I am one of many hockey observers that Coyotes fans, whoever they may be, claim to always have an anti-Yote agenda. And that’s fair to some extent, because it’s hypocritical to regularly talk at length about the place teams take for fans in their lives and the public’s belief that they really and then turn around and call for Coyotes to be kicked out of Arizona with the utmost convenience. However, there may be many fans of Coyotes, with equal patience and understanding.
And then you see something as bad as this, and it’s clear that it’s not our fault that Coyotes’ ownership and Gary Bettman’s insistence on installing anything he hit with a pellet bricks thrown to buy this husk did not meet their dedication:
Note here that this is only a temporary setup for teams visiting Mullett Arena, but it is important to consider the full context. Mullett Arena is a temporary solution the Coyotes came up with, basically playing in a warehouse equipped to be a collegiate arena because A) they were booted out of the arena they were supporting for the residents of Glendale because they’re terrible tenants in every way and B) they still don’t have a lasting solution.
We will get to the second and strongest aspect there in a second. But again, this is a temporary solution, as the away team facilities at this temporary solution for the homeless Yotes are not ready yet. So why should they play a home game? It’s not fair to the Jets, Rangers, Panthers and Stars who will have to use this COVID-era quarantine tank as the base for a real NHL game. The Islanders had a veritable arena prepared from last season and was forced to move for over a month until it was ready by all means to host an NHL game, including appropriate facilities. suitable for the top lane team.
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And now circling back to the worst part of this, at least from an optics standpoint, is that this isn’t the Coyotes serving out a waiting period while a true arena is built. This isn’t the Blue Jays exiled to Buffalo. It’s not the Chargers playing in a soccer stadium. The Coyotes don’t have a certain stadium solution! The Tempe council agreed to continue in working with them to reach an agreement to build an arena there, but they have yet to come close to removing all barriers. It may not happen at all. Nothing is certain about this. Coyotes could very well be a tenant of a university with no end or for no other purpose than Bettman’s unwillingness to admit a defeat.
There are arenas ready to take place in Kansas City, Quebec City, or Houston, or Portland. Isn’t that a better solution while the Coyotes figure out if they can even build an arena in Tempe? Just as a measure of whether any of those places could use Coyotes full time? Certainly, there will be appropriate facilities. And how many teams have built two arenas where one has failed and the next, if ever built, is unlikely to succeed? Coyotes was such a financially drained place that they were evicted from Glendale. Do we know it will be different in Tempe?
Yes, it only has four games. But that’s four games in a joke of a solution. Will the other three leagues accept this?
The NHL will likely require the players in the four away teams to endure this. They’ll say it’s just part of the race, it’s not too bad, it’s a match, they’re hockey players, the regular season presents a lot of challenges, etc. guide.
At this point, it’s important to note that if the Coyotes sold each ticket this year, they would average 5,000 fans per game. The Thrashers, whom the NHL never lifted a finger to save, averaged 13K in their final season in Dirty South.
It’s nothing short of a joke. It’s been a decade or more. But the bar kept sinking.
