Feb 10: The Coyotes have reached a multi-year agreement with ASU to play home games at the new multi-purpose facility starting next season and continuing through at least 2024-25. Team president Xavier A. Gutierrez released a statement on the deal:
We are thrilled that we have arranged to play our home games in Arizona State University’s new multi-purpose arena starting next season. This will be an incredible, intimate and exciting fan experience in a state-of-the-art new arena in a fantastic location in the heart of Tempe. We are very grateful to Dr. Crow, the ASU Administration, ASU Athletic Department, and the Arizona Board of Regents for agreeing to provide us with this temporary arena solution for our team as we continue our efforts to secure a long-term home for the Coyotes in the Valley.
The team has agreed to cover all costs involved in the new construction and will cover the entire lease agreement upfront.
Jan 27: The Arizona Coyotes have to find a new home for the 2022-23 season as the city of Glendale has ended their lease agreement at Gila River Arena, effective June 30. While they continue to try and secure a deal to build a new arena in the Tempe area, a potential short-term solution is being worked on. Craig Morgan of PHNX Sports reports that the Coyotes are in the “advanced stages” of discussions with Arizona State University to use the new multipurpose arena as a temporary home, negotiating a three-year deal with an option for a fourth should the construction on a Tempe rink take that long.
While getting the Coyotes into that area would start their migration to Tempe, the new multipurpose arena holds a maximum of just 5,000 spectators and would need millions of dollars in additional construction to house the NHL club. Bill Daly, NHL deputy commissioner, told Morgan that he would not rule out a plan that has the Coyotes playing in an arena with a seating capacity of 5,000.
The Coyotes, continually mired in relocation speculation since they arrived in 1996, currently average 11,575 fans per game according to ESPN. Cutting that number by more than 50 percent would obviously have a huge financial impact for the team and sink Arizona’s revenue even lower. Perhaps that is part of why the team has been so aggressive in shedding future salary, trading out big-ticket players like Oliver Ekman-Larsson over the last year.
In fact, Arizona currently has 15 players on the roster or injured reserve that are scheduled to become unrestricted free agents in the summer. They have just six players–Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, Andrew Ladd, Jakob Chychrun, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Conor Timmins–signed to one-way contracts for 2022-23. Those six total less than $30MM in cap charges, with the salary owed even lower. Chychrun, who carries a cap hit of $4.6MM and is owed $4MM next season in salary, is expected to be traded before this year’s deadline.
A stay in the new ASU facility would come alongside the first few years of this scorched earth rebuild that the Coyotes have begun under new general manager Bill Armstrong. The team has continued to strip all valuable on-ice assets away while loading up with draft picks and prospects. The team holds eight draft picks in the first two rounds this year.
A state run U . So the have to cut a deal with the State
To make it NHL ready it would be 3,500 Seating. And what would the price be to offset the low attendance?
would 3,500 people watch if you paid *them*?
5000…. Is that rink big enough to hold all their season ticket holders?
Just so everyone is on the same page that was sarcasm. See Keith Yandle rumors.
It’s the coyotes so yea probably
they have 5,000 season ticket holders?
Just move the team already
TEMPE, Ari- Arizona Coyotes’ team officials say they have a backup plan to their backup plan after their plan to move the 5,000 ASU arena was voted down by the town council, even though they don’t even have jurisdiction, they just enjoy voting against the team that much.
“We are looking into signing a 2 year lease with an old KMart to play in their parking lot. We won’t have ice, but we’re asking Bill Daly if we can play in rollerblades and he won’t rule it out.”
No no, not in the parking lot, INSIDE the KMart. Easy enough to renovate, large enough to put an NHL-size sheet down, and voila! concession stands already in place!
A crazy yet very true statement, There are ECHL teams better run than this team
“Houston, we have a problem here”. Hehe. :)
Just move the team to Texas already and end this money losing venture.
Living in Southern Phoenix I can tell you for a fact centering the arena in the valley will draw more fans. Most of the money is centralized and on the eastern says anyways. They’ll be fine!
Living in Tempe and Arizona for over 30 years, people here don’t give a crap on them Coyotes or hockey in General. Send them back to Canada to Quebec, we need the Nordiques franchise to rise from the ashes !!!!
Winning cures everything.
It is Az and RNC can count on it
If this COVID nightmare continues they will have better attendance than Leafs
Funniest take on this is the possibility (as discussed by Elliotte today, citing Craig Morgan) of that 5K number coming down, to maybe the 3K-ish range, after arena mods.
Congratulations, Gary. Your years of work trying to make AZ a hockey market finally coming to fruition! That 5K arena is going to be PACKED…but still with fans of the visiting team.
Yep ole’ Gary has his hand in the Cookie Jar as helping the Yotes stay in Arizona.
So sick of all the negative press and comments the Coyotes get. This team is important to it’s loyal fanbase. Also, this year’s team despite limited talent is working harder and playing better hockey than it has for a while. As long as they stay in Arizona I will remain a loyal STM.
Well, hell, EVERY team’s important to its loyal fanbase. The Albany bloody Choppers filled the Knick to a SEVENTH of its capacity and bombed out of existence in a little over half a season firmly in last place in the IHL, but from the one game of theirs I attended, they had a handful of loud and loyal fans.
So what? The Choppers have been gone for over thirty years now and scarcely anyone remembers them. Hockey’s a business, and if the fans don’t turn out, and management screws the pooch, well … I seem to recall that Phoenix got the team in the first place at the expense of Winnipeg.
You are very welcome for David Welker and those Albany Choppers
Well said,
A realtor would tell the Coyotes to describe their new arena as “cozy”.
Yeah, but Coyotes fans shouldn’t fret! Why, their team’s new digs has a larger capacity than a whole THREE ECHL teams! Yeah!
@Nha Trang – And, their new rental property has less than 1/2 the capacity of “The Ralph”, in Grand Forks, with far fewer fans to milk…
But there’s…the truth…
and the Truth!
Embarrassing. The fact the NHL is okaying this speaks volumes.
The NHL has always seemed like a garage league compared to the other leagues. Now, they’ll actually play games in something resembling a garage.
Tickets will only be $3000 a seat
I remember when you could get a ticket for $20 close to the ice.
Eh, well, I remember when you could get a ticket in Boston for $6. (The second balcony in Boston Garden, when I was first in college.)
I remember when you could ride the ferry for a nickel. And in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. ‘Give me five bees for a quarter,’ you’d say. Now, where were we? Oh, yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones.
I remember when you could get five bees for a quarter.
Now the price for bees will sting your wallet.
Most expansion clubs have a rink in place BEFORE NHL approval. lol.
Yotes use a “better to ask for forgiveness than permission” strategy.
This is one way to keep the cap number from rising. Sometimes makes you wonder if that’s the intent of keeping a team in AZ.
I really had hoped having a team in AZ would work out, but sometimes you have to face reality.
Mario Lemieux was right. The NHL is a garage league. Playing in a facility that will seat 3,000 through 24-25 is a joke. Move the team to a city that will support them.
It amazes me how much people care about a franchise like PHX. Who does this hurt? No PHX fans probably want to go anyways, and I doing THEY want the team moved. and you, as a non-PHX fan, why do you care? personally, I’ll take the free wins.
doing? goodness I can’t type. *doubt
It’s called the good of the game. It hurts the game to have a perpetual running sore at the top level, especially when there are towns that’d welcome a team with open arms, win or lose.
Everyone seems to be missing the MOST embarrassing and pathetic part of this deal.
IF they had a signed deal for a new arena to be built that will finally assure them of success in Phoenix AND THEN they agreed to play in a 3,000 broom closet for a few years….that would be really bad….BUT it would a plan, of sorts.
They just signed a 3 year deal to play in a phone booth ON THE HOPES OF MAYBE POSSIBLY getting a new arena deal…in a bad market.
I guess Gary is like “they aren’t going to take my bust out of the Hall of Fame, I’ll just mail it in or tell Daly “good luck, Bill, let me know what you come up with…”
It’s time to tryout San Diego, Portland, or San Francisco/Oakland. Enough of this farce.
Portland would make some sense. San Diego’s always been a good minor league town, but I think that’s the level a fan base is there to support — the Gulls were averaging around 9000 pre-COVID, and that’s pretty good for the AHL.