The Arizona Coyotes Are About To Be Homeless. The City Of Glendale Terminated Their Lease And Are Effectively Evicting Them After This Season
Well...this is shitty. Never want to see a franchise in flux because there are some fans who probably care, but also there's probably hundreds of employees with their lives and future up in the air.
The flip side is that Arizona has been a failed market. They've run the experiment. Different arenas. Different cities. Different owners. The Coyotes have been in Arizona for like 25 years now and I think they've made the playoffs twice and I think they've had about 7 full buildings. It's not good enough. They've been a drag on the league and revenue basically the entire time, including when the NHL had to literally operate the organization themselves. Their most famous former players are Shane Doan and Biz. Eventually the league just needs to swallow their pride and recognize that Arizona isn't a viable hockey market. Maybe if the NHL had fixed the lottery for Yotes in the Auston Matthews draft like they should've then things would be different, but now it feels time to do what they did in Atlanta and just cut bait.
I would LOVE to see the Nordiques come back. Those uniforms. The passion in the city. The instant rekindled hatred for Montreal. They have an NHL rink that was built a few years ago in an attempt to land an NHL expansion team and they were passed over for Vegas and Seattle. My gut tells me those poor Frenchies will get passed over again. I would bet that the NHL will go for new fans in bigger markets with American dollars. That is a shame. Winnipeg 2.0 being a huge success story might help them, but I could see the NHL look at Houston, or Austin, or Kansas City before Quebec.
Maybe the NHL ready building and market combined with the short time frame will help the QC cause. That would be my vote. Bring back the Nordiques, move Detroit back to the Central Division. Everyone would be happy. Everyone except for Detroit and probably Biz. Maybe he moves to Boston and all the boys there restart a Barstool-Boston office with Coley. Not bad for losing an NHL team.