Patriot Missile Taking Down the Scud Relocation Talk
By Jack Briggs
I want the Coyotes to stay here. My family and I have a passion for the team and the entire experience with being a Coyotes fan. Having Canadian fans invade Jobing.com every winter and spring. Seeing the insurgents knows as Red Wings fans outnumber Coyote fans. Sitting amongst 200 BlackHawk fans who flew in for a game. We were the only Coyote fans in their group of 200. And they were shooting us dirty looks as the Coyotes won. It is and will continue to be a matter of pride. That was why I signed up for Howlin’ Hockey as a staff writer. I wanted to see and hear positive news and analysis. Anyone can be negative. It is easy and requires little thought. Just parrot what you see in the Toronto Globe and Mail.
I took all those things as pride in living in a vacation spot. Have fun paying full ticket price to watch a game. See our economy swell. As having an arena people want to go watch a game. No one is pumped to go see their team play in the Nassau Colisium. But Jobing.com is different. Designed for hockey featuring our Phoenix Coyotes. Every seat has a great view. Amenities in the arena and around. The outdoor shots featuring the watershow with the Job as the background are much more enticing that the snow in Edmonton or rubble and decay in Detroit. Seeing the huge blowups of the Coyote head and the hockey player in the square off Sunset Boulevard at Westgate. You get excited for the game just walking through that.
The Coyotes fans are different. First, you came here from somewhere else where you probably rooted for another team. It takes three generations to grow a fan base who only know rooting for the home team. You have to, through selective breeding and genetics, remove the grandparent’s and parent’s favorite team bias from the child raising process. Please refer to Mendel’s pea pods for review. Glendale has banners down Bell Road with each Coyote player name, number, and active hockey picture. Only now that they are winning (most successful Arizona sports team in 2011-2012) do they get a mention on the local news. AM 1060 with Roc and Manuc have done the heavy lifting in keeping the sport in the forefront of their show after getting in the required Cardinal talk. Dave Burns of ESPN 620 admitting he has not seen a Coyote game this season. You are the local star of your station and you have not seen a game when you get a media pass to attend a game? What have you been doing, watching old Cardinal game tapes of Kurt Warner?
This brings us to why this post is here. The Toronto media is putting out relocation stories again. Like last year when they did this before game 1 of the series against Detroit, it is designed to get inside the heads of players and families. What should gametime preparation is now spent answering questions and trying to scrounge up facts. It was brought up on NHL Home Ice by callers that the Sun Belt will never work, move the team to Toronto, etc. The common names for relocation include Las Vegas, Kansas City, Portland, and Toronto. Here is why it won’t happen this year.
Las Vegas, Kansas City and Portland all have one thing in common. No arena that meets NHL standards in terms of size needed to sustain a team in those cities. Ticket sales must be and part of the revenue required for the business of running a team. There is not a television contract that provides a profit before one ticket is sold or pocorn bucket filled. Toronto will not host a second team due to the Buffalo Sabres. It is estimated that 4,000 tickets are sold for each home game by Toronto area citizens. Buffalo will not vote for a relocation of a team within its market. With what Terry Pegula has pumped into the team, do you think he would do anything to jeopardize the Sabres success (except overpaying for players)?
The NHL does not want to lose the television audience that Phoenix can deliver. Players like to come and play here. Not to many are excited about the prospect of Columbus, ask Antoine Vermette. Phoenix is the 5th or 6th largest city in the US, depending on which news agency you believe. Their families want to be here. And we as fans will support a team that wins. See Cardinals after their Super Bowl run. Phil Espisoto and Scott Laughlin on NHL Home Ice talked about why the Thrashers left. Attendance due to not winning. You must show your fans you can win and get into the playoffs. The more playoff games, the more tickets for next season you are selling.
I believe the Coyotes are locked in for next season to Glendale. After that, without ownership, they will not be here. Mr. Greg Jamison, wherever you are, I’m shining the Bat Signal in the Glendale sky. Answer the call.