Per Friedman: Coyotes players told team moving to Utah starting next season (Mod warning post #50)
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KaseMeOutside
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- Oct 18, 2011
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Salt Lake will 100% support the team. Honestly that entire coyotes organization needs to be cleaned put. You can't ask fans to support such a toxic situation
The Hanging Jowl
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Sorry but it just makes no sense to me. Hamilton and Quebec City have been begging for a team for decades and Salt Lake City just rolls in and grabs a franchise? How on Earth does that even make financial sense for the league? How does a city of 200,000 people with no hockey background support an NHL team? Both Hamilton and Quebec City have populations in the 800,000 range with an obvious higher interest in hockey. What's Gary's play here? I'm confused.
The Hanging Jowl
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This should have happened 10 years ago. The ownership has been a joke for decades with all talk and no arena. This could had been solved a LONG time ago if someone had coughed up the money. But that never happened which is why we are here today. Until there is a nhl ready arena in Phoenix there should never be an nhl team in the desert.
chauron
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- Jan 5, 2014
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Too small markets, they want the metropolitan cities. That’s why Arizona will get a new team eventually.
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chauron
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One conspiracy theory here: they use this ”we’ll move the team” to blackmail some politicians so they get the new arena somewhere in Phoenix
I wouldn't retain anything, EVERYTHING about that franchise is poison it brought NO value to the league, I know somebody will say "Auston Matthews" or "Matthew Knies" they are from Arizona but the Coyotes can't take credit for them anymore than the Leafs can take credit for Gretzky, or Montreal can take credit for Crosby.
You don't get to credit for players if they were not drafted by you, or played for you or something.
The only thing Arizona brought to the league is financial embarrassment, When the league has to step in because the team REFUSES to pay hotels that says it all.
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The Hanging Jowl
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Is that the plan? Utah is just temporary? I'm not arguing that Phoenix can't support a team, I'm saying there's no chance SLC can support a team better than Hamilton or Quebec City. FYI, Hamilton is in the Golden Horseshoe. There's something like 10M people within an hour's drive or train ride +/-. Even Phoenix can't compare to that population base to draw on.
Just sayin' I love their logo.
serp
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- Jan 17, 2016
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I think anything even remotely close to the GTA will get vetoed by the Leafs. IRC that has been reported multiple times. Leafs do not want another team near them in Canada
orby
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It's been a long time coming. I feel for Arizona fans - I know many people legitimately loved having the Coyotes around - but as the years have passed, it's become increasingly clear that the whole situation simply wasn't meant to be.
Fishy McScales
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I chuckled at THG saying the other day that the league may announce expansion in Phoenix and Atlanta in a few years.
Peasy
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Extremely unfortunate situation for everyone employed by the yotes org, as well as their fan. But at the end of the day, this is long over due and needed. I think the NHL will come back to Phoenix in a few years once they figure out the arena situation and find a better owner. Meruelo is a grifter through and through. From his little time as owner there has been so many stories of this guy not keeping his word, trying to get out of paying expenses etc the list goes on.
Theyre playing in a college arena right now. Its embarrassing the state that franchise is in (the hockey side of things is actually hopeful). But it needed to be done. No professional org should be playing in a college arena for a year, let alone several years.
Theyre playing in a college arena right now. Its embarrassing the state that franchise is in (the hockey side of things is actually hopeful). But it needed to be done. No professional org should be playing in a college arena for a year, let alone several years.
The metropolitan area is 1.2 million.
I’m not sure exactly how it works there
But Hamilton is 550ish but has Dundas/stoney creek/ Ancaster/waterdown in it
Warden of the North
Ned Stark's head
They should have been doing nothing of the sort.
Because the size of the entire market is vastly more important than the population of individual cities. I mean, just look at Vancouver (population 670k) for instance. That's a pretty small city on its own. But obviously the historical, cultural, economic centre of a much larger metropolitan region (lower mainland is over 3million).
Similarly, metro SLC is 1.2 million while the greater Wasatch Front is 2.6. By hockey standards, it really isn't a small market.
As for part 2, the NHL has been pretty clear on expanding and relocating into areas without an existing significant hockey "culture"; Ottawa (1992), the return to Minnesota (2000) and Winnipeg (2011), and maybe Seattle being the only real exceptions. I doubt we'll see that change in the near future.
Scandale du Jour
JordanStaal#1Fan
ItWasJustified
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They're not gonna move a western conference team to the eastern conference when it's finally 16 teams in each conference.
Tawnos
A guy with a bass
The SLC market is closer to 2.7 million, because it includes the Provo and Ogden metros. Similar situation with the Hurricanes where you can’t just look at Raleigh, you need to look at Raleigh-Durham. SLC is a similarly sized market to Nashville.
That 2.7 number comes from what the NHL defines as a team’s territory, which everything within 50 miles (~80 km) of the city limits. When you look at QC, it’s around 1.1 million and that would be the smallest in the league. The NHL has to be concerned about markets that small with what’s going on in Winnipeg right now.
Hamilton would have ~9 million in that same analysis. But not only does that include Toronto, it includes Buffalo too. I think a hockey team would work really well there, but that’s exactly why it would never happen. I don’t think you could pay the Leafs and Sabres enough to let a potentially successful team cannibalize their markets.
Arthur Morgan
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Absolutely. For all the criticisms of the org, Coyotes fans deserved a better fate. Some will move on from hockey altogether once their home team is gone; hopefully others transfer allegiance to Utah or find another team to root for.
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