Arizona Coyotes: Kachinas, Howling and Being Intentionally Different
By Alex Temes
Arizona Coyotes fans wear Kachinas. We howl. We are different and we know it. We Are Coyotes.
The Arizona Coyotes are a much disrespected team in the National Hockey League.
That is not news. In fact, that’s been the commonplace attitude towards the team since they landed at Sky Harbor in 1996 after relocating from the Great White North. Canadians were mad they lost one of their great franchises to the US and American fans scoffed at the concept of hockey in the desert.
On the ice and in the front office, we all know what the team has been though.
Shane Doan, our captain, has been with us through the ups of the great 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs run and through the lows of every single recurring arena and management disaster.
Anthony Duclair, Dylan Strome, Max Domi and Oliver Ekman-Larsson (all of which, by the way, should, under no circumstances, be used as trade bait for any Auston Matthews hi-jinx) are all leading a rising trend of talent and determination to grow the organization in Arizona..
On a local scale, people in Phoenix and more broadly, Arizona, are beginning to care. The fan base is growing but even more important, the sport is growing.
But instead of continuing to make broad, sweeping statements about the fan base, I’m going to tell you my experience with hockey.
I grew up in the East Valley, the son of a Mesa firefighter and a Gilbert urban planner. I have two brothers and I graduated from Perry High in Gilbert. I am not some big time sports writer or a well-referenced pundit. I am a devoted Arizona Coyotes fan, a self-described ‘Armchair GM’ and a raised member of the Valley of the Sun.
In Chicago, the Dunkin Donuts around the city say “The Blackhawks Run On Dunkin”. Well in the Temes family, we run on hockey. My father grew up on Chicago’s North Side and lived ‘Hawks hockey in the 70’s. So when I was born, he brought me into the hockey world too. There are pictures of me as a new born wearing a Coyotes Kachina onesie.
Around the house, there is hockey memorabilia everywhere; a Coyotes team-signed stick and hat (above) from the 1998 season in my room, Pittsburgh Penguins pennants hanging in my brother Sam’s room, a Montreal Canadiens jersey hanging in the basement and Blackhawks apparel on my father’s shoulders at all times. Heck, my mom and other brother Andy, who aren’t as into hockey as the aforementioned, still have NHL apparel somewhere in their closets.
On the book shelf in the living room are pictures of Sam’s high school hockey team and on my father’s Facebook is a whole album of Sam and I skating. When Christmas came around this year, I got a new Doaner jersey and Sam got a Pens jersey of his beloved Olli Maatta. Andy played referee for a ceremonial puck drop.
When I moved to Chicago for college, my fandom came with me. Poised between Rush, Pink Floyd and posters of fire trucks is, as one of my friends calls it, a shrine to the Arizona Coyotes filled with player posters and hung jerseys. My closet has a whole section dedicated to Arizona Coyotes apparel and hats. In a city home to an original six team, I proudly support my Arizona Coyotes every day.
The point is, my family and I love hockey. Every night from October to June, we are busy. People know not to call or text us unless it’s NHL-related (or marching band in Andy’s case) because we’re probably preoccupied. More importantly, we are not the only family who is like this.
In high school, I was surrounded by hockey connoisseurs. My buddies Alex and Danny, who grew up in New Jersey and moved to Phoenix, may respectively be Devil and Flyer fans by trade, but bring a broader love for hockey to the Valley. Their families are just like mine. I know, I’ve met them. These aren’t imaginary hockey fans.
Like my little brother, Alex, Danny, and many of of our other friends, they played hockey on the Basha-Perry or Hamilton High Schools’ Club Hockey teams. Every year, those tryouts were packed with skaters hoping to make one of the varied roster levels.
In school, hockey was a hot topic to a lot of people in one context or another, whether Arizona Coyotes or league-wide. Every day, I talked to Taylor about the Wild and Rangers, battled with Emma and Jazymine over the Red Wings, talked Blackhawks and Coyotes with Jordan and referenced Canadian hockey with Kelsey. I jested with my Chem teacher about her hometown Penguins and talked Olympic hockey with my Econ teacher.
In fact, during the Olympics, I convinced him to stream the US-Russia Group A Preliminary game. You could not walk across campus without seeing numerous forms of hockey apparel, mostly Coyotes. The same can be said about college campuses. I was visiting some friends at the University of Arizona just this past week and I couldn’t help but notice all of the Arizona Coyotes t-shirts and hats peppered across the campus.
But most of those people are all hockey implants; born abroad and rooted in Arizona, bringing hockey with them. However their effects are far more important. They shared their love for the sport to other people who now love it like the rest of us, like my friends Andrew and Nolan, who have watched nearly every game this season and go back and forth with me over trades and playoff races. These same people, my father and friends, helped spread the game to me, and I do the same by sharing my love of the Arizona Coyotes to others.
The new brand of Coyotes’ fans are the converts and the homegrown. Every one of those people I just named has Arizona Coyotes gear in their homes. Every one of them has gone to a Coyotes game where their home team wasn’t in the building. Every single one of them is spreading their love for the game in the Valley and its rubbing off on people like me, who were born in the Valley.
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The rink in Gilbert is filled with young skaters, learning to love the game as Coyotes fans because of these converts. And here is my only sweeping statement I will make: I think people across the state and valley are having the same experiences.
Hockey is growing in Arizona.
That is not some broad statement because I just showed you it’s growth. The youth and their parents alike follow the sport. Kids are lacing up skates and playing on teams. High schoolers and college students are streaming games and going to Student Rush nights. ‘Arizona Hockey’ as a brand and style is growing, with the help of fans, the Coyotes, and businesses like Behind the Mask.
That ‘Arizona’ branding isn’t of total dedication to a single team like older markets can tout, but rather that we are a melting pot with a preference towards the Desert Dogs. Many fans in the desert fall into the “I am an Arizona Coyotes and _____ fan” folder and, to be fair, most of my friends, brother and even myself to a minimal extent fall into this category. There is a Blackhawks jersey in my closet, although it’s an Antoine Vermette Stanley Cup Final jersey so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ . But the important aspect of that phrase to note is what comes first; the Arizona Coyotes.
I’ve always had a difficult time defining who I am as a Coyotes fan and who we are as a fanbase. But the first time I saw this season’s Coyotes hype video, I got excited. It defined us as a fanbase better than any campaign the Cardinals, D-Backs or Suns had ever purveyed.
They defined sports in the Valley of the Sun. “We weren’t born into this, we chose this”. We are a band of outsiders and we know it. That’s why we love the Kachina jersey when the rest of the league thinks they are the ugliest jerseys to ever be worn. That’s why we howl randomly during the game and in unison when the Yotes put the puck in the net.
We know we are different. We aren’t an Original Six team with Original Six fan bases. We don’t throw octopi onto the ice. We aren’t surrounded by minor league hockey teams in every town. We can’t play pond hockey in the winter. But we are a fan base, one that is growing and more than ever, united.
So to other NHL fan bases: accept that the Coyotes have fans and look somewhere else for relocation talks.
Next: Coyotes Jersey History: Which Sweater Is The Best In Coyotes' History?
Arizonans are all Coyotes. We come together around this team that others disregard and take pride in it. Its a look and mantra is all of its own, a unique, desert-style take on a clearly cold climate sport.
We don’t care what you think. We are here to stay and together, as the marketing campaign says, “we prey”.