Sigh.
In case you missed it, the city of Glendale voted to revoke the Arizona Coyotes lease with the Gila River Arena, meaning that the Yotes will have to find another building for next season. Yotes ownership will fight this, of course, but the fact remains they need to find a building.
The first thought is that they will go to Quebec City, which makes no logical sense because the whole point of realignment was to keep all Western Conference teams west of the Eastern time zone. Quebec is Eastern time zone. So, while it could work for a season, it doesn’t make sense long term. Plus, the NHL is going to expand to 32 teams at some point, my guess is they want the $500 million in expansion fees from a city/ownership group ready and willing to pay it.
The next thought is Seattle, which has Key Arena ready to house an NHL team. Seattle is a viable expansion market as well, and while Key Arena isn’t the best, it could be a stop-gap until a new arena is built for whatever future team is there. My guess is they don’t go to Seattle.
Vegas is getting an expansion team, not a relocating team.
Kansas City isn’t happening. Same with Portland.
That leaves…..Phoenix. Actual Phoenix. Not Glendale, not insert suburb of Phoenix here. Downtown Phoenix, where the Suns play, where the Yotes should have been all along. Talking Stick Resort Arena (yes, that’s the name of the arena) can house the Yotes, at least temporarily. And then, we can actually see how the Yotes do when folks don’t need to drive 45 minutes to the arena.
We are going to hear a lot about this in the coming months, so this is going to be the story that never dies. But I feel like we’ve heard that about this club before. Deja vu.
Share:
More About:Around the League