OT: Will you follow the team?

[rt]

Lindsey's Small Fry's as well which is even more specialized as it caters specifically to little girls. I could see something like that fizzling away as well. This whole thing just sucks.

My mite and mini mite are former “Little Howlers” and my mite plays against “The Kachinas” girls team in his house league.

 

[rt]

I’m invested in the prospect pool and the young roster players. Ideally we keep the coaching staff and front office. That seems unlikely but would be great. Meanwhile, I’m invested in this draft. So, I’m going to follow the team.

My fandom is on dynasty mode, though. I’ve got favorite prospects for the 2024 draft (Dickinson, Mews, Sennecke, etc). I need to be attached to an NHL team to continue enjoying watching CHL hockey for this purpose. Being invested in the NHL draft. It’s why I’m on HFBoards.com. That’s HOCKEYS FUTURE - it used to be a prospect site for draft nuts. That’s me. A draft nut.

This is my pool. I’m sticking with it.

And I’m heartened many of my Canadian friends here will be sticking with it too. I hope some of my AZ buddies end up feeling the same way.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

I play at the Coyotes Community Ice Center in Mesa. I’m guessing it benefits from some subsidies from the team. I also expect the rinks where the Junior Coyotes play do. And the Little Howlers.

That occurred to me tonight, as the Kachinas came up in conversation. Orgs like that are pretty much toast, I fear.

 

[MIGs Dog]

I’ll move to another established NHL city.

I hear Chicago has a bright future.

 

[ParisSaintGermain]

I honestly don't know. The thought of watching a Houston Lollipops vs Pittsburgh Penguins game with camera shots of Chayka in the stands is not very stimulating at this juncture, if I am honest.

 

[Mosby]

For reference, the thrashers sold May 31 … two weeks … from this date.

Still hopefully of a Plan B in AZ though.

Outside markets, preference is probably Houston. Stuff like KC and SLC isn’t too appealing. Where else? Quebec is too much BS. We’d have to fire management for some French guys.

 

[MIGs Dog]

Even though I'm biased toward KC, Houston has the largest market among the possible locations mentioned, with a metro area population of over 7 mil and an NHL-caliber arena.

KC is twice as large as SLC and also has an NHL ready arena.

 

[87turbobuick]

I always watch the NHL, just not the Yotes the last few years.

 

[Llewzaher]

Well as an overseas fan I’ll probably follow. What hurts the most is losing forum40 tho. This is just so f***ing sad.

I think everyone needs to pull themselves back from the ledge. We are Coyotes fans who bend and don’t break. I understand that this sucks through and through… but untll Gary Bettman says they are moving, they are not. He wants this to work here likely as much as we do. Xavier was hired to get an arena deal done ..and they came up with likely the best arena deal that could possibly be done. Believe me .. I live in Calgary ..

Where they lack experience is in politics. They should have hired top people who specialized in that. But they believed their own polling and thought they had this in the bag.

this wasn’t the only place that an arena could work, but we all got so excited by this slam dunk deal that we are going to the other extreme
Let’s just wait and see what happens in two weeks. And stay off the main boards..

 

[che]

I've never been to a game due to me living overseas but this news hit me hard. I spend a lot of time lurking on this forum and enjoy the vibes on F40. I will continue to support the team.

For the first time in a few years watching the coyotes and the product on the ice is fun and exciting.

This news totally f***in sucks and I feel really bad for everyone in the valley who support the Yotes, hopefully, somehow, the team can stay in Arizona.

 

[TheMistyStranger]

For what it's worth, I'm sorry you are having to deal with this. As a lifelong Sabres fan, I'm acutely aware of the unsettling nature of ownership/relocation issues. I still have my original Yotes sweater kicking around. Always wanted to get Teppo's name and number on it but never got around to it.

 

[Tom Polakis]

Emphatic "f*** no" from me. Why should I care about a team playing in some city I don't live in? That's nearly as dumb as actively rooting against the team representing city you live in after living here for decades -- which I see a lot of. From a sour grapes angle, I can't think of anything worse than the Coyotes turning into a winning team in some other city, and that's likely to happen.

 

[Tom Polakis]

Unfortunately i will just stop watching hockey. Im a local boy through and through and any other city in front of this team's name will crush my soul

I love hockey far more than I love the Coyotes. I was a Kings fan in the early 90's, when we got them on cable and Gretzky was on the team. I could see casually following them again. As much as I hate other L.A. teams like the Dodgers and Lakers, I always sorta liked the Kings, other than Dustin Brown, of course.

That's it, I'm hereby announcing my Kings fandom in this post, and ducking for cover.

 

[Jakey53]

Not on your f***ing life. I feel abandoned. Vegas, baby.

I will probably watch very little hockey period. I took a year off and really didn't miss it. Same for all sports really. Just tired of all the BS that comes with it now a days.

 

[Mosby]

I love hockey far more than I love the Coyotes. I was a Kings fan in the early 90's, when we got them on cable and Gretzky was on the team. I could see casually following them again. As much as I hate other L.A. teams like the Dodgers and Lakers, I always sorta liked the Kings, other than Dustin Brown, of course.

That's it, I'm hereby announcing my Kings fandom in this post, and ducking for cover.

Burn this witch

 

[FinnishCoyote]

Well, i'm from Finland so it's not like i have ties to Arizona. I guess i'm gonna follow, but this is still sad. I've been following since i was a kid

 

[Baby Doaner]

When I move to Missouri at the end of the year, I’m sure I’ll primarily watch the blues. I’ll still follow the coyotes, wherever that may be.

 

[Snarky Coyote]

To be honest I am just numb, I don't know how I feel about the future. Lots depends on what comes out in the post mortem.

 

[LittlePipes]

I would follow them… want to see if BA plan successfully unfolds.

 

[Matias Maccete]

I'm going to settle on a maybe. It's going to depend on where's they move and how that new group and fans treat the coyotes history of the franchise. I like the core BA and Tourigny are building, and the kind of team.

 

[Bonsai Tree]

I never, ever caught shit from a Carolina, Florida or Vegas fan. Anecdotal, but those will be my new follows.

 

[87turbobuick]

I will probably watch very little hockey period. I took a year off and really didn't miss it. Same for all sports really. Just tired of all the BS that comes with it now a days.

I quit watching MLB after the Expos were cheated out of a World Series, no more NBA after BLM, I have watched way less NFL than before which was hard in the beginning.

 

[SR]

I’m not sure I would even know how to follow another team. I don’t watch other games like I watched the coyotes with a rooted interest in them winning and doing good. I have no attachment to any other team and I don’t know I go about getting that attachment. I was born into loving the coyotes, that’s probably why.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

Now that I've had the night to think it over, I've gotten a better handle on how I feel about all this. Warning, this could get long.

Why, I wondered, am I so aggravated about last night's results, when I had already mentally prepared myself for the worst? Because, I realized, this is the second time in less than a decade that I have watched voters abdicate all measure of basic common sense in favor of a flaming pile of toxic trash.

God bless my pals around here who were OG Jets fans, and I love your resilience for sticking with the franchise here in Arizona, and I wish you well when the team goes to Houston or wherever else. But I can't be as equitable as you. I think the big difference is your street cred. You are a demographic that is loved and sympathetic in the NHL hoi polloi because you cheered for a Canadian team. People wanted you to have a team again basically from the moment the OG Jets moved out here. You were a cause celebre (even though you had "transferred your loyalties") because Winnipeg was the darling underdog, the Wrexham of the NHL. And I say this with as much love and appreciation in my heart as I can muster, but I don't think the two flavors of bitterness held by Jets fans and Coyotes fans are the same. For what it's worth, I don't think Hartford or Quebec fans can quite commiserate either. Atlanta fans are probably the ones best suited to plumb the same depths of fan misery that I feel right now, because they know what it's like not only to lose their team, but to have what feels like the entire NHL fandom rejoice about it and dance on their metaphorical grave for years afterward. I mean no offense - just providing context as to why I can't be as flexible and open-minded as you were able to be.

The best metaphor for the bitterness I will feel when the team leaves is this. My youngest daughter had her final high school performing arts concert last night. At the end of the event, she was brought back on stage and given several awards by her teachers and peers, and she and the other seniors were given a standing ovation as the lights came back up. I couldn't have been prouder of her, and I felt so grateful to her teachers and peers for supporting her. But imagine if you will if, after every performance she gave, she was met with silence or boos or even thrown produce from the audience. Imagine if other school clubs - the football team, the volleyball team, the frickin' chess team - showed up to heckle her performance. What if they yelled, "You don't belong!" at her all night? Would she then want to come back for class reunions or homecoming or alumni events? Hell no. Her spirit would have been crushed. And that's how I feel.

There is no Welcome to Wrexham redemption arc left for this franchise. Mat Ishbia has no interest in buying this team. Hell, Alex Meruelo barely had an interest in buying this team - he was basically an emergency contact in Gary Bettman's Rolodex. We all harbored fever dreams of someday having all the elements that would create a successful Nashville Predators-style comeback story for the Coyotes, but last night we discovered that even with a competent GM, a young and promising team, an owner with deep enough pockets and the force of personality to be competitive with the other League bosses, and a location that could easily be labeled "prime" in the Valley, it's not going to be enough.

What's left? Hanging around F40 while our mods try to fend off the hordes of posters from the Main Board who are just dying to come shit out a diarrhea volcano of schadenfreude on our heads? I confess I love our hardened, cockroach-style knot of superfans who have stuck it out here for so long. I'd hate to lose touch with you all, because I don't have any other social media presence that I maintain. But when the team moves, this board either disappears or becomes the board for the next market, and neither option sounds very palatable. Even worse, knowing that there are a bunch of longtime BoH nemeses who are even now reading this thread in an absolutely onanistic paroxysm turns my stomach.

Bless you all, but when the team goes, I'll be out.

 

[Gold Diamond]

Pens fan here in peace. Sad for you guys.

Is there anywhere left in AZ for the Yotes to go?