I don't understand exactly how the finances work, but the Coyotes needed to be subsidized from Glendale to turn a profit, so that's why I think the Coyotes weren't interested in taking control of the Glendale area. I imagine if AM were given the opportunity of taking over the arena and was allowed to purchase a large parcel of land adjacent to the arena, he would have been all in.
I don't buy the opinion that the team couldn't work in the west valley. Stable ownership and a successful on ice product would have taken care of that, but there still needed to be more than just an arena. That's why AM needs to build more than an arena in Scottsdale and he needed to do that in Tempe as well.
To be completely transparent, I live in the west valley (Surprise).
I think the takeaway from everything that's happened to this franchise in almost 30 years is this: hockey may work in various locales around the Valley depending on context and how the team does business, but it will never work
anywhere in Arizona if the ownership sucks as much ass as ours has virtually since day one.
I mean, an engaged, Mark Cuban-style owner could have made it work in Glendale. Truly, he could have. It would have taken a lot of work in the community to build relationships and get west side fans excited in the sport rather than marketing to people 30 miles away. It would have taken infrastructure partnerships to build local sheets of ice and youth programs in the same area as Westgate. It would have taken a personal interest in working with Valley corporations to be partners for the whole Valley instead of saying it would only work in their backyards. And maybe it would even have required encouraging the players to get homes in the affluent areas in the northeast part of town (although that wasn't very realistic back in 2003, when there wasn't the "West Scottsdale" development push that we have out here now).
Lots of ifs, sure. But look at what we've been through the last two years. We had an East Valley arena. It should have been easy - no, a
fait accompli - to sell out Mullett every f***ing night, because of where it's located. And we had a development plan - or at least a pie in the sky idea - that should have been the biggest slam dunk of all time to build a massive jewel of an entertainment district on a piece of land that not even Tempe wants to have anything to do with. But
nobody trusted the ownership except the politicians. That history of malfeasance and bad faith and questionable finances that has dogged the Coyotes since, well, year two of their existence in Arizona just never went away, no matter how much the faces changed.
And what's worst about our current situation is that that history won't go away either so long as Alex Meruelo is involved in any capacity with the franchise. The local pols, businesspeople, and voters aren't going to suddenly give him the benefit of the doubt just because we lost a team and they want to have one back.
He's the same guy. He's shown absolutely zero intent on changing the way he does business to perform outreach, to connect with people, to become anything more than an absentee father to a neglected child. Does anyone really think that anyone outside of the blind diehards who want a team back at all costs will trust him or want to do business with him? Of course not.
I think the NHL knows this. This whole 5-year window of "activation" thing is a smoke screen for them to hide behind and get away with this with less blowback. They don't want Meruelo in the club anymore. They don't think he will do what he's been promising, because he hasn't followed up on anything else he's promised. They are likely hoping he will skip town with the cash, and that will be the end of the Arizona era and they can go chase money in Houston and Atlanta.
Bettman and co. would
love it if someone with boundless cash, a keen eye for and experience in sports business, and an attitude of making things work would somehow magically appear in Arizona and build a franchise here. Unfortunately, that mythical figure does not exist. Matt Ishbia is not that guy. He's a basketball guy who would take on a hockey team as part of his portfolio, not like Ryan Smith who is doing it because he likes hockey and wants to see it succeed in SLC. Ishbia has shown none of that kind of interest. The only interest he's shown has been as a way to expand his empire and holdings, not be the borderline pastor of an aimless flock of hockey devotees who can help them build a settlement and a life.
I think once people understand all of this, it will make things a little easier to cope with.
