At Least the Flyers Aren’t the Coyotes
By Scott Cole
The Flyers are currently in one of the roughest patches in this team’s history. This is a stretch of futility that goes back from a combination of poor leadership from the general management, from Paul Holmgren through Chuck Fletcher, poor draft picks, and a general lack of direction since the passing of team owner Ed Snider.
To be fair, the team is addressing a lot of these issues. John Tortorella helped the team rebuild after the worst single year in team history. New Flyers Daniel Briere has been working with the coach on turning this team around. Keith Jones has been eagerly talking about how this team is going to change. Overall, you feel that this team that is going in the right direction.
One team that is not going in the right direction, and hasn’t for years, is the Arizona Coyotes. In short, that team is a dumpster fire in the middle of a shitstorm. The sad thing, it has pretty much always been that way.
In 1996, the team relocated from Winnipeg to the desert. The team, once known as the Jets, had a lot of fan support, but a small arena (15,000) with no luxury boxes. Financially, the team struggled to keep up with other markets. So, the team set sail for Phoenix. They had a strong veteran core with former Flyers Rick Tocchett and Jeremy Roenick as well as star forward Keith Tkachuk. And in their first six years, they made the playoffs five times and were bounced out of the first round in each season.
It was during this time that Wayne Gretzky, the greatest hockey player of all time, bought a controlling interest in the team. He couldn’t help them. The Coyotes missed the playoffs the next six years from 2002-03 to 2008-09. They suffered a similar stretch from 2012-13 to 2018-19 and currently, like the Flyers, are in a three-year playoff-less drought. Apparently Gretzky’s hockey prowess didn’t translate to the front office!
In 2009, the team went bankrupt. In fact, the team has been hemorrhaging money ever since it left Winnipeg. There were several attempts to sell the team…including an attempt to send it back to Winnipeg (that group ended up bringing the floundering Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg to be rechristened as the Jets).
The NHL seems bound and determine to keep a team in Arizona. Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the US; just a shade bigger than Philly. They have close rivalries with the Kings, Sharks, Avalanche, and the newly installed Golden Knights. So it does make sense to have a team there.
However, it doesn’t seen that the citizens of Arizona want them. Glendale City terminated their lease with the team. The city of Tempe has voted down a measure to build an arena. They currently play at Mullett Arena, a multipurpose facility owned by Arizona State Univ that seats 4,600; I guess Winnipeg’s old 15,000 arena doesn’t seem so bad now.
With the failure of the new arena in Tempe, rumors are swirling all over the place. Could they be relocated? If so, where? Quebec is screaming for a team, but the NHL isn’t looking there. Likeliest landing places include Houston, Salt Lake City, Portland, Sacramento, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Oklahoma City. Even Hartford has gotten back in the mix in an effort to resurrect the Whalers. But the return of the Whalers would mean that someone, most like the Blue Jackets or Red Wings, would have to be realigned back to the Western Conference.
So, smile Flyers fans! We may be in bad shape, but at least we have some hope. Things could be worse….we could be Coyotes fans. Our team has problems, but at least the ownership and admin have cared enough about the fans to at least look like they are trying.