found a new gf and married her, but still wants to hurt the other guy your ex is with. Let it go. Has nothing to do with you.

Thank you!!!!!!

I am sick of these fans who can't let go of ancient history. The franchise has been in Arizona longer than it was in Winnipeg. You've had a new team for over a decade. And you stole it from another market. The hypocrisy is rich!

 

[Lions67]

Thank you!!!!!!

I am sick of these fans who can't let go of ancient history. The franchise has been in Arizona longer than it was in Winnipeg. You've had a new team for over a decade. And you stole it from another market. The hypocrisy is rich!

If you say so lol

 

[Boris Zubov]

New York Islanders yearly attendance at hockeydb.com

A historical graph of the yearly attendance for the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League.

www.hockeydb.com

Why are these numbers indicative of a solid fanbase? I call BS, the the NVMC held over 15K. Numbers like that would be considered unacceptable if the Isles played in any location where New Yorkers currently flee to today.

I hate the double standard, why is low attendance justifiable here but not there? If one market gets bashed for attendance problems, then all of them should. If context and circumstance matter in one market, then they should matter in all of them.

Nobody likes to shit on Isles fans more than I do, & those numbers are definitive proof they are a bunch of front runners. The attendance numbers suck for both teams, but the Islanders have never been completely irrelevant within their community.

To be clear, I'm not one of those people who don't think hockey can work in the desert...I was a VGK STH for their 1st 3 seasons before moving back east. However, I am of the opinion it's the Coyotes brand that is too toxic for them to ever be taken seriously after the past 15 years.

 

[Reaser]

Still say it's weird when people use attendance as if that's the entire floor/ceiling of a fanbase.

Regional broadcast viewership is an extremely better measurable. Regardless of your opinion on the methodology, it without a doubt shows whether or not the local market actually watches/cares about their team and follows the team when they're good, when they're bad, or when they're middle of the road.

So it's a bit off when someone says "if Arizona is a failed market then so is Winnipeg" and says it's because attendance. Meanwhile, the Jets get roughly 200k and have been up to near 300k more average viewership on their regional telecasts than what the Yotes get viewership wise over the years.

No dog in the fight, just find attendance to be such a limited measure of a fanbase.

 

[TheGreenTBer]

Nobody likes to shit on Isles fans more than I do, & those numbers are definitive proof they are a bunch of front runners. The attendance numbers suck for both teams, but the Islanders have never been completely irrelevant within their community.

To be clear, I'm not one of those people who don't think hockey can work in the desert...I was a VGK STH for their 1st 3 seasons before moving back east. However, I am of the opinion it's the Coyotes brand that is too toxic for them to ever be take seriously after the past 15 years.

I agree.

I think hockey can work in the Phoenix area. I don't really think the Coyotes can anymore.

 

[aqib]

This is non-sense. Since people are discussing the scientific method, if Arizona is a failed market than other teams with the same statistics of revenue, attendance, etc would also be failed markets.

But we've seen dozens of examples where it isn't the case.
No one calls Winnipeg a failed market, despite their attendance being low
> due to population size and arena size; okay. so attendance can be tossed out as a metric to judge a failed market.

NBA arena with bad sightlines lowering attendance.
Bad location away from fan base.
Terrible lease that cost them revenues.
Terrible team that fans avoided.
Failed Entertainment District project that rendered them practically homeless.
Bottom of the league in revenues.

Those things all applied to my Islanders. You can't say NEW YORK is a failed market when the Rangers were #1 in revenue, the Devils #15 and the Islanders #29... all at the same time, in the same market.

Calling Arizona a failed market isn't Truth, Fact, 100% anything other than 100% opinion.

Oh since you said "Fact" I guess that shuts this down the discussion. The rest of us should just log off now.

You also have TV ratings you know. In addition to having always had horrible attendance they have abysmal TV ratings.

You can keep comparing the Islanders all you want, but the differences in the situations have been spelled out a million times including the fact that there was always TV money keeping them afloat, legit billionaires willing to buy the team, etc. Part of their issues was the changing economic landscape on Long Island (few corporate HQ left, the financial distress of Nassau County, etc) but interest in the sport of hockey wasn't questioned.

Have you noticed no one has that there has never been any rumors about the Minnesota Wild? When the NHL expanded there no one said "why are you going to Minnesota?" In the last 20 years they have won as many playoff series as the Coyotes have. They are in a smaller metro area that also has NFL, NBA, and MLB team (that have been around longer), as well as a college that plays in a Power 5 Conference. They also have MLS. Their arena also has to compete for non-sports events with a more ideally located arena. So why are there no issues even rumored there? Because people there love hockey and its been demonstrated over the years.

 

[aqib]

Thank you!!!!!!

I am sick of these fans who can't let go of ancient history. The franchise has been in Arizona longer than it was in Winnipeg. You've had a new team for over a decade. And you stole it from another market. The hypocrisy is rich!

Having been a lifelong Browns fan until they traded for DeShaun Watson, I still hate the Ravens. I don't know how many Brooklyn Dodger fans are left (its been almost 70 years) but they have been holding that grudge since 1957.

 

[ponder719]

Having been a lifelong Browns fan until they traded for DeShaun Watson, I still hate the Ravens. I don't know how many Brooklyn Dodger fans are left (its been almost 70 years) but they have been holding that grudge since 1957.

Hating a team is one thing. Wishing for that team's demise, and the misery inflicted upon you to be inflicted upon that other fanbase, is quite another.

 

[Salsero1]

Oh since you said "Fact" I guess that shuts this down the discussion. The rest of us should just log off now.

You also have TV ratings you know. In addition to having always had horrible attendance they have abysmal TV ratings.

You can keep comparing the Islanders all you want, but the differences in the situations have been spelled out a million times including the fact that there was always TV money keeping them afloat, legit billionaires willing to buy the team, etc. Part of their issues was the changing economic landscape on Long Island (few corporate HQ left, the financial distress of Nassau County, etc) but interest in the sport of hockey wasn't questioned.

Have you noticed no one has that there has never been any rumors about the Minnesota Wild? When the NHL expanded there no one said "why are you going to Minnesota?" In the last 20 years they have won as many playoff series as the Coyotes have. They are in a smaller metro area that also has NFL, NBA, and MLB team (that have been around longer), as well as a college that plays in a Power 5 Conference. They also have MLS. Their arena also has to compete for non-sports events with a more ideally located arena. So why are there no issues even rumored there? Because people there love hockey and its been demonstrated over the years.

The way the Wild arrived and have been run since their inception is night and day vs how the Yotes arrived and have been run. You can't separate market engagement from how the franchise has been run.

You come across as such a bigot.

 

[Lions67]

Hating a team is one thing. Wishing for that team's demise, and the misery inflicted upon you to be inflicted upon that other fanbase, is quite another.

Pretty sure tue Yotes have had more than enough time to fix their mess.
Time to put the dog down.

 

[Salsero1]

Pretty sure tue Yotes have had more than enough time to fix their mess.
Time to put the dog down.

Mind your own business, such as that team you wanted so bad.

 

[GreenHornet]

This is non-sense. Since people are discussing the scientific method, if Arizona is a failed market than other teams with the same statistics of revenue, attendance, etc would also be failed markets.

But we've seen dozens of examples where it isn't the case.
No one calls Winnipeg a failed market, despite their attendance being low
> due to population size and arena size; okay. so attendance can be tossed out as a metric to judge a failed market.

NBA arena with bad sightlines lowering attendance.
Bad location away from fan base.
Terrible lease that cost them revenues.
Terrible team that fans avoided.
Failed Entertainment District project that rendered them practically homeless.
Bottom of the league in revenues.

You forgot a deliberately sabotaging and/or incompetent ownership group

 

[GreenHornet]

B) Failed Markets don't exist... "a number of markets which the NHL has entered and the team has failed there" includes TEAMS that failed, but replacement teams coming back like Minnesota, Bay Area/San Jose, New York/New Jersey, Colorado and Winnipeg; And God willing Quebec City and Atlanta (FIFY).

Saying "Markets fail" is a cop out. Be consistent. The people who LIKE saying Atlanta and Phoenix are "failed markets" would never admit that Winnipeg and Quebec are "Failed markets."

 

[Salsero1]

You forgot to cross out Quebec. As a Canes fan, they can kick rocks.

 

[Lions67]

Mind your own business, such as that team you wanted so bad.

Lol
This is a forum to talk about the league.
Sorry but I think I will continue doing just that.
Don’t like it, ignore function works

 

[Salsero1]

The kind of hatred that motivates the relocationistas shouldn't have any place in the game or this board.

 

[Lions67]

The kind of hatred that motivates the relocationistas shouldn't have any place in the game or this board.

Lmao!!

 

[PainForShane]

Pretty sure tue Yotes have had more than enough time to fix their mess.
Time to put the dog down.

Avatar checks out

 

[BMN]

Whew! A lot of the flaws of recycled HFBoards Coyotes debates just exploding in a series of posts hahah

1--- I agree with KevFu that I think the term "failed market" is stupid. Quite frankly, it's a poison pill in the way of rational discussion because it anthropomorphizes an entire geographical area into a single person that is responsible for something succeeding or failing. Projects in certain markets fail and we can argue what the threshold of that is and what it says about the likelihood of succeeding at another time. But saying "the market failed" is lazy and reductive.

2--- What I hope just about everyone can agree on is that metro Phoenix is a "hobbled" market. The NHL and its assorted partners made the market for hockey worse than they found it or at the barest minimum, no better. (The odd paradox in this is that while they've made the area worse as a market, the presence of the Coyotes has actually improved the area's ability to facilitate recreational play AKA the "grow the game" canard. So the biggest winner of the Coyotes venture has been USA Developmental).

3--- I re-assert that it's pointless to use 99.7% of players' statements of "I want to play here/I don't" as any commentary on a market, good or bad. Most players aren't in a position to be picky, listen to the ones who are. Even then, the picky players usually care far far far far far more about the org than the market. Did I mention far far far more? Besides which, players' intentions also need to be judged on the positioning of the team competitively. The Coyotes' plan isn't in "win now" mode. A hot free agent isn't likely to find that appealing if they're in their prime.

4--- Also agree with Reaser that the more worrying element of the Phoenix venture hasn't been attendance. That can ebb and flow just about anywhere. The TV ratings have never been encouraging (even years when you get a headline like "TV viewership in Phoenix doubled!," you'd then read the story and realize "ah....double paltry").

4a--- "Traditionalist" fans tend to be preachy/judgy, for better or worse, about how "front of mind" a NHL team is in a non-traditional market. Whatever fair/unfair advantages you think Vegas had, there's no denying the Knights are "front of mind." Better TV ratings and a Stanley Cup celebration that shows *the whole town* (not just the 18K in the arena) are in tune with what the team is up to. You can actually have pretty great attendance with a small fanbase if that fanbase is affluent & dedicated enough to show up regularly. Doesn't mean the grand swell of the metro area is being monetized as much as it could elsewhere.

5--- At the end of the day, I'll always be critical of the NHL not for believing in Arizona as a market. Because honestly I believe any North American metro area can be a boon to hockey if done right, Phoenix included. No, I'll always be critical of the NHL for entertaining a rotating clown car of ownership groups that did nothing but wounded an already injured market and branded the Coyotes as a "charity case" team. Charity case teams aren't cool. And non-cool teams that don't win don't sell tickets.

And moreover, whether fair or not (and impressions have a lasting reality no matter how unfair or fair they may be), the NHL has inadvertently branded Arizona as "the market that the NHL treats differently than the other markets because either a-- it likes it more than the others or b-- it's the one thing they are too stubborn to 'admit they're wrong' about.'" (I hear 'b' alllllll the time whether in casual conversation with friends, reading a messageboard or just listening to pundits). And it doesn't matter whether that impression is justified or not, it very much exists and I think it's hard to sell new viewers on the sport when even those potential new viewers receive a steady stream of messaging that they're in a charity market not a "cool" one.

5a--- And while it's true the NHL has had its share of shoddy & circus car owners, I can't think of a franchise for which they entertained such a steady string of just to avoid discussing a relocation. All in the interest of staying in Arizona...but actually making hockey quite frankly a helluva a lot less attractive. Oddly enough when Merulo bought the team, I figured "this guy's pretty loaded, whaddya know, they proved us all wrong and here we are on the other side and the clown car has passed!" And yet still he hasn't found a project that he can complete with an amount of money out of his own pocket that he's comfortable with. Obviously he thought he could get help from Tempe & the voters said no (again to my surprise as strictly from an outsider's perspective, I figured it'd pass).

6--- Re: "The kind of hatred that motivates the relocationistas shouldn't have any place in the game or this board" and the whole "why don't Winnipeg fans leave the Coyotes alone, they got a team back" question...it's a sticky wicket. I don't think people from Phoenix can properly understand the hurt that the Jets leaving had on the people living there. But then again, I also think the reverse is true. We think "losing a team hurts the fans the same anyway" but I don't actually think that's 100% right. Both hurt but in differing ways.

This was driven home to me when the Thrashers left Atlanta. As people may recall (and as I'm sure is archived on the boards somewhere), there was a mini-protest of sorts near the end that only attracted a few hundred folks. As it happened, IIRC, this was the same day Herman Cain announced his candidacy for President at Centennial Olympic Park (near Philips Arena); it drew a huge crowd. Other folks milling about the CNN Center doing touristy things not knowing or caring anything related to the NHL is happening. You literally could not tell a major league sports team was about to leave town, unless you were literally in the very center of the protest. If you stepped even a few feet away, it was just another day in Atlanta. If you watched the news (and I'm talking *any* news: CBS46, 11Alive, WSB, Fox 5, etc. etc.), it was there, it was a story. But it wasn't the story. I honestly don't even remember how many, if any, of the four that it led the nighttime news with when the team ultimately left.

I recalled when the Jets left Winnipeg, it was national f___ing news in Canada. Hell I lived in Atlantic Canada and even if I didn't know %#!+ from shineola about sports, it was hard not to know the Jets had left (the Nords oddly enough I don't recall being quite as big of a story which is especially odd given we were geographically closer to them. Maybe because we were possibly preoccupied with the thought the whole province might separate, who knows?). "It really hurt the city of Winnipeg when the Jets left," I thought to myself, "but life will go on here in Atlanta."

So as I was swinging back around to the Gulch long after the event had ended and only a handful of fans are just hanging out. We're making conversation, and I mentioned in passing (not as a taunt or anything, just a casual statement of fact) how hockey is the #1 sport where I grew up. With great lament and I could also detect with some envy, one of the fans asked "What's it like?"

I could tell the person loved Atlanta. And I could tell they loved hockey. And I'm sure they probably had attended the only two playoff games or at least been to the arena on a night where it was actually rocking. She knew the potential of a NHL team to thrive in Atlanta. But she also knew (and these were almost her exact words) "I'm not going to be able to explain to anyone at work why this hurts so much." Because none of her co-workers cared about hockey, the NHL or the idea that the Thrashers were even a major league team, much less if they knew they existed.

There were absolutely a lot of Thrashers fans but they were all dispersed across the metro area and no one was questioning the "major leagueness" of the city because it couldn't hold a NHL team. Atlanta was growing and it wasn't going to stop growing (and it hasn't). For a Thrashers fan, the hurt was "I know this could work for the city I love. But not only am I losing my team, but I have to be surrounded by people who don't care and what's more, when I turn to the hockey universe writ large, most of them are too busy celebrating that a 'real' market got the NHL back to notice that I'm hurting."

For the average Winnipeger, they knew their fellow neighbour was probably also a hockey fan, they were hurting together but the loss of the only major league team the city had reflected something larger about the economic challenges of the city. "We know we're not New York but dammit we're important enough to have a NHL team.....aren't we?" I'm sure not everyone there felt this way (hell, I didn't live there, what the #*@(# do I know?) but I think there was the pain not so much of "I can't watch my favourite team" but "is my city even important anymore?" Atlanta hockey fans still knew their city was important and wasn't getting left behind by big business. Just this one particular business.

So does it hurt more for a person when the factory that makes the town's #1 beverage leaves town? Or does it hurt more for a person when the factory that makes their favourite beverage leaves before anyone in the town can catch on to it? You tell me.

So I don't think Arizona hockey fans are going to "get it" when a Winnipeger roots for your team to leave. I don't know if any of us (myself included) would get how it hurt their civic pride. (I suppose I can relate to a certain degree about how the loss of two teams and the near-loss of others hurt national pride). But Winnipegers are fooling themselves if they think you'll understand that hurt by your team leaving. Because they still live in a hockey culture that you don't and that you want to help foster where you live & for which you see great potential. They could never relate.

Geez, I've made long posts before but I outdid myself on this one. Apologies or alternately congratulations to anyone who actually made it through all that.

 

[Lions67]

Whew! A lot of the flaws of recycled HFBoards Coyotes debates just exploding in a series of posts hahah

1--- I agree with KevFu that I think the term "failed market" is stupid. Quite frankly, it's a poison pill in the way of rational discussion because it anthropomorphizes an entire geographical area into a single person that is responsible for something succeeding or failing. Projects in certain markets fail and we can argue what the threshold of that is and what it says about the likelihood of succeeding at another time. But saying "the market failed" is lazy and reductive.

2--- What I hope just about everyone can agree on is that metro Phoenix is a "hobbled" market. The NHL and its assorted partners made the market for hockey worse than they found it or at the barest minimum, no better. (The odd paradox in this is that while they've made the area worse as a market, the presence of the Coyotes has actually improved the area's ability to facilitate recreational play AKA the "grow the game" canard. So the biggest winner of the Coyotes venture has been USA Developmental).

3--- I re-assert that it's pointless to use 99.7% of players' statements of "I want to play here/I don't" as any commentary on a market, good or bad. Most players aren't in a position to be picky, listen to the ones who are. Even then, the picky players usually care far far far far far more about the org than the market. Did I mention far far far more? Besides which, players' intentions also need to be judged on the positioning of the team competitively. The Coyotes' plan isn't in "win now" mode. A hot free agent isn't likely to find that appealing if they're in their prime.

4--- Also agree with Reaser that the more worrying element of the Phoenix venture hasn't been attendance. That can ebb and flow just about anywhere. The TV ratings have never been encouraging (even years when you get a headline like "TV viewership in Phoenix doubled!," you'd then read the story and realize "ah....double paltry").

4a--- "Traditionalist" fans tend to be preachy/judgy, for better or worse, about how "front of mind" a NHL team is in a non-traditional market. Whatever fair/unfair advantages you think Vegas had, there's no denying the Knights are "front of mind." Better TV ratings and a Stanley Cup celebration that shows *the whole town* (not just the 18K in the arena) are in tune with what the team is up to. You can actually have pretty great attendance with a small fanbase if that fanbase is affluent & dedicated enough to show up regularly. Doesn't mean the grand swell of the metro area is being monetized as much as it could elsewhere.

5--- At the end of the day, I'll always be critical of the NHL not for believing in Arizona as a market. Because honestly I believe any North American metro area can be a boon to hockey if done right, Phoenix included. No, I'll always be critical of the NHL for entertaining a rotating clown car of ownership groups that did nothing but wounded an already injured market and branded the Coyotes as a "charity case" team. Charity case teams aren't cool. And non-cool teams that don't win don't sell tickets.

And moreover, whether fair or not (and impressions have a lasting reality no matter how unfair or fair they may be), the NHL has inadvertently branded Arizona as "the market that the NHL treats differently than the other markets because either a-- it likes it more than the others or b-- it's the one thing they are too stubborn to 'admit they're wrong' about.'" (I hear 'b' alllllll the time whether in casual conversation with friends, reading a messageboard or just listening to pundits). And it doesn't matter whether that impression is justified or not, it very much exists and I think it's hard to sell new viewers on the sport when even those potential new viewers receive a steady stream of messaging that they're in a charity market not a "cool" one.

5a--- And while it's true the NHL has had its share of shoddy & circus car owners, I can't think of a franchise for which they entertained such a steady string of just to avoid discussing a relocation. All in the interest of staying in Arizona...but actually making hockey quite frankly a helluva a lot less attractive. Oddly enough when Merulo bought the team, I figured "this guy's pretty loaded, whaddya know, they proved us all wrong and here we are on the other side and the clown car has passed!" And yet still he hasn't found a project that he can complete with an amount of money out of his own pocket that he's comfortable with. Obviously he thought he could get help from Tempe & the voters said no (again to my surprise as strictly from an outsider's perspective, I figured it'd pass).

6--- Re: "The kind of hatred that motivates the relocationistas shouldn't have any place in the game or this board" and the whole "why don't Winnipeg fans leave the Coyotes alone, they got a team back" question...it's a sticky wicket. I don't think people from Phoenix can properly understand the hurt that the Jets leaving had on the people living there. But then again, I also think the reverse is true. We think "losing a team hurts the fans the same anyway" but I don't actually think that's 100% right. Both hurt but in differing ways.

This was driven home to me when the Thrashers left Atlanta. As people may recall (and as I'm sure is archived on the boards somewhere), there was a mini-protest of sorts near the end that only attracted a few hundred folks. As it happened, IIRC, this was the same day Herman Cain announced his candidacy for President at Centennial Olympic Park (near Philips Arena); it drew a huge crowd. Other folks milling about the CNN Center doing touristy things not knowing or caring anything related to the NHL is happening. You literally could not tell a major league sports team was about to leave town, unless you were literally in the very center of the protest. If you stepped even a few feet away, it was just another day in Atlanta. If you watched the news (and I'm talking *any* news: CBS46, 11Alive, WSB, Fox 5, etc. etc.), it was there, it was a story. But it wasn't the story. I honestly don't even remember how many, if any, of the four that it led the nighttime news with when the team ultimately left.

I recalled when the Jets left Winnipeg, it was national f___ing news in Canada. Hell I lived in Atlantic Canada and even if I didn't know %#!+ from shineola about sports, it was hard not to know the Jets had left (the Nords oddly enough I don't recall being quite as big of a story which is especially odd given we were geographically closer to them. Maybe because we were possibly preoccupied with the thought the whole province might separate, who knows?). "It really hurt the city of Winnipeg when the Jets left," I thought to myself, "but life will go on here in Atlanta."

So as I was swinging back around to the Gulch long after the event had ended and only a handful of fans are just hanging out. We're making conversation, and I mentioned in passing (not as a taunt or anything, just a casual statement of fact) how hockey is the #1 sport where I grew up. With great lament and I could also detect with some envy, one of the fans asked "What's it like?"

I could tell the person loved Atlanta. And I could tell they loved hockey. And I'm sure they probably had attended the only two playoff games or at least been to the arena on a night where it was actually rocking. She knew the potential of a NHL team to thrive in Atlanta. But she also knew (and these were almost her exact words) "I'm not going to be able to explain to anyone at work why this hurts so much." Because none of her co-workers cared about hockey, the NHL or the idea that the Thrashers were even a major league team, much less if they knew they existed.

There were absolutely a lot of Thrashers fans but they were all dispersed across the metro area and no one was questioning the "major leagueness" of the city because it couldn't hold a NHL team. Atlanta was growing and it wasn't going to stop growing (and it hasn't). For a Thrashers fan, the hurt was "I know this could work for the city I love. But not only am I losing my team, but I have to be surrounded by people who don't care and what's more, when I turn to the hockey universe writ large, most of them are too busy celebrating that a 'real' market got the NHL back to notice that I'm hurting."

For the average Winnipeger, they knew their fellow neighbour was probably also a hockey fan, they were hurting together but the loss of the only major league team the city had reflected something larger about the economic challenges of the city. "We know we're not New York but dammit we're important enough to have a NHL team.....aren't we?" I'm sure not everyone there felt this way (hell, I didn't live there, what the #*@(# do I know?) but I think there was the pain not so much of "I can't watch my favourite team" but "is my city even important anymore?" Atlanta hockey fans still knew their city was important and wasn't getting left behind by big business. Just this one particular business.

So does it hurt more for a person when the factory that makes the town's #1 beverage leaves town? Or does it hurt more for a person when the factory that makes their favourite beverage leaves before anyone in the town can catch on to it? You tell me.

So I don't think Arizona hockey fans are going to "get it" when a Winnipeger roots for your team to leave. I don't know if any of us (myself included) would get how it hurt their civic pride. (I suppose I can relate to a certain degree about how the loss of two teams and the near-loss of others hurt national pride). But Winnipegers are fooling themselves if they think you'll understand that hurt by your team leaving. Because they still live in a hockey culture that you don't and that you want to help foster where you live & for which you see great potential. They could never relate.

Geez, I've made long posts before but I outdid myself on this one. Apologies or alternately congratulations to anyone who actually made it through all that.

This is probably one of the best posts I have read ever on these boards.
You pretty much nailed it.

 

[Takuto Maruki]

There's something so hilariously sad about, of all the people, a Winnipegger screaming for the death of the Coyotes. Buddy, you won! You won a decade ago, and not only did you win a decade ago, but you also pretty much are allowed to use everything about the Jets 1.0 aside from the actual franchise records! Being this mad about the Coyotes being free-loaders, or a failure, when you got everything you wanted and more just says to me a lot of things about how utterly vindictive some Jets fans can be over something that effectively ended in 2011.

Especially when, if the NHL was truly the cold hard profit over all league that some want it to be, then every Canadian NHL team after Vancouver would have been killed at the slightest hint of trouble.

Especially when the Jets *themselves* have basically pleaded for Winnipeg's business community to pitch in more now that the bloom has fallen off the rose ten years on.

 

[Lions67]

There's something so hilariously sad about, of all the people, a Winnipegger screaming for the death of the Coyotes. Buddy, you won! You won a decade ago, and not only did you win a decade ago, but you also pretty much are allowed to use everything about the Jets 1.0 aside from the actual franchise records! Being this mad about the Coyotes being free-loaders, or a failure, when you got everything you wanted and more just says to me a lot of things about how utterly vindictive some Jets fans can be over something that effectively ended in 2011.

Especially when, if the NHL was truly the cold hard profit over all league that some want it to be, then every Canadian NHL team after Vancouver would have been killed at the slightest hint of trouble.

Especially when the Jets *themselves* have basically pleaded for Winnipeg's business community to pitch in more now that the bloom has fallen off the rose ten years on.

Lot of hurt feelings here.
I gave valid reasons for why I called Arizona a failed market.
Not my fault that you and others continue to pretend all is well.
You remind me of Baghdad Bob for goodness sake lol
You can look him up on your own.

 

[Lions67]

Avatar checks out

My dog is a beauty isn’t she.
Norwegian Elk Hound. Her name is Meela. Such a kind and gentle girl.

 

[Salsero1]

Whew! A lot of the flaws of recycled HFBoards Coyotes debates just exploding in a series of posts hahah

1--- I agree with KevFu that I think the term "failed market" is stupid. Quite frankly, it's a poison pill in the way of rational discussion because it anthropomorphizes an entire geographical area into a single person that is responsible for something succeeding or failing. Projects in certain markets fail and we can argue what the threshold of that is and what it says about the likelihood of succeeding at another time. But saying "the market failed" is lazy and reductive.

2--- What I hope just about everyone can agree on is that metro Phoenix is a "hobbled" market. The NHL and its assorted partners made the market for hockey worse than they found it or at the barest minimum, no better. (The odd paradox in this is that while they've made the area worse as a market, the presence of the Coyotes has actually improved the area's ability to facilitate recreational play AKA the "grow the game" canard. So the biggest winner of the Coyotes venture has been USA Developmental).

3--- I re-assert that it's pointless to use 99.7% of players' statements of "I want to play here/I don't" as any commentary on a market, good or bad. Most players aren't in a position to be picky, listen to the ones who are. Even then, the picky players usually care far far far far far more about the org than the market. Did I mention far far far more? Besides which, players' intentions also need to be judged on the positioning of the team competitively. The Coyotes' plan isn't in "win now" mode. A hot free agent isn't likely to find that appealing if they're in their prime.

4--- Also agree with Reaser that the more worrying element of the Phoenix venture hasn't been attendance. That can ebb and flow just about anywhere. The TV ratings have never been encouraging (even years when you get a headline like "TV viewership in Phoenix doubled!," you'd then read the story and realize "ah....double paltry").

4a--- "Traditionalist" fans tend to be preachy/judgy, for better or worse, about how "front of mind" a NHL team is in a non-traditional market. Whatever fair/unfair advantages you think Vegas had, there's no denying the Knights are "front of mind." Better TV ratings and a Stanley Cup celebration that shows *the whole town* (not just the 18K in the arena) are in tune with what the team is up to. You can actually have pretty great attendance with a small fanbase if that fanbase is affluent & dedicated enough to show up regularly. Doesn't mean the grand swell of the metro area is being monetized as much as it could elsewhere.

5--- At the end of the day, I'll always be critical of the NHL not for believing in Arizona as a market. Because honestly I believe any North American metro area can be a boon to hockey if done right, Phoenix included. No, I'll always be critical of the NHL for entertaining a rotating clown car of ownership groups that did nothing but wounded an already injured market and branded the Coyotes as a "charity case" team. Charity case teams aren't cool. And non-cool teams that don't win don't sell tickets.

And moreover, whether fair or not (and impressions have a lasting reality no matter how unfair or fair they may be), the NHL has inadvertently branded Arizona as "the market that the NHL treats differently than the other markets because either a-- it likes it more than the others or b-- it's the one thing they are too stubborn to 'admit they're wrong' about.'" (I hear 'b' alllllll the time whether in casual conversation with friends, reading a messageboard or just listening to pundits). And it doesn't matter whether that impression is justified or not, it very much exists and I think it's hard to sell new viewers on the sport when even those potential new viewers receive a steady stream of messaging that they're in a charity market not a "cool" one.

5a--- And while it's true the NHL has had its share of shoddy & circus car owners, I can't think of a franchise for which they entertained such a steady string of just to avoid discussing a relocation. All in the interest of staying in Arizona...but actually making hockey quite frankly a helluva a lot less attractive. Oddly enough when Merulo bought the team, I figured "this guy's pretty loaded, whaddya know, they proved us all wrong and here we are on the other side and the clown car has passed!" And yet still he hasn't found a project that he can complete with an amount of money out of his own pocket that he's comfortable with. Obviously he thought he could get help from Tempe & the voters said no (again to my surprise as strictly from an outsider's perspective, I figured it'd pass).

6--- Re: "The kind of hatred that motivates the relocationistas shouldn't have any place in the game or this board" and the whole "why don't Winnipeg fans leave the Coyotes alone, they got a team back" question...it's a sticky wicket. I don't think people from Phoenix can properly understand the hurt that the Jets leaving had on the people living there. But then again, I also think the reverse is true. We think "losing a team hurts the fans the same anyway" but I don't actually think that's 100% right. Both hurt but in differing ways.

This was driven home to me when the Thrashers left Atlanta. As people may recall (and as I'm sure is archived on the boards somewhere), there was a mini-protest of sorts near the end that only attracted a few hundred folks. As it happened, IIRC, this was the same day Herman Cain announced his candidacy for President at Centennial Olympic Park (near Philips Arena); it drew a huge crowd. Other folks milling about the CNN Center doing touristy things not knowing or caring anything related to the NHL is happening. You literally could not tell a major league sports team was about to leave town, unless you were literally in the very center of the protest. If you stepped even a few feet away, it was just another day in Atlanta. If you watched the news (and I'm talking *any* news: CBS46, 11Alive, WSB, Fox 5, etc. etc.), it was there, it was a story. But it wasn't the story. I honestly don't even remember how many, if any, of the four that it led the nighttime news with when the team ultimately left.

I recalled when the Jets left Winnipeg, it was national f___ing news in Canada. Hell I lived in Atlantic Canada and even if I didn't know %#!+ from shineola about sports, it was hard not to know the Jets had left (the Nords oddly enough I don't recall being quite as big of a story which is especially odd given we were geographically closer to them. Maybe because we were possibly preoccupied with the thought the whole province might separate, who knows?). "It really hurt the city of Winnipeg when the Jets left," I thought to myself, "but life will go on here in Atlanta."

So as I was swinging back around to the Gulch long after the event had ended and only a handful of fans are just hanging out. We're making conversation, and I mentioned in passing (not as a taunt or anything, just a casual statement of fact) how hockey is the #1 sport where I grew up. With great lament and I could also detect with some envy, one of the fans asked "What's it like?"

I could tell the person loved Atlanta. And I could tell they loved hockey. And I'm sure they probably had attended the only two playoff games or at least been to the arena on a night where it was actually rocking. She knew the potential of a NHL team to thrive in Atlanta. But she also knew (and these were almost her exact words) "I'm not going to be able to explain to anyone at work why this hurts so much." Because none of her co-workers cared about hockey, the NHL or the idea that the Thrashers were even a major league team, much less if they knew they existed.

There were absolutely a lot of Thrashers fans but they were all dispersed across the metro area and no one was questioning the "major leagueness" of the city because it couldn't hold a NHL team. Atlanta was growing and it wasn't going to stop growing (and it hasn't). For a Thrashers fan, the hurt was "I know this could work for the city I love. But not only am I losing my team, but I have to be surrounded by people who don't care and what's more, when I turn to the hockey universe writ large, most of them are too busy celebrating that a 'real' market got the NHL back to notice that I'm hurting."

For the average Winnipeger, they knew their fellow neighbour was probably also a hockey fan, they were hurting together but the loss of the only major league team the city had reflected something larger about the economic challenges of the city. "We know we're not New York but dammit we're important enough to have a NHL team.....aren't we?" I'm sure not everyone there felt this way (hell, I didn't live there, what the #*@(# do I know?) but I think there was the pain not so much of "I can't watch my favourite team" but "is my city even important anymore?" Atlanta hockey fans still knew their city was important and wasn't getting left behind by big business. Just this one particular business.

So does it hurt more for a person when the factory that makes the town's #1 beverage leaves town? Or does it hurt more for a person when the factory that makes their favourite beverage leaves before anyone in the town can catch on to it? You tell me.

So I don't think Arizona hockey fans are going to "get it" when a Winnipeger roots for your team to leave. I don't know if any of us (myself included) would get how it hurt their civic pride. (I suppose I can relate to a certain degree about how the loss of two teams and the near-loss of others hurt national pride). But Winnipegers are fooling themselves if they think you'll understand that hurt by your team leaving. Because they still live in a hockey culture that you don't and that you want to help foster where you live & for which you see great potential. They could never relate.

Geez, I've made long posts before but I outdid myself on this one. Apologies or alternately congratulations to anyone who actually made it through all that.

Re: your #6. Not buying it. No adult with a functional conscience and a sense of empathy should act towards the Coyotes fans the way many here do. Shame on them.

The thing is that many fans in the sunbelt do understand where northern fans are coming from, there is zero effort on their part to see things our way. They just seem to want nothing more than for us to get hurt and kicked out of the clubhouse.

 

[BMN]

The thing is that many fans in the sunbelt do understand where northern fans are coming from,

This tells me you either didn't read or didn't seek to understand what I wrote in #6. Not that I blame you. You don't go to a messageboard to volunteer to read War and Peace. :-p

The best alternative way I can explain it is through the South Park episode "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson." In this episode, Stan's dad says something racially offensive on television and it becomes a big stir. Stan knows that his closest black friend Token won't like this and spends the whole episode thinking that he understands how Token feels and doesn't understand why Token won't accept his apology. Finally the episode ends with one of its two Aesops (as a SP episode is wont to do): the fact that Stan doesn't understand is in fact the point and Token just wants Stan to acknowledge that he could never understand. Once Stan admits this, Token is fine with him.

When you say that "many in the sunbelt do understand," trust me when I tell you: No. You don't. You don't understand. And that's OK. And just the same, I don't think someone who lives in a hockey-mad town could possibly understand how it would hurt a born-and-raised Phoenix hockey fan if the Coyotes left. Because they are two similar looking pains that are in fact very different.

So yes, I think some people have come on this board and likely appeared quite hateful to you. But you, without meaning to, come across as ignorant when you say that Sun Belt fans "understand where northern fans are coming from." You can understand it in writing. You can understand it logically. But you're not going to get it emotionally and you'll get a lot more mileage out of a conversation if you acknowledge that point first.

Of course this is also tied up in a whole "Why does America get to have all of Canada's toys and not vice-versa" argument that again.....I've lived on both sides of the border and I don't think one side can fully understand the other from an emotional perspective on that either. Our Prime Minister actually tweeted Taylor Swift because there are enough citizens worked up about the fact that she hasn't listed a tour date in Canada. You might not care about Taylor Swift and I don't particularly either but it's a great microsm for how Canadians often feel about popular culture writ large: Americans get the stuff they want, sometimes Canadians get it if Americans ever so much deign us worthy of it. It's not entirely irrational to imagine that some Canadians might want Americans to have the feeling of wanting something but not being able to have it.

And if you didn't like me projecting Taylor Swift not doing a concert as an aspersion on *ALL* Americans and think that's really dumb. Yes. Yes it is. But that's kind of the point. Particularly when I also say...

But Winnipegers are fooling themselves if they think you'll (Phoenix) understand that hurt by your team leaving. Because they still live in a hockey culture that you don't and that you want to help foster where you live & for which you see great potential. They could never relate.