Latest on the Arizona Coyotes Arena ordeal

[chaz4hockey]

Great location for visiting fans with quality hotels and golf nearby but I wonder if the affluent folks of Scottsdale want a Stadium nearby?

 

[Deadly Dogma]

Great location for visiting fans with quality hotels and golf nearby but I wonder if the affluent folks of Scottsdale want a Stadium nearby?

there is only 1 person who I hope hates the location......Matthews lol

 

[MCR74]

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Deadly Dogma]

I'll believe it when I see it.

out of all the fanbases, no one deserves stability more than Yotes fans

 

[hangman005]

out of all the fanbases, no one deserves stability more than Yotes fans

The fact that there still is a Yotes fanbase is testament that they are the true hockey fans.

 

[Deadly Dogma]

The fact that there still is a Yotes fanbase is testament that they are the true hockey fans.

100%, say what you want about them but their loyalty deserves respect.
Then there is me, a die hard Leafs fan since 93 and I feel like I'm in a long term abusive relationship with my team.
Every year they say they've changed, yet every spring I'm left with an emotional black eye.
Then fall rolls around and they weasel their way back in, just for me to be hurt again lol

 

[Steven Toast]

"Could be wrapped in up 3 months"

Not exactly etched in stone...

 

[BKarchitect]

I'll believe it when I see it.

By the same token, I’ll believe the Coyotes are moving to SLC or Atlanta or Omaha or Yellowknife when I see it.

Can’t wait for the “what is the Omaha NHL team that is looking likely going to be called?” main forum thread like we have for Atlanta and SLC.

We’ve already heard from all kinds of internet insiders that like ten cities have super secret handshake agreements with arena developers or the NHL to have teams soon.

 

[BE Friend]

Gary doesn't care about the fans. He only wants big media market cities. This is why the team landed in PHX in the first place. Winnipeg was a bone for Canada.

 

[thegazelle]

It is odd to me how stubborn Bettman is in wanting to keep the Coyotes alive, despite both geographical and logistical challenges. Perhaps it's one of those sunk cost fallacy things, where the deeper he commits to it and sacrifices resources, he is just too entrenched in it to admit it is time to fold. Certainly he can argue if the Coyotes weren't there, guys like Matthews would have never developed. But it seems like that team faced incessant challenges since day one and maybe it's just a pet project Bettman refuses to let go.

 

[WhataKnight]

Damn…..I feel two ways about this…

On one side, the Yotes have some dedicated fans. I don’t want them to just have the team ripped away.

On the other, Meruelo’s ownership seems to be a dumpster fire, metropolitan Phoenix shows a penchant for chucking any suggestion thrown, and given Marty Walsh’s statements, players and maybe even staff sound pretty unenthused with the holding pattern.

If Ishbia isn’t interested and no other major players in Arizona step forward quick enough to put the shovels in the ground that ensure that the Mullett Arena is just a bivouac, maybe it’s time. Better than listening for the tea kettle while the house burns.

 

[Shwan]

Just a reminder that Craig Morgan routinely lies and makes up sources to help Coyotes ownership:

Here's what he said about the Tempe deal when it was on flimsy ground in 2022:

That first one he outright made up and the second one was false as Tempe and Phoenix are still in court over the Airport IGA agreement and had Tempe voted yes there would have been an injunction anyways so the Coyotes still wouldn't have shovels in ground right now.

 

[MVP Zacha]

Just move them to KC already. We have the arena already and they wouldn't even have to change their name. We had the Topeka Roadrunners Junior hockey team for a while. KC Coyotes sounds nice.

 

[Mike Jones]

Gary doesn't care about the fans. He only wants big media market cities. This is why the team landed in PHX in the first place. Winnipeg was a bone for Canada.

I think it's bigger than that. He wants money and seems to care precious little about how his franchises harm their home markets.

 

[WhataKnight]

I never understood the clamour for SLC, which is a smaller market that already has a well established NBA team as a winter sport already soaking up a large share of disposable income in that area. SLC has a smaller population than Calgary and if you proposed Calgary getting a NBA team to play alongside the Flames, people would think you were nuts. But for SLC everyone just nods their heads.

Why not a city like San Diego which is significantly larger than SLC and doesn't have a NBA team to compete with? Their arena is legitimately old and undersized so it's the perfect situation for an owner to try and extort a free shiny new arena from local authorities.

To speak for the clamour, I’d guess at it being a byproduct of the American west having it’s major pillars of influence tweaked towards more extremes between extreme population and extreme nowhere. 30 minutes east of Denver, it looks like a place where buried bodies are never found, Blind Melon records music videos, and baseball ghosts wander about looking for a mound to be casually racist at.

Once one excludes CST (taking out Chicago, Texas, Minnesota and others) you have LA, San Fran, Vegas, Seattle, Denver, Phoenix and loads of empty space for the next tier of cities like Salt Lake, Reno,SJ, Olympia, Bozeman and Santa Fe to stand off in their own semi-nowheres like a tree that got banished from the forest.

I’d only back away from SD due to the number of teams in the state/region already (basically 4.) When one excludes California, that does carve out THE population base of the two western time zones, and as the process of elimination goes, Utah keeps popping up as the least feeble of several undesirable options.

 

[AintLifeGrand]

Just move them to KC already. We have the arena already and they wouldn't even have to change their name. We had the Topeka Roadrunners Junior hockey team for a while. KC Coyotes sounds nice.

Kansas City would be a great expansion target for an AHL team

 

[BB79]

I'm sure the deal with be laden with controversy, legal mumbo jumbo and drawn out for another 10 years. Here we go again..

I can't believe there's been NHL hockey in Arizona longer than it lasted in Quebec city.

It was pathetic 8 years ago. Now it's just... I don't even know.

A bad joke? Bettman trolling those of us who live in traditional markets?

 

[rojac]

To speak for the clamour, I’d guess at it being a byproduct of the American west having it’s major pillars of influence tweaked towards more extremes between extreme population and extreme nowhere. 30 minutes east of Denver, it looks like a place where buried bodies are never found, Blind Melon records music videos, and baseball ghosts wander about looking for a mound to be casually racist at.

Once one excludes CST (taking out Chicago, Texas, Minnesota and others) you have LA, San Fran, Vegas, Seattle, Denver, Phoenix and loads of empty space for the next tier of cities like Salt Lake, Reno,SJ, Olympia, Bozeman and Santa Fe to stand off in their own semi-nowheres like a tree that got banished from the forest.

I’d only back away from SD due to the number of teams in the state/region already (basically 4.) When one excludes California, that does carve out THE population base of the two western time zones, and as the process of elimination goes, Utah keeps popping up as the least feeble of several undesirable options.

The state of New York has basically 4 teams too (Buffalo, Rangers, Islanders, and New Jersey) with only about half the population of California (~20M compared to ~40M).

 

[Crede777]

I'm sure the deal with be laden with controversy, legal mumbo jumbo and drawn out for another 10 years. Here we go again..

A bad joke? Bettman trolling those of us who live in traditional markets?

There aren't "traditional" and "non-traditional" markets. There are only markets with large populations and markets with small populations.

 

[BB79]

The state of New York has basically 4 teams too (Buffalo, Rangers, Islanders, and New Jersey) with only about half the population of California (~20M compared to ~40M).

NY state has a population just under 20 million as of 2021. Add another 9.2 million for NJ and you're already getting near 30. This doesn't take into account the southwest corner of Connecticut which is also considered NYC suburbs, commuter train and all. It's short of CA (39.25 mil) but not by that much.

 

[BB79]

There aren't "traditional" and "non-traditional" markets. There are only markets with large populations and markets with small populations.

Wrong. Miami isn't a traditional market, neither is Arizona. They've been around a while but traditional markets are cold climates and never required hard work and decades of hounding fans for attention to "grow the game" in. No one thinks of tropical beaches when they think of ice hockey.

 

[Crede777]

Wrong. Miami isn't a traditional market, neither is Arizona. They've been around a while but traditional markets are cold climates and never required hard work and decades of hounding fans for attention to "grow the game" in. No one thinks of tropical beaches when they think of ice hockey.

When the league thinks about markets they don't think about the climate.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

... you’ve gotta wonder when the NHL will say enough is enough and Bettman will finally realize his dream of having a stellar NHL team in Arizona is just that…a dream.

Thoughts anyone?

Yeah, I've got a few thoughts.

1. This is a farcical take on the reality of why Bettman - at the behest of the other owners, and with the support of the other 3 major pro sports leagues in the U.S. - fought so hard to keep the Coyotes in Arizona 15 years ago. Minor hint: owners don't like having the value of their investments destroyed by uninvited others.

2. No one here loses a penny over the Coyotes being in Arizona. All these years later it's still incredibly funny to see people gnash their teeth and tear their clothes at the idea of billionaires not being able to spend more money if the Coyotes were in [wherever the hell someone wants them] generating more revenue and jacking up the salary cap, ignoring that in the current situation all those other teams are making more money even after considering what they've collectively put into the Coyotes franchise and "getting to spend more money on the salary cap" would - and I know, this is going to be a really big shock for people who don't understand business math or Article 49 on revenue sharing - decrease profits.

3. Kind of going with #2: fans don't decide where teams operate. Owners do. If an owner wants to lose $100 million a year on a team in its current location, as long as he's got money to burn to afford it the league that has his team is going to let him.

4. When an owner can't afford to finance his losses - or worse yet, doesn't pay his bills and the league has to step in and cover them - then it becomes the league's problem, not the problem of some random fan on an internet message board. And in that instance, the league will decide what it wants to do, not some random fan on an internet message board.

5. If [when] the Coyotes move, the owners will not be shit-canning Bettman immediately after in retribution for "costing them hundreds of millions of dollars for his pipe dream," especially since he's made them a motherf***ing shitload of money that dwarfs any losses in Phoenix and "Bettman's pipe dream" was really "the owners' pipe dream" and it's worked out pretty goddamn well in a lot of other locations.

 

[Body Checker]

Contraction, draft lotto where every team gets one lotto ball and a snake draft to divide up players and picks; that would be awesome!

 

[These Are The Days]

Yeah, I've got a few thoughts.

1. This is a farcical take on the reality of why Bettman - at the behest of the other owners, and with the support of the other 3 major pro sports leagues in the U.S. - fought so hard to keep the Coyotes in Arizona 15 years ago. Minor hint: owners don't like having the value of their investments destroyed by uninvited others.

2. No one here loses a penny over the Coyotes being in Arizona. All these years later it's still incredibly funny to see people gnash their teeth and tear their clothes at the idea of billionaires not being able to spend more money if the Coyotes were in [wherever the hell someone wants them] generating more revenue and jacking up the salary cap, ignoring that in the current situation all those other teams are making more money even after considering what they've collectively put into the Coyotes franchise and "getting to spend more money on the salary cap" would - and I know, this is going to be a really big shock for people who don't understand business math or Article 49 on revenue sharing - decrease profits.

3. Kind of going with #2: fans don't decide where teams operate. Owners do. If an owner wants to lose $100 million a year on a team in its current location, as long as he's got money to burn to afford it the league that has his team is going to let him.

4. When an owner can't afford to finance his losses - or worse yet, doesn't pay his bills and the league has to step in and cover them - then it becomes the league's problem, not the problem of some random fan on an internet message board. And in that instance, the league will decide what it wants to do, not some random fan on an internet message board.

5. If [when] the Coyotes move, the owners will not be shit-canning Bettman immediately after in retribution for "costing them hundreds of millions of dollars for his pipe dream," especially since he's made them a motherf***ing shitload of money that dwarfs any losses in Phoenix and "Bettman's pipe dream" was really "the owners' pipe dream" and it's worked out pretty goddamn well in a lot of other locations.

Can we sticky this one?