Keep projecting… you periodically come in with the same “it’s not a hockey market” rhetoric and that’s about it.
Digging up 50 years worth of shade really doesn’t mean squat when you look at it the context the population of Phoenix Metro 50 years ago was 1/6th that it is now.
Nor take in the fact that the NHL came to Arizona as a last minute plan B because they couldn’t get back into Minnesota.
There’s never ever been a full on concise plan to make it work here. Even Steve Ellman bought the franchise as a means for something else (which ended up being Westgate). But he was playing the OPM game and the 2008 recession caved him in.
Everything else inbetween Ellman up to before Alex Meruelo has been a band aid effort… at best.
Now the Coyotes are finally owned by someone with a 40-year record of turning failing businesses around. With a ZERO failure rate. Whether he can pull this franchise out from the massive hole it’s dug itself before he bought it remains to be seen.
that whole argument falls on it's face.
I could care less about the owners record. it doesn't have any pro sports ownership on it, it certainly doesn't have pro hockey on it..... You can be an amazing plumber but that doesn't mean you understand IT infrastructure does it?
You put a bandaid on because you are bleeding and want it to stop.....AZ as a hockey market has already bled through multiple bandaids and shows no sign of stopping now.
And who cares about demographics and city history? you don't think QC has changed? or Winnipeg? or Calgary? or Minnesota? any of the "small market" teams that would KILL to have a population base as big as AZ has to draw on?
as for the rest? this isn't 1996, it's not 1970, it's not even 2010. you've had almost
30 YEARS of NHL hockey. It's today, and Tempe didn't want the team..... and Glendale didn't want the team, and the Footprint Centre didn't want them......it's not some new baby bird...it's long enough to have formed a multigenerational passionate fan base. but it hasn't happened.
what "Plan" does the market need to work? What Plan could even stand a remotely possible chance of working? If 50 years of hockey at pretty much every pro level
including 27+ years of NHL hockey, (some of them with pretty darn good teams TBH,) isn't enough to convince the citizens of AZ that hockey is awesome....what possible "plan' could...?
you keep "wahtabouting" and talking about other markets other teams....but the point is, were not talking about other markets.... we aren't talking about other teams, or owners.
We are talking about AZ. We are talking about the repeated multiple failures of the market...a failure so bad the LEAGUE itself took control of the team....a wholly unique event in the NHL if not pro sports....a market where the LEAGUE itself was propping up conmen and liars in hopes of somehow finding an owner,
what possible plan is going to suddenly make AZ a viable hockey market.
And I get it ...there are hockey fans there....by the response I saw to the "Save the Yotes " rally back in the Glendale days there were probably a few thousand real fans in the market, and I feel sad for them....but it's not enough to make it a success .... and keeping the team in place with all the negative response, and liars, and conmen, and bush league arena..? it makes the whole league look bad.