14
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Inside the Coyotes' stunning move from Arizona to Utah
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- Title
- Inside the tumultuous tenure of the Coyotes in Arizona and their stunning move to Utah
- Authors
- Emily Kaplan
- Published
- May 12 2024
- Word count
- 5460 words
In hindsight, I guess maybe it was good the NHL stopped the sale to Balsillie with Blackberry falling apart, but somewhere in Ontario would probably still have been a better place than the mess in Arizona.
At the time, Utah was an option and more recently Quebec.
I suppose the recent issues with season tickets in Winnipeg probably helps Bettman feel better about not putting more teams in Canada.
I do agree that keeping the Arizona team playing in a 5000 seat arena was untenable. I couldn't believe that was a serious solution. It's amazing how far the competence gulf is between the other sports leagues in North America and the NHL.
I'm torn between calling them the Utah Jizz or the Utah Soakers.
In all seriousness, I just don't see how moving from Arizona to Utah will ultimately solve the franchises problems. Is there really a call for hockey in Utah that's going to explode? What about Indiana? That seems like a market that could sustain an NHL team. What about Wisconsin? Maybe even Kentucky. I don't know. But Utah just doesn't seem like it.
I can see it going either way, but I'm leaning more towards it being a successful move. Utah has had a ton of population growth over the past 20 years and they still only have one major sports franchise which they are very passionate about. There's definitely hunger for more. The only potential problem I see is the NHL's schedule, which will have the Utah Jizz playing at the same time as the Utah Jazz.
I can understand that. Though I was in SLC about 10 years ago and it just seemed like a quiet medium-sized city. Plus, it just kind of seems like if you're in a place where people didn't grow up watching or playing hockey, it's more of an uphill battle to get the sport to catch on. Vegas is a different story because it's Vegas. Phoenix was a good, albeit failed experiment because there are so many retirees there from the midwest. If the Jizz aren't a contender out of the gate, I could see a rough road to getting Utahns passionate about the team. Another thing I wonder about, are Mormons interested in hockey? It's a pretty violent sport and it might be against the sensibilities of the older population. I see a lot of roadblocks to success, but I'm happy for the hockey fans in Utah that they're getting a team.
Utah has a billionaire that wanted a team and has a stadium and that's all Bettman cares about.
Utah Jizz is a great name. Definitely better than Utah Caribou.