Articles in Arizona Coyotes

"It should come with an air sickness bag, this whole saga," Burke said. "It's just ridiculous that a city of 6 million people is going to fold and move to a city with 1.5 or whatever Salt Lake City has … so we're going to give up a marketplace of 6 million people for a marketplace of 1.5 million people where they've never had pro hockey other than the IHL and some AHL teams that were there.

"OK, does that make sense to anyone else? … It doesn't to me. Make this guy sell the team, get a new team in the right location and keep playing."

via azcentral

27 years in Arizona for the Coyotes.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

It was a book on terminally ill patients — On Death and Dying — that introduced us to the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Brian Kulina never read the book.

He doesn’t have to.

He’s an Arizona Coyotes fan.

“One day you wake up and you’re bargaining: ‘Maybe it would be different if this thing happened ... ?’” Kulina said this week, as he prepared to attend Wednesday’s franchise finale against the Edmonton Oilers at the tiny, sold-out Mullett Arena on the Arizona State University campus.

“Then you see something, and you get angry. And then you get sad,” he said. “We're running through the gamut, and where it's all coming from is, we feel like we were directly lied to.”

There will be plenty of time for Coyotes Nation to recline on its collective therapy couch and process the loss of its team to Salt Lake City. But for now, finding acceptance means avoiding the Coyotes' NHL.com web page.

The day before dropping the puck on what is 99.9 per cent certain to be this franchise’s last game here, the Coyotes' web page sports a banner across the top reading: BREAKING: Coyotes Announce Commitment to Win State Land Auction & Build Privately Funded Arena.

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from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

“This is the last season. It’ll be announced tomorrow.”

Reggie Dunlop, playing coach for the Charlestown Chiefs, just stood there dumbfounded — in full uniform — as Chiefs owner Joe McGrath looked up from his desk chair and laid down the bad news in the movie "Slap Shot".

It is expected that the address by Arizona Coyotes general manager Bill Armstrong to his team and staff Friday afternoon in Edmonton was a longer version of the "Slap Shot" shtick, but with the same message.

After 27 seasons in the desert, it’s over for the Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes.

The rumours that every staff member and player have been fending off for the better part of the franchise's history have finally hit critical mass, with the pending announcement that the Coyotes will close up shop expected to come after Wednesday’s season finale at home against Edmonton.

By September they’ll be in Salt Lake City with a new identity and a new owner — but playing in a basketball-first, NBA building that is nearly identical to the one that greeted this franchise in downtown Phoenix when it left Winnipeg back in 1996.

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from Frank Seravalli of The Daily Faceoff,

The NHL is concurrently drafting two versions of a league schedule matrix for the 2024-25 season, one with the Arizona Coyotes and another with the Coyotes franchise playing in Salt Lake City in the event of relocation, multiple sources told Daily Faceoff.

That does not mean the NHL has firmed up plans to relocate the franchise yet, just that the league has a viable contingency plan for next season. But the news comes on the heels of billionaire prospective owner Ryan Smith publicly soliciting potential names for an NHL team in Utah earlier this week.

As the NHL has been working on dual paths, multiple sources indicate Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo is intimately involved in both. The first, of course, involves the Coyotes remaining in the Phoenix area by building a new arena via Arizona State Land Trust auction, which is scheduled for June 27.

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from Sportsnet,

The pursuit of a forever home for the Arizona Coyotes seems to be a never-ending saga.

In their latest hitch, Scottsdale mayor David Ortega opposed the Coyotes' plans to purchase land in North Phoenix — bordering Scottsdale — to build their arena in an opinion piece written Monday for the Arizona Digital Free Press, calling the project unfeasible and unwelcome.

"The prospect of a rookie developer attempting to buy Arizona State Trust Land with absolutely no infrastructure on the Phoenix side of Loop 101 and Scottsdale Road intersection at the doorstep of Scottsdale is not feasible, or welcome," Ortega wrote.

"I admire the hockey sport, Arizona Coyotes community involvement and phenomenal youth clubs at Scottsdale Ice Den. But I along with City of Scottsdale staff will continue to monitor any actions that occur, and negative repercussions for Scottsdale. As it stands today, the fantasy hockey project must move west, away from Scottsdale."...

The Coyotes declined to comment on Ortega's statement when contacted by Sportsnet.

read on

A lot of dry talk from Elliotte Friedman on the Arizona Coyotes.

Land auctions, court involvement, ecd, but the bottom line is bad news may be coming to the Coyotes as early as this weekend.

from Eric Duhatschek of The Athletic,

In the end, there are only two choices. Doing the right thing or doing the greedy thing.

The right thing is to let the Coyotes move to Salt Lake City. Player-wise, it’s an appealing franchise. The heavy lifting, in terms of stocking the team with young talent, has already been done. With a little bit of financial backing from a well-heeled ownership to flesh out the payroll, the Coyotes could be formidable fairly soon. Shifting Arizona to Salt Lake City would leave the league at 32 teams and wouldn’t even require the divisions to realign.

Will the league go ahead with expansion? Maybe. Probably.

Should it? Probably not.

And the main reason is competitiveness. If you keep adding teams, it just makes it harder and harder to win a championship.

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Watch the hit below.

from Frank Seravalli of The Daily Faceoff,

The NHL and NHL Players’ Association are investigating a gap in protocol which resulted in Arizona Coyotes defenseman Juuso Valimaki lingering in a Dallas hospital for hours without care last month with a severe facial injury after taking a 93 mph slap shot to the mouth against the Stars.

Valimaki, 25, was transported to a Dallas hospital by ambulance from American Airlines Center after an undeflected point shot from countryman Jani Hakanpaa drilled him in the face on Nov. 14.

Sources told Daily Faceoff that Valimaki was dropped off in the emergency room, like any other patient, and left to advocate for his own care with his wife – who happened to be in Dallas at the road game – and a Coyotes team employee. After initial observation, the overworked Dallas hospital staff told Valimaki to find a local hotel and come back in the morning, that their attention was turned toward more critical incoming trauma patients such as gunshot victims.

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from Alex Meruelo / Owner, Chairman & Governor / Arizona Coyotes,

To our incredible hockey fans:

Challenges. Obstacles. Setbacks. No Defeats.

I have faced and overcome many stumbling blocks in my over 40 years in business. I have fallen down many times, but I take great pride that each and every time I get back up and end up stronger than ever—more resilient, more committed, more determined.

Last April we completed another rebuilding season for our hockey team—a rebuild that I felt was necessary in order to create a sustainable foundation to bring a Stanley Cup to the Valley. In May, we experienced a setback in our effort to build our permanent home—a disappointment to us and to all of our fans that were excited by our proposal to build the first privately funded sports facility in the history of Arizona.

We have faced setbacks but no defeats.

Now is another time to pick ourselves up, recommit, and win.

The Tempe arena proposal was defeated, but we were not. We got right to work. On to other options in the Valley. On to the upcoming NHL season.

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SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA – The Arizona Coyotes and Scripps Sports have formed a multi-year agreement to televise all locally broadcast Coyotes games over the air to residents of Arizona and surrounding states within the team's broadcast territory.

The agreement allows The E.W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP) to televise all non-nationally exclusive Coyotes games over the air (OTA). As per club policy, the financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The deal has obtained the necessary approvals from the National Hockey League.

from Nicholas J. Cotsonika of the NHL's website,

This is Australia? The land Down Under? Half a world away? The Arizona Coyotes and Los Angeles Kings played the first NHL game in the Southern Hemisphere on Saturday, but it didn’t feel like the first time.

A sellout crowd of 13,097 -- the largest crowd ever to watch an ice hockey game in Australia, by far -- saw the Coyotes open the preseason with a 5-3 win at Rod Laver Arena in the 2023 NHL Global Series -- Melbourne.

For the most part, these were not novice fans. These were hockey fans.

They wore gear representing each of the NHL’s 32 teams. We know, because we checked off each NHL team to be sure. They wore gear representing former NHL teams, too, plus Australian Ice Hockey League teams, national teams and local teams.

They “oohed” when they were supposed to “ooh,” and they “aahed” when they were supposed to “aah.” They roared for scraps, cheered for goals and clapped to the music.

“The fans were definitely involved and cheering all game and kind of cheering after both teams scored, so it was fun to jump right into that NHL feel and atmosphere,” Coyotes forward Clayton Keller said.

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Below, and probably the only time I will embed game highlights of a preseason game, it Kings/ Coyotes highlights.

Puck drop at Rod Laver Arena is at 12:05am ET and can be watched on the NHL Network or ESPN+ and Sportsnet in Canada.

via the NHL PR department,

The 2023 NHL Global Series™ – Melbourne will mark the first-ever NHL games played in the Southern Hemisphere, but not the first international trip for either the Kings or Coyotes. The Kings’ most recent foray overseas was for two preseason games in China in 2017. In addition, Los Angeles has seen preseason action in Austria (2007) and Germany (2011), and has also played regular-season games in England (2007), Germany (2011), and Sweden (2011). Arizona traveled to Latvia for one preseason game, and to Czechia for two regular-season games, in 2010.

The games in Melbourne will feature some of the NHL’s top talent. The Coyotes’ roster includes forwards Clayton Keller, Jason Zucker and Nick Schmaltz, defensemen Matt Dumba and J.J. Moser, and goaltender Karel Vejmelka. The Kings counter with captain Anze Kopitar, fellow forwards Kevin Fiala, Adrian Kempe and Pierre-Luc Dubois, and defensemen Drew Doughty and Australian native Jordan Spence.

In addition to the Coyotes-Kings contests in Melbourne, the 2023 NHL Global Series will visit Stockholm, Sweden, where an unprecedented four NHL Clubs will play matchups in a single European city. The Detroit Red Wings, Minnesota Wild, Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs will be featured in a slate of four regular-season games to take place Nov. 16-19 at Avicii Arena.

if so inclined, feel free to comment

via the NHL Network's YouTube page,

NHL.com writer Nick Cotsonika is in Australia with the LA Kings and Arizona Coyotes to cover the Global Series. He discusses what the players have been up to in their down time and the local response to the league's first games Down Under!

from Amalie Benjamin of the NHL's website,

When the Arizona Coyotes step onto the Qantas 787-9 Dreamliner that will take them from Los Angeles to Melbourne, Australia, on Saturday night, their movements -- their sleep, their meals, their supplements -- will be part of a carefully crafted dance designed for optimum performance and recovery, a plan created to tamp down on the tolls a transpacific flight might take.

The lights will dim at an optimal time. The meals will be served on Australian Eastern Time.

The hope is that it will help.

There are no guarantees, of course. But faced with the prospect of a 15-plus hour flight and a 17-hour time difference, the Coyotes -- along with their counterparts, the Los Angeles Kings -- are working their hardest to make a trip to Australia not much harder than one to New York.

"Anything that we can help them to find a one percent improvement, I think our guys are really open to," Coyotes high performance director Devan McConnell said.

Because although there is plenty of excitement for the Coyotes and Kings about going to Australia for the 2023 NHL Global Series, where the teams will play two exhibition games at Rod Laver Arena on Sept. 23 and 24, the trip is not without its pitfalls.

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SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA --- Arizona Coyotes General Manager Bill Armstrong announced today that the Coyotes have signed Head Coach André Tourigny to a three-year contract extension. As per club policy, the terms of the contract were not disclosed.

"We are very pleased to sign André to a three-year extension," said Armstrong. "He is an excellent coach, leader and communicator who has helped us establish a tremendous culture in our dressing room. Our players like him, respect him and compete hard for him. We are thrilled to have him signed as our head coach for the next three years."

from Sportsnet,

Arizona Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo is interested in purchasing land for a new arena in Mesa, John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports reports.

Gambadoro says Meruelo has submitted a letter of intent to buy 41 acres.

The report says the Coyotes also are looking at other sites, including Phoenix and Scottsdale, and that the target date for a new arena is the start of the 2026-27 season.

The Coyotes are looking for an NHL-sized arena after they lost a vote in spring to build a new facility in Tempe.

The Coyotes had hoped a new arena in Tempe would finally allow the franchise to settle down after playing in three different venues since moving to Arizona.

The team shared a downtown Phoenix arena with the NBA's Phoenix Suns after relocating from Winnipeg in 1996, then moved to Glendale's Gila River Arena in 2003. But the Coyotes had a troubled tenure in the Phoenix suburb.

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from Patrick Brown of the Coyotes website,

Defenseman Matt Dumba is already warming up to his new home in the hot desert.

Dumba signed a one-year contract with Arizona on Monday, uprooting his life from the only NHL city he's called home to join a new-look Coyotes team that has added Logan Cooley, Sean Durzi, Jason Zucker, and Alex Kerfoot this offseason. Add to that the return of both Nick Bjugstad and Troy Stecher, who opted to come back to Arizona following their departures at the 2023 trade deadline, and Dumba said he's excited to get to work with his teammates in his new surroundings.

The 29-year-old has spent all 10 seasons of his NHL career in Minnesota, recording 79 goals and 157 assists in 598 career games with the Wild. Though Dumba said it was a tough decision to leave the Twin Cities for The Valley, he said the Coyotes were "always my front-runner."

Thus, he made the decision to head to the Southwest.

"The discussion I had with my girlfriend and with my family about what was right for us, we were weighing the pros and cons, and there weren't too many cons to coming to the desert," he said. "We just needed to take the time to look at everything and be calculated and make sure this is the right fit. We know it is, and I'm so happy to be here."

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