from Dan Bickely of azcentral sports,

We can no longer be mocked by provincial fans in Canada, the snobs who don’t believe their national pastime belongs in a desert. We can no longer be perceived as the worst idea in hockey, a market that once symbolized Gary Bettman’s reckless expansion into the American South and Southwest.

While traditionalists were poking fun at the Coyotes’ attendance woes and bankruptcy hearings, the grass-roots hockey movement in the Valley was grooming Scottsdale’s Auston Matthews, the No. 1 draft pick who scored four goals in his NHL debut.

In return for their scorn, we gave them a historic moment and one of the brightest young stars in the game.

“Hey, without the Coyotes playing here, Auston wouldn’t be playing hockey,” Coyotes captain Shane Doan said. “He’d be playing some other sport. But because the Coyotes were here, he wanted to play, he got the opportunity to play, and he’s an amazing athlete.

“The center of hockey is in Toronto. They push it as hard as they can. If he played for us or in Florida and scored four goals, it would’ve been an incredible story. But to do it for Toronto? That’s unbelievable, and it’s a big boost to everything that’s happening with hockey in Arizona.”

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