14
votes
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 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.
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.