History says Arizona Coyotes not going anywhere

Arizona Coyotes President and CEO Anthony LeBlanc dropped words like 'ambushed' and 'unethical' to describe how the city of Glendale moved to terminate the lease with the NHL team, and how the team intends to fight.

If you, like I, believe it is time for Gary Bettman to put down the damned hammer and stop pounding that round peg into the square hole that is NHL hockey in Arizona, you should know this much by now, as I do: This latest threat will not cause that to happen.

In fact, if you know the tiny, perfect commissioner of the National Hockey League at all, you know that the opposite is true. Bettman will not be pushed into a relocation by some city council making an election power play. If he were to appear weak in Glendale, what ideas might that spawn in Sunrise? Or Raleigh?


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“We have no intention of renegotiating the lease,” Coyotes Co-owner, President and CEO Anthony LeBlanc declared on Thursday, hours after Glendale city council had blindsided the team by declaring its lease at Gila River Arena null and void, “Based on a very, very weak interpretation of a very obscure State statute,” according to LeBlanc.

“I don’t think that the City of Glendale, in totality, is against the Arizona Coyotes,” he said. The current council likely is, however. “This is political gamesmanship.”

It seems a lawyer who once worked for the City had moved over to work for the Coyotes, and someone at City Hall found a clause in the lease deal that forbids that. But the man in question was fired two months before lease negotiations even began between the two parties, according to LeBlanc, and there are other factors.

Of course there are other factors.

Arizona (nee Phoenix) is hockey’s close-talking, boring guy. The one franchise out of 30 that you don’t want to get cornered by at the party, because its stories are always long and filled with a bunch of boring details.

Yet, over its many litigious seasons the Coyotes have bestowed much upon hockey. Names like trucking magnate Jerry Moyes, who ham-handedly declared bankruptcy in an attempt to sell the franchise to Slick Jim Balsillie, whom the Globe and Mail touted as the great hockey saviour of all time until, alas, he was anything but. Now they’re into Kyle Dubas.

Remember judge Redfield T. Baum? He presided over those bankruptcy proceedings, directing the court clerk to send the lawyers filings to his place up in Flagstaff, where he retreated to beat the summer heat.

How about the Goldwater Institute? Holy cow, were they right all along. Head coach Wayne Gretzky. The Brett Hull comeback. Alex Ovechkin scoring from his back…

Without this franchise we would be without all of those wonderful memories. Today, of course, the Coyotes continue to contribute to the hockey landscape, interrupting the Stanley Cup Final with another edition of Desert Dynasty.

“Our franchise has gone through more than it should, but we still believe this is a good hockey market,” admitted LeBlanc. The coming season will mark the 20th year since this franchise was moved from Winnipeg. It has never turned a profit, or even come close.

So, why not just exercise this newly presented chance to move the team? Here is what LeBlanc said to that:

“It’s a thoughtful question. The reality is, we continue … to believe in this market. We’re trending, moving in the right direction. The revenues are moving in the right directions.

“We’re trending up when the team did not play well this year. When we haven’t made the playoffs in three years,” he said. “We’re not ready to abandon. Good things take time.”



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This is the reality, however, on why the Coyotes are not moving anywhere.

If you move the team to Quebec City, or Las Vegas, or Seattle, or Southern Ontario, the NHL owners would forgo the $300-400 million in expansion fees that some owner in each of those cities might be willing one day to pay. What about Portland, you say? Well, this coming season is the unofficial 20-year anniversary of the first time someone declared that Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen wanted to put an NHL team in Portland. To our knowledge however, those words have never crossed Allen’s lips.

Why not just dissolve the team, hold an expansion draft, and be done with it? Great idea, but who makes LeBlanc and his partners whole? If an expansion franchise is worth $400 million, what is an established franchise going to be worth?

What’s that you say? The NHL could prove in court that the Coyotes are worth a fraction of that? Great. Let’s de-value 20 other NHL franchises while we’re at it, shall we?

And what does it do to the NHL’s many national advertising, TV and media deals when you cut America’s 11th-ranked TV market out of the picture?

As it is with every facet of every sport today, every inch of the Arizona Coyotes situation comes down to money. From the City of Glendale’s expenditures, to the NHL’s protection of expansion markets, to LeBlanc and Company’s money pit called a hockey team, to those poor citizens of Glendale, whose tax dollars are currently supporting a hockey team they don’t need rather than the First Responders and libraries that they likely do require.

Now, as this latest move by City Council legitimately threatens the Coyotes ability to sell luxury boxes, advertising packages and season tickets, LeBlanc is threatening a law suit against the City of Glendale “in the hundreds of million of dollars range.”

Give the guy credit. He may finally have figured out a way to make money on hockey in Arizona.

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