As we all know, the Arizona Coyotes are no more as thanks to arena and money problems, they ended up going to Utah are now the Mammoth, thus making hockey, like Utah's new mascot, extinct.
Because of how Arizona now has an empty void left by how the Coyotes are gone, the owner of the Phoenix Suns and Mercury, Mat Ishbia, wants to bring them back but because of the previous issues of finding an arena and money problems put Arizona's hockey dreams on ice, excuse the pun, can it be done? Will hockey in Arizona be born again or has the ice melted enough for the ship to sail?
25 comments
Blow wind blow….. lets hope that ship has sailed and docked already.
They intentionally designed the arena in Phoenix to only work for basketball. It’s a shame. Not sure how he’d refurb his arena to support hockey.
Bettman has a thing for Arizona it seems? Right? I know they have a large market in Phoenix, but it just seems crazy that it was pushed so hard to stay there
Why are they even being talked about.
Glendale arena with affordable AHL tickets
Arizona State has hockey
Personally, I think hockey is done in AZ for the near future. From the reading I have done, there was not enough support in local and state government levels to keep hockey in the area and I do not see things changing any time soon.
If they actually get an owner that can actually build their own fucking stadium. They have a fan base here.
It’s going to be a very long time before we see hockey back in Arizona. The support for it isn’t very high among politicians in the state. Maybe in 10 to 15 years, the league tries to go back to Arizona. But as for now, I think the dream of hockey in Arizona is dead.
Is this a troll. No shot in the next 5-10 years. Zero progress has been made since they left and wouldn’t count on any anytime soon.
They will get another shot if Ishbia is serious.
Arizona should see if they can handle an AHL team before they go and embarrass the NHL again.
Okay I’ll just ask. Any Arizona residents in this sub? Do you live in the phoenix area year round? Do you actually miss having your own team?
As 2RedTigers already implied-
The NHL, local politicos and developers tried to get taxpayers to foot the bill for a multi-billion dollar multi-use complex for multi-billionaires to profit from.
That boondoggle has worked in MANY metropolitan areas, like every single Kings arenas in Sacramento (whose last con job was the funniest- and saddest, since voters apparently bought it). In fact, Bettman has often cited the NBA as the league he has modeled his leadership “ideas” upon.
Luckily for Arizona, the citizens soundly rejected Porky the Bond- multiple times.
Bettman will retire if AZ gets a team again, but where? Remodel the Footprint again or fix up the Veterans Memorial Coliseum are the only two options.
If he owns the Suns, why can’t he get their venue renovated to accommodate hockey?
I wonder if anyone has told them hockey does exist in places where the nhl isn’t. They can still have hockey. They can’t have an nhl team though.
IS there a “void”, though? Did people show up to fill their tiny rink?
BTW- I’m not trying to be mean, but…That is easily one of the worst written OPs I’ve ever read. It’s…It’s like someone related a fever dream in Sanskrit, fed it to Chat GPT, then “google translated” it into English, cut and pasted, and VOILA!
They’ve had their chances , time to just give up and move on from Arizona having a hockey team. Same with Atlanta they’ve had two shots at having a team. Put a team in Houston if they’re to expand again. Hell Quebec City deserves a second chance before Atlanta or Arizona get a third shot
Have they tried getting a loan from Mesa Verde?
Arizona still has hockey. ASU has a D1 team that plays in an arena they build and own themselves.
There is also the Tucson Roadrunners.
Bettman would green light it tomorrow. Anything to try and grow the game in the USA market.
“finding an arena”
He could always spend his own money to build one, no?
People just think about hockey, but another arena means another location for concerts.
Right now it feels like it’s only matter of time when NHL expands to 36 teams. Atlanta, Houston and Phoenix being three of the cities they want. Them being large markets is why. Fourth is more tricky.
Everyone would love it to be Quebec City but doesn’t seem even remotely as likely as the prior three as NHL clearly wants those cities on their map. Good thing for Quebec City is that they are in East so NHL wouldn’t need to move teams between conferences.
Other possibilities as of lately seem to be Omaha and New Orleans. I don’t if New Orleans would work but I think it would be cool. Omaha on the other hand has the advantage of not having any other major league teams so NHL could be willing to get in there before other sports leagues to insure a fan base like they did with Las Vegas. However New Orleans and Omaha are both in West which would mean NHL would have to move Nashville? to Eastern Conference. And they aren’t as large markets as ATL, HOU and PHX.
Other options seem to be Austin or Indianapolis. I don’t know if NHL would want to go to Austin if they go to Houston since three teams in Texas would be a lot. Or would they rather go to Austin than to Houston since the talks about expansion to Houston feel like have been going for so long without them getting a team. Indianapolis same as Quebec City has the advantage of being in East but we’ll see what NHL will look like in the next 5-10 years.
Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix and Quebec City would be my calls.