Per Friedman: Coyotes players told team moving to Utah starting next season (Mod warning post #50)
- Thread starter MMC
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I just mean, a city being highly white doesn't correlate to a strong market. Otherwise we'd be talking about Columbus as a great market or putting a team in Jacksonville or Indianapolis.
I wouldn't be against hockey coming back to Arizona in the future with a proper stadium situation figured out. If I remember correctly isn't there some law in Arizona that ties Meruelo's ownership of a sports team with his casino operations in Arizona. That might be too profitable for him to let go of having a team in there for long.
A Loyal Demidog
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Same. When the Expos left Montreal, I was so sad for weeks/months. Baseball was my favorite sport at the time and I'd been to many games (great memories).
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I doubt it. This isn't public posturing. It's clear they're getting their ducks in a row.
saffronleaf
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ever since the winter olympics i've thought SLC would be a good hockey market
Ok LEAFS, you are looking too far into my little crappy joke.
hopefully they stay. i never liked it when canadian hockey fans look down on warmer cities and pretend like hockey can't work there. auston matthews and matthew knies are both from arizona and clearly that's good for hockey since they are big contributors to toronto.
A) You've been in a coma for the past 20 years.
OR
B) You trip often and hit your head...ALOT!
The most dominant team of the past decade, and arguably of the entire cap era, is in Tampa. Anyone who argues that hockey can’t work in a warm city at this point is an idiot.
MMC
Global Moderator
I'm not sure people realize what an old, small arena the Delta Center in SLC is.
Beautiful city and it seems there is definitely owner and government support to get the arena and nearby area massively overhauled or replaced with a new arena so SLC doesn't just become itself a future way-station for team owners seeking modern palaces.
But it ain't exactly going to be a state-of-the-art home until all this work happens. And who knows when that will be.
In other words, if people are expecting this franchise to be playing in a modern hockey palace anytime soon - you're going to be waiting a while, whether that's in AZ or SLC. This is going from one temporary arena to another, if we are being honest. It's just that there is a more unified front to the future plan in SLC.
Beautiful city and it seems there is definitely owner and government support to get the arena and nearby area massively overhauled or replaced with a new arena so SLC doesn't just become itself a future way-station for team owners seeking modern palaces.
But it ain't exactly going to be a state-of-the-art home until all this work happens. And who knows when that will be.
In other words, if people are expecting this franchise to be playing in a modern hockey palace anytime soon - you're going to be waiting a while, whether that's in AZ or SLC. This is going from one temporary arena to another, if we are being honest. It's just that there is a more unified front to the future plan in SLC.
And nobody even said that.
They want the team out of there because it's a constant war on finding a place for them to play.
PBandJ
If it didn't happen in the 80's, it didn't happen
Really feeling like the Atlanta relocation.
EmptyNetAssassin
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SjMilhouse
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For hockey it's like 3k less seats than SAP center and having been to both, SAP ain't all that fancy or new...the idea is to build something new and Delta would be a massive upgrade over mullet at least in the short term.
That's before any possible renovation/retrofitting they could potentially do once a team was for sure coming too.
Yeah seriously. The attendance sucked after the first 5 years or so because the team was bad and the NHL stupidly expanded into an arena with suboptimal sightlines... if the Coyotes started with a hockey arena in Phoenix, they wouldn't be struggling nearly as badly as they are now. And it sucks because they finally have some offensive firepower that makes games exciting.
I think it's pretty safe to assume if the BoG approves the relocation of the Yotes to SLC it is with the condition that ground will be broken for a new arena within 3 years of said relocation.
In other words - it's a poop ton more promising than what we've seen in that franchises' existence while in Arizona.
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We'll see what happens, but the kind of information that's leaked, and the silence from the league makes this feel a whole lot more like Atlanta in 2011 than when we see the kind of leaning on politicians we've seen in other markets when trying to get an arena deal across the finish line. I know it's not a perfect analogy, and the June auction is a factor, but it's definitely a whole lot more than the league and the Coyotes firing a warning shot over the head of Phoenix.
Empoleon8771
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No one is thinking they'll move into a palace immediately. It's just that they'll actually have an arena with 15k+ seats, rather than a 5k college arena, in a city that clearly and adamantly wants them and will build them a new arena. If Phoenix had the interest in getting a NHL team like Salt Lake City has, they would have already built a new arena for the Coyotes.
It is "one temporary arena to another", yes. But you can also say "one temporary college arena with uncertainty around building a new rink to a temporary major league caliber arena in a city that is guaranteed to build a new rink".
Mobiandi
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SjMilhouse
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I'm not sure why everyone keeps saying this....it's not a warm city other than June-September.
The season is October to June. It snowed like 4 days ago in Salt Lake and we have skiing as late as June/July. It's not a freaking frozen tundra but I'd hardly call it a warm city for half the year
With that said, July/August is hell on earth here and I hate it
Some Other Flame
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Meruelo buying the Coyotes in 2019 for ~300M and then flipping them just 5 years later for ~1B is insane value
That's just good business
That's just good business
Sure, it's workable and presents better optics.
I don't disagree. I'd assume you are right if the move were to happen.
Again, *if* this actually happens, I agree with the optics. The cynic is me is once again sounding alarm bells when posters on a hockey forum are saying things involving owners and municipalities are a "guarantee" though.
Empoleon8771
Registered User
I see absolutely no reason to think that it isn't basically a guarantee. Pretty much everyone who has the power to make the decisions is fully in support of it.
Utah lawmakers approve downtown NBA/NHL arena bill as they seek 'vibrant' capital
Utah lawmakers have approved a bill that paves the way for improvements to downtown Salt Lake City, including a possible new arena for the Utah Jazz and a potential National Hockey League franchise.
www.ksl.com
Salt Lake City is already trying to get the 2034 Winter Olympics, so they need to build a new NHL caliber rink to support that regardless.
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