Per Friedman: Coyotes players told team moving to Utah starting next season (Mod warning post #50)

[Spirits]

2. If you don't think there's "much shitting on the Yotes fans" I can only assume you don't read anything on this site, because there's A LOT of shitting on the Coyotes and by extension their fans. It's especially true when people make derisive comments alluding to there only being a handful of Coyotes fans, or that no one in Phoenix cares about hockey and never has and never will.

I've seen this "shitting on Coyotes fans", but I can tell you in the wild I never see Coyotes anything. Shirts/hats/bumper stickers/etc. To be fair, I grew up in Chicago half the time and I never saw Blackhawks shit there in the 90s either, those bandwagons were all over the Bulls at the time.

They should relocate to Tombstone

Make Lester Moore the GM!

 

[Guttersniped]

Could this sell-off news impact Bettman's genius plan for the Yotes to host a Winter Classic outdoor game next year?

What game are you taking about?

These are the announced games for 2025:

The 2025 Winter Classic is Chicago (their 7th outdoor game) vs St Louis (3rd) at Wrigley (2nd game there, the 1st was in 2009)

The 2025 Stadium Series is Columbus (1st) vs Detroit (5th) at Ohio State

I’ve never heard about an Arizona game. I don’t see that happening without an arena deal.

 

[BB79]

Make Lester Moore the GM!
View attachment 846429

Every game will have to be decided by a shootout

 

[Section 104]

The Atlanta Coyotes ? Shame it has failed in the desert but enough is enough.

 

[Legion34]

Let's just stop right here.

1. I'm not a Coyotes fan. You've been here long enough, you should know this.
2. If you don't think there's "much shitting on the Yotes fans" I can only assume you don't read anything on this site, because there's A LOT of shitting on the Coyotes and by extension their fans. It's especially true when people make derisive comments alluding to there only being a handful of Coyotes fans, or that no one in Phoenix cares about hockey and never has and never will.

Acknowledging reality is not “shitting” on coyotes fans. There are some. They appear loyal. I haven’t seen anyone being condescending about hockey knowledge.

The reality is there are not enough fans who want to support the team bad enough for it to be viable. That has nothing to do with the fans that love them. It has to do with the population of the state that doesn’t.

There are a few fans here who seem entitled to believe that just because they like a team the rest of the fans/league should have to support them. That is incredibly narcissistic.

There are plenty of fans in die hard hockey cities that would love an NHL team. They don’t have a “right” to one. Heck junior teams have die hard support all across Canada (think Friday night lights) and they lose teams. New found land lost the growlers yesterday.

The Danbury trashers still have fans. People in Quebec wear Nords jerseys. Hartford lost the whalers.

I’m not sure coyotes fans here care about that. But expect the rest of the world to be happy with the situation in Arizona which costs money, marketing and respect of the league.

 

[cowboy82nd]

bernmeister as General Manager

I thought Mulletman would make a great GM. Can't wait until he works on some trades,

 

[TheLegend]

Acknowledging reality is not “shitting” on coyotes fans. There are some. They appear loyal. I haven’t seen anyone being condescending about hockey knowledge.

The reality is there are not enough fans who want to support the team bad enough for it to be viable. That has nothing to do with the fans that love them. It has to do with the population of the state that doesn’t.

There are a few fans here who seem entitled to believe that just because they like a team the rest of the fans/league should have to support them. That is incredibly narcissistic.

There are plenty of fans in die hard hockey cities that would love an NHL team. They don’t have a “right” to one. Heck junior teams have die hard support all across Canada (think Friday night lights) and they lose teams. New found land lost the growlers yesterday.

The Danbury thrashers still have fans. People in Quebec wear Nords jerseys. Hartford lost the whalers.

I’m not sure coyotes fans here care about that. But expect the rest of the world to be happy with the situation in Arizona which costs money, marketing and respect of the league.

You seem to be framing this like “it’s no big deal so Coyotes fans should just lie down and take it.”

Frankly speaking your condescending attitude is insulting to not only Coyotes fans, but all those others you’ve referred to in the same post.

 

[Legion34]

You seem to be framing this like “it’s no big deal so Coyotes fans should just lie down and take it.”

Frankly speaking your condescending attitude is insulting to not only Coyotes fans, but all those others you’ve referred to in the same post.

What is condescending about reality?
There are not enough fans/support after 30 Years of a team. That’s not condescending.

That’s reality. There isn’t a demand to make it work. Toronto had no basketball routes/nba players. They grew it and made it work. Other teams didn’t and lost them.

Toronto could absolutely take an NFL team. They don’t have one. “Metro” Toronto has 6.3 million people and about 10 million people in a 2 hour drive. That’s a city bigger than most US states. They don’t have a team. Are you upset about that? There is way more support for the NFL in Toronto than the coyotes. Where is your outrage?

The bottom line is no city/state is owed a sports team. Cities with more support lose them or are denied them all the time in all sports. Keeping the coyotes in Arizona is keeping more fans from actually enjoying them and more teams from making money.

There is nothing condescending about that. It’s not suggesting that southern markets don’t know hockey or don’t deserve a team. Its that this specific market has had their chance and blown it

 

[Ted Hoffman]

The reality is there are not enough fans who want to support the team bad enough for it to be viable. That has nothing to do with the fans that love them. It has to do with the population of the state that doesn’t.

It's a real goddamn shame we haven't discussed why that might be the case over the course of 12,003 threads.

I mean, it's not like we've had the same discussions about at least half the fanbases in the league, many of which share a really common characteristic when people want to play the "fans don't want to support them" card: they're doing pretty shitty in the standings.

Except, with the Coyotes, they've been pretty shitty for the better part of 20 years and had shitty ownership to boot.

There are a few fans here who seem entitled to believe that just because they like a team the rest of the fans/league should have to support them. That is incredibly narcissistic.

What's narcissistic is the arrogance from people who consider themselves real hockey fans, who talk about real hockey fans in real hockey markets who deserve a team, and how other cities don't deserve a team because of a myriad of made-up reasons.

For example: comments like this:

There are plenty of fans in die hard hockey cities that would love an NHL team.

I'm sure all your qualifiers, though, make it more acceptable.

But expect the rest of the world to be happy with the situation in Arizona which costs money, marketing and respect of the league.

Every league has problem teams. Arizona doesn't cost the NHL any more in respect than the A's, Rays and Pirates have cost MLB respect. Or that Washington cost the league respect in the Dan Snyder Rain of Terror. Or Cleveland II cost the league respect for virtually all of the last 20 years. Or the Bears, Jets and Cardinals are costing the league respect at the moment. And you can pick whatever teams you like in the NBA, but Philadelphia was a shining example in its "let's be shit for years, load up for picks, win a title" era that still isn't near even a ECF appearance.

If Arizona is costing the league marketing, the NHL is doing really f***ing good with it. The fact is, the league would still suck at marketing with or without Arizona. And if [when?] Arizona gets moved, someone else will be the problem team that "costs money, marketing and respect of the league." Until you and others figure out how to make every team "above average" and get the league to market its stars and the game properly - and just looking at the NYR/NJD line brawl, what some people will want on a nightly basis is not what casual fans want on a nightly basis - that will always be the case.

 

[StickShift]

If winning the auction is truly the last option before relocation—the scenario that immediately popped-into my mind is this:

Couldn't one of the parties interested in relocating the Coyotes—let's say Ryan Smyth and the Utah group—participate in the auction and submit an onerous bid that the Meruelo group would be unlikely to beat? Thus forcing the Coyotes to sell and relocate? Then they could just sell the land they won to the next highest non-Meruelo bidder and assume the difference as the cost of certainty?

 

[Tawnos]

If winning the auction is truly the last option before relocation—the scenario that immediately popped-into my mind is this:

Couldn't one of the parties interested in relocating the Coyotes—let's say Ryan Smyth and the Utah group—participate in the auction and submit an onerous bid that the Meruelo group would be unlikely to beat? Thus forcing the Coyotes to sell and relocate? Then they could just sell the land they won to the next highest non-Meruelo bidder and assume the difference as the cost of certainty?

I thought I saw something that the state isn't required to simply accept the highest bid. The nature of the project is part of winning the auction. @The Legend ?

 

[Llewzaher]

If the auction falls through he has to look at relocating.

But if the auction is successful they are moving forward with the arena.

It is smart of him to at least look at the possibility of selling in case he gets out bid

But nothing happens until the auction

If winning the auction is truly the last option before relocation—the scenario that immediately popped-into my mind is this:

Couldn't one of the parties interested in relocating the Coyotes—let's say Ryan Smyth and the Utah group—participate in the auction and submit an onerous bid that the Meruelo group would be unlikely to beat? Thus forcing the Coyotes to sell and relocate? Then they could just sell the land they won to the next highest non-Meruelo bidder and assume the difference as the cost of certainty?

The people that outbid him have to have a plan in place to build a sports arena

 

[hangman005]

If winning the auction is truly the last option before relocation—the scenario that immediately popped-into my mind is this:

Couldn't one of the parties interested in relocating the Coyotes—let's say Ryan Smyth and the Utah group—participate in the auction and submit an onerous bid that the Meruelo group would be unlikely to beat? Thus forcing the Coyotes to sell and relocate? Then they could just sell the land they won to the next highest non-Meruelo bidder and assume the difference as the cost of certainty?

Not a lawyer, I wonder if that could be considered a Tortious Interference.....

If it's not at least it gave me the opportunity to say Tortious Interference, I can cross that of my bucket list

 

[Dr Pepper]

If the auction falls through he has to look at relocating.

But if the auction is successful they are moving forward with the arena.

It is smart of him to at least look at the possibility of selling in case he gets out bid

But nothing happens until the auction


The people that outbid him have to have a plan in place to build a sports arena

What bugs me is even IF Meruelo is successful in the auction - not a sure thing by any means - then wouldn't that mean the Coyotes are destined to spend another couple seasons at least at that miniscule rec center they currently call home?

 

[Tawnos]

What bugs me is even IF Meruelo is successful in the auction - not a sure thing by any means - then wouldn't that mean the Coyotes are destined to spend another couple seasons at least at that miniscule rec center they currently call home?

The arena would open in 27-28, which would end up being 5 years. They were hoping 3 years would be all they'd spend there, but 5 was always an expectation.

 

[Dr Pepper]

Not a lawyer, I wonder if that could be considered a Tortious Interference.....

If it's not at least it gave me the opportunity to say Tortious Interference, I can cross that of my bucket list

Not to be confused with tortoise interference, of course, which no one in their right mind would ever do.

 

[Llewzaher]

What bugs me is even IF Meruelo is successful in the auction - not a sure thing by any means - then wouldn't that mean the Coyotes are destined to spend another couple seasons at least at that miniscule rec center they currently call home?

Yup .. they have made more money here than they ever did at Glendale showing you how bad that deal was with previous owners.

Besides Glendale already got rid of most of their ice making machines and are in the process of remodeling

Yotes primary focus is the auction. If they lose that relocation is the last and only option

 

[hangman005]

Not to be confused with tortoise interference, of course, which no one in their right mind would ever do.

Maybe me if I get confused with between a tortoise and Cassidy's god damn turtle

 

[Legion34]

It's a real goddamn shame we haven't discussed why that might be the case over the course of 12,003 threads.

I mean, it's not like we've had the same discussions about at least half the fanbases in the league, many of which share a really common characteristic when people want to play the "fans don't want to support them" card: they're doing pretty shitty in the standings.

Except, with the Coyotes, they've been pretty shitty for the better part of 20 years and had shitty ownership to boot.


What's narcissistic is the arrogance from people who consider themselves real hockey fans, who talk about real hockey fans in real hockey markets who deserve a team, and how other cities don't deserve a team because of a myriad of made-up reasons.

For example: comments like this:


I'm sure all your qualifiers, though, make it more acceptable.


Every league has problem teams. Arizona doesn't cost the NHL any more in respect than the A's, Rays and Pirates have cost MLB respect. Or that Washington cost the league respect in the Dan Snyder Rain of Terror. Or Cleveland II cost the league respect for virtually all of the last 20 years. Or the Bears, Jets and Cardinals are costing the league respect at the moment. And you can pick whatever teams you like in the NBA, but Philadelphia was a shining example in its "let's be shit for years, load up for picks, win a title" era that still isn't near even a ECF appearance.

If Arizona is costing the league marketing, the NHL is doing really f***ing good with it. The fact is, the league would still suck at marketing with or without Arizona. And if [when?] Arizona gets moved, someone else will be the problem team that "costs money, marketing and respect of the league." Until you and others figure out how to make every team "above average" and get the league to market its stars and the game properly - and just looking at the NYR/NJD line brawl, what some people will want on a nightly basis is not what casual fans want on a nightly basis - that will always be the case.

1.) ???? The reasons are not relevant. They haven’t supported the team. There are other markets who do. Even in down years there are fluctuations but nothing this bad.

2.) did I say anything about real fans? There aren’t enough of them. That’s reality. There are more in other places. That’s reality.

3.) other sports having bad franchises has nothing to do with this.

Simple question.

If there are more fans who will pay more money in another city. Should they be denied a team?

 

[Dr Pepper]

The arena would open in 27-28, which would end up being 5 years. They were hoping 3 years would be all they'd spend there, but 5 was always an expectation.

Five years.

Still not realy sure why temporary relocation to a neighbouring state - with a full-sized and ready to go arena - is not a viable option for the league.

 

[Llewzaher]

Yup .. they have made more money here than they ever did at Glendale showing you how bad that deal was with previous owners.

Besides Glendale already got rid of most of their ice making machines and are in the process of remodeling

Yotes primary focus is the auction. If they lose that relocation is the last and only option

Also the Tempe vote that they lost:

Had they won that , they would have remediate the land because it was a landfill.. they don’t have to do that with the new land meaning the timeframe for puck drop in the new arena is the same as is the Tempe one

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Not a lawyer, I wonder if that could be considered a Tortious Interference.....

If it's not at least it gave me the opportunity to say Tortious Interference, I can cross that of my bucket list

I used that repeatedly when reference what Balsillie and Rodier did re: the Coyotes going into bankruptcy, and even if they signed an agreement to never get involved with an NHL team again, I'm still shocked the NHL never sued the two of them for tortious interference.

That said, no - it would very likely not constitute tortious interference as Smyth et. al. wouldn't be breaching any contract the Coyotes have with someone else. I don't think the NHL would exactly smile on it happening, but if it got to that point I think the NHL would help broker a sale before the auction closed.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

1.) ???? The reasons are not relevant. They haven’t supported the team. There are other markets who do. Even in down years there are fluctuations but nothing this bad.

No, there aren't markets who support the team even in down years. We've discussed this a number of times. There's 3 in the NHL: the Maple Leafs, Canadiens and Rangers. Every other team has demonstrated once things get bad, fans start staying away and the longer it's bad the more fans stay away.

This includes the Blackhawks [which are currently demonstrating it], the Canucks [which demonstrated it in the recent past], the Bruins [who did it post-lockout] and the Oilers [where fans started staying away when the 5-year rebuild started going into a 6th, 7th, 8th year with increasing condescension from Lowe and MacTavish] and the Jets [as has been noted in threads here].

2.) did I say anything about real fans? There aren’t enough of them. That’s reality. There are more in other places. That’s reality.

That's true when talking about any team and market, relative to any other team and market. That's also reality.

And, as I've tried pointing out numerous times: the Coyotes have been a losing team for the vast majority of 20 years. 4 playoff appearances since 2002-03, 1 since 2012-13 which was in the bubble in Edmonton. Buffalo hasn't seen the playoffs since 2011, hasn't been within 10 points of a playoff spot but twice in that span, and fans there have had enough and aren't showing up most nights - and that's a real hockey market with real hockey fans. It is really difficult to get fans to pay for tickets to see losing on a nightly basis, it's even more so in a market where a slew of owners have done about everything wrong they possibly could in running a franchise.

3.) other sports having bad franchises has nothing to do with this.

Because it's devastating to your argument? It's absolutely relevant: it underscores that no matter what sport we're talking about, fans show up for winning teams and they don't for losing teams - and the longer a team is bad, the more fans stay away.

If there are more fans who will pay more money in another city. Should they be denied a team?

When you can establish that they have a right to a team because they'll pay more than fans in another city, sure - they can have a team. Until then, fans don't own teams and don't have any say in where teams operate. Owners do.

It doesn't matter how many fans are in some other city that will pay more. If an owner doesn't want to set up shop there, or conditions are such that the owner can't find a place to play under terms he deems to be suitable, it doesn't matter if fans in that other city will shell out $500 a ticket: the owner isn't setting up there for the alleged lure of money if the conditions attached make it too onerous (in his opinion) to operate there.

If fans want to buy a team, they should go read up on the league's requirements for ownership and form a group that conforms to those requirements, and then enjoy all the benefits (and pitfalls) that go along with team ownership.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Five years.

Still not realy sure why temporary relocation to a neighbouring state - with a full-sized and ready to go arena - is not a viable option for the league.

Because it requires that temporary location to agree to it, very likely requires the NHLPA to sign off as well, and then there's a slew of questions around additional costs and who's responsible for them and whether the additional revenue is really outweighed by the additional costs, both direct and indirect.

 

[MikeyMike01]

Not to be confused with tortoise interference, of course, which no one in their right mind would ever do.