Utah Coyotes

It's official.  After nearly 30 years in the desert, the Arizona Coyotes will soon be no more.  The franchise will be moving to Utah next season, ending years of uncertainty and financial instability as they tried to make it work.  This result seemed inevitable, however, and will hopefully go better than the Arizona experiment did.

Nothing is official yet, but Coyotes players and staff were informed about the relocation prior to Friday's game, so it's basically a done deal.  The formal announcement is expected next week.  The Coyotes will be sold to the owners of the Utah Jazz and begin playing in Salt Lake City under a new name next season.  The "Coyotes" name, logo and colors will remain with Phoenix, in hopes of reactivating the franchise in the future.

Ever since the team got kicked out of its arena in Glendale, the Coyotes have lived a nomadic existence as they looked for a place to play that would allow them to stay in the Phoenix area.  They've been playing at Arizona State's 5,000-seat Mullet Arena, which isn't anything close to an NHL-caliber venue.  The team has been losing money left and right since the move, but have no other alternatives at the moment.  That seems to have been the last straw that made the NHL finally pull the plug.

Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo's most recent venue plan involves a state-run land auction on June 27.  Should the team win the auction, that would become the site of their privately-funded new arena.  The plan for what would happen should the team not have the highest bid was unclear, but it likely would've involved staying at Arizona State longer.  Which is something they'd have to do anyway while the new arena was being built.

That didn't work for the NHL.  They were skeptical about the timeline and decided they needed something a little more concrete for next season.  As a result, the league told Meruelo that a sale would be the best course of action.  For his part, Meruelo will maintain a hockey presence in Phoenix, which the NHL also wants.  In fact, the sale agreement is expected to include a clause that gives Meruelo first dibs on an expansion franchise if he can get the arena situation figured out within the next five years.

(Before I move on, there's something about all this NHL expansion talk that's really been bothering me.  It's not just the idea that people won't shut up about it, even though the NHL literally just expanded and is at a nice, even 32 teams.  While expanding to 36 does seem like the next logical step, they aren't even close to there yet.  Beyond that, though, why do "experts" keep saying Atlanta is "definitely" getting a team when expansion does happen?  Atlanta, a city that's already lost two different teams to Canada!  Do they think it'll be third time's the charm?  Or is this just a ploy to get Quebec a new team once hockey in Atlanta fails again?)

Anyway, back to the Coyotes.  Meruelo will still participate in the auction and still hopes to build his arena on that 95-acre parcel of land in north Phoenix.  The complex will also include the team's practice facility, as well as a theater, housing units and retail space.  So, he doesn't want to just build an arena.  He wants to build an entire entertainment district (a la the Atlanta Braves).  It's all contingent on him winning the auction, though, so you can see why the NHL was hesitant to endorse the project...which would still take a few years to film, and they'd still need a temporary solution in the meantime.

The Delta Center in Salt Lake City, where the Jazz have played since 1991, isn't a permanent solution, either.  It's fine for a temporary facility, but the NHL has made it clear that hockey-specific upgrades must be performed in order for it to become the Coyotes' permanent home.  The difference with Salt Lake City, though, is that the Utah State Senate has already approved the funding for a renovated downtown entertainment district, which also has the support of the governor.  So, it looks like a new arena for the Jazz and Coyotes (that would also likely figure into the city's plans for the 2034 Winter Olympics) is happening.

And with a relocation to Salt Lake City and potential new arena, that will hopefully put an end to all the uncertainty surrounding the Arizona Coyotes.  In a way, you've got to give the NHL credit for sticking it out in Phoenix as long as they did.  Sure, some of the factors that led to the Coyotes' situation were outside of their control.  But it's also a franchise that had long been plagued by mismanagement and bankruptcy, including a span where it was owned by the league.  So, it's not like you couldn't see this relocation coming.  And, who knows?  Maybe all they need is a fresh start somewhere else (with that somewhere else being Salt Lake City).

Would the NHL in Phoenix have worked had the franchise not been so poorly run and had a stable arena situation?  Perhaps.  I guess that's why the NHL is committed to maintaining a presence in the area.  And it's easy to understand why.  Auston Matthews is one of the best players in the game right now.  He's from Phoenix.  If not for the Coyotes, he might not even be a hockey player.  Not to mention the size of the Phoenix market.  It's the 11th-biggest in the U.S., which will make it one of the largest not to have a full complement of teams in the four major sports (Phoenix also doesn't have an MLS team, while the Mercury are one of three WNBA franchises from the inaugural season still playing in their original city).

Salt Lake City, meanwhile, is about to become a two-team market after decades of the Jazz being the only game in town (they also have the Salt Lake Bees, the Angels' Triple-A affiliate, and Salt Lake City was one of the options being discussed for the A's before they settled on Sacramento).  I'm curious to see what the response will be.  There's no reason to think it won't be a successful hockey market, especially since they made it very clear they wanted the team.  And I don't think the NHL would be going there if it considered Salt Lake City a risk.  After all, look at how well they did with Las Vegas and Seattle!

But, is Salt Lake City ready to have a second pro team?  One that won't just be sharing an arena with the Jazz, but will be playing an overlapping season with them?  (They also have an MLS squad, Real Salt Lake, in addition to the Bees, and the Utah Grizzlies are a minor league hockey team that currently plays in the ECHL.)  I would imagine Major League Baseball will also be keeping a close eye on the success of the NHL in Salt Lake City as they begin considering cities for their next round of expansion, which seems like it will probably kick off once the A's officially move to Las Vegas in 2028.  

As for Arizona, it was an ambitious move when they relocated from Winnipeg to a completely untapped market in 1996.  They lasted a lot longer than some people thought, and their failure wasn't from lack of trying.  And it's certainly worth wondering if things might've gone differently had the team been more successful on the ice.  But, as one chapter ends in Phoenix, a new one begins in Salt Lake City.

This location feels so different than what's going on with the A's, too.  In Oakland, the fans are angry.  In Phoenix, does anyone even care?  Will they even miss the Coyotes?  The fact that I'm even asking those questions make it pretty clear that moving the team is the right decision.  For all involved.