Former Coyotes already reaping rewards from move to Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — Operating out of a 4,600-seat college arena in Tempe and playing under dysfunctional ownership for the Arizona Coyotes was less NHL and more like AHL-plus.

They were, in effect, Slap Shot’s Charlestown Chiefs, waiting for that Florida retirement community to buy the team.

“Everything off the ice was awesome,” an ex-Coyote said this past week. “Everything that had to do with hockey was an absolute train wreck.”

It only becomes more obvious now that this franchise has found its forever home here in Utah.

“I think for a lot of the guys that were in Arizona and young, they didn't know much better,” mused centre Nick Bjugstad, after a morning skate before tonight’s game against the Edmonton Oilers. “You come here, and it's a whole different atmosphere.”

Welcome to Salt Lake City, the mecca of the Latter-day Saints, where on opening night for the Utah Hockey Club, fans obliterated the old Delta Center record for beer sales.

Here, Guyle Fielder led the Golden Eagles in scoring when pro hockey (Western Hockey League) arrived in 1969, and Theoren Fleury was on top of the tables when he was called to the NHL for good back in 1989 when the Calgary Flames had their top farm club here in the International Hockey League.

Today, after years of mostly southern and coastal expansion — and far too many years applying the paddles to a failing team in the Arizona desert — the National Hockey League has come to a mountain city where tuques are more than just a fashion statement.

“You’re in a hockey town. You’re in a winter climate. It’s all about hockey,” beamed general manager Bill Armstrong.

Because of the rapid move out of Arizona to Utah, the team could not have enough jerseys ready for fans when the season started. So they held a sales day in November, and fans lined up around the building.

It was “the highest-ever, single-day sports event sales record at Delta Center, beating the team’s Oct. 8 opening-night numbers by 48 per cent,” Utah HC president Chris Armstrong told The Salt Lake City Tribune.

All those folks who said that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman stuck with the Arizona Coyotes waaaay too long?

Turns out, they were right.

“It was something that was bad in the NHL, and Gary came in — with Ryan and Ashley Smith and their group — and made it something great,” Bill Armstrong said. “Had something (that wasn’t working), and made it something great.

“It’s been amazing to watch the transformation of what they've done. Such a good thing for the NHL, to put NHL hockey in a place where people are just crazy about it.

“For players to watch that? What was promised come true? It’s been amazing.”

The new owner, billionaire Ryan Smith is the epitome of what the Coyotes never had. He has real money, that he actually spends. Real integrity, an excellent reputation for paying his bills and furnishing his teams with the necessities for success.

There is no haggling over contractors’ invoices or sandpapering to relationships with franchise icons.

After 22 games as the Utah Hockey Club, the promises made have been kept, and the hopes of what might be here in Salt Lake City have all been exceeded.

“We don’t have any excuses anymore in our organization,” Bill Armstrong said. “We have the best planes. We stay at the best hotels. If you need to leave a day earlier when you travel from the West to the East coast, that happens.

“Whatever we need, we get. There are no excuses in our organization. We have one of the best owners in the NHL.”

“When it starts from the top,” began Bjugstad, who had two stints as a Coyote, “when you see ownership, see what they want to do with the team… We have to respond to that. It’s win now, not rebuild mode.

“There are really no excuses on our end not to perform, from what we're being supplied with.”

The team is muddling along in its maiden NHL campaign, with injuries to a pair of key defencemen in John Marino and Sean Durzi, and a lineup that still needs some filing out. Dylan Guenther may be a superstar one day while Karel Vejmelka — one of the best goaltenders in the NHL— could walk down any street in Canada unbothered.

And there is freedom now, for the hockey people to concentrate on hockey, rather than take calls from panicked wives who just heard the latest relocation rumour. Like when Reggie Dunlop told his teammates, “This is the last season. It’ll be announced tomorrow.”

“A lot of stuff was in the air,” Bjugstad said of Arizona. “So as a player, it's in the back of your head — even if you say you're not concerned about it or thinking about it. You're thinking about it.

“Mr. And Mrs. Smith were there the next day, basically, after the season. We can tell how much they care, how much they've already done for us, the staff and the community already. As a player, you appreciate that.”

Head coach Andre Tourigny’s Coyotes were on a Western Canadian swing late last season when the floor fell out from under them. From that experience comes a residue that helps this franchise today. A “whatever didn’t kill you makes you stronger” feeling that bonds the remaining players today, in their new digs in downtown Salt Lake.

“I think that was a test for our team,” Tourigny said. “It got us closer to each other for the next step. When you look in perspective, it was a great thing for us to have that kind of adversity, and go through it the way we did.”

To arrive at the other end, with an arena waiting to be rebuilt over the next few summers from a basketball building into one that’s more hockey-friendly.

Today, hockey capacity is around 11,000 unobstructed seats at the Delta Center.

That’s more than twice as many as in Tempe, but make no mistake: Hockey is one hundred times better here.