Arizona Coyotes Brass Needs to Get Off the Pot, Communicate With Fans

The Arizona Coyotes current on-ice product is an uninspiring mess. If the organization really cares about turning things around, why don’t they take the initiative to show that to the fans in tangible ways?

The State of Arizona is privileged to have the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes playing professional hockey here. As of next season, the Coyotes will be one of only 32 franchises in North America hosting high-level, best-in-the-world hockey players for sports entertainment purposes. Local ownership and team management should embrace the concept of putting a viable, entertaining, and profitable product on the ice and showing it off.

Anyone with any sense of hockey history and knowledge of organizational futility in the NHL is aware of the Arizona Coyotes. It may some hurt to admit that the Yotes, for many reasons, have been the butt of endless jokes, or outright slams, due to their ineptitude during the vast majority of their 25 years in the desert. But enough about that.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (or ice surface)…

The Coyotes (28 pts) are mired in sixth place, with little confidence by their supporters that things will change for the better any time soon. Even with 28 games remaining, it is evident that the Yotes currently don’t have the horses to win many races.

I submit that if there are positive changes afoot, actual reasons for Coyotes fans to see a bright light ahead as a beacon of hope rather than a freight train bearing down on them, then by all means, management must let them know.

When there is nothing but silence from the decision-makers in the “C-Suite,” people tend to think the worst, that there are problems behind closed doors. If that’s not accurate, the Coyotes representatives should be eager to say so, and if there ARE problems within the organization, then management should be up front about that too!

If there are strategic, financial reasons for the organization to keep some information close to the vest, that’s okay. But now is a really good time to assure the Coyotes’ faithful that there are indeed solid plans to improve the on-ice product next season so that they, too, as stakeholders, can make informed decisions.

It is abundantly clear that having Mr. Meruelo, or at the very least, GM Bill Armstrong, reach out to the community and share the team’s philosophy regarding goals and objectives for the upcoming season is a top priority for the Coyotes fans.

Realizing that specifics might not yet be available for release, fans still deserve more than mere silence from ownership and the hockey operations folks, especially as the Coyotes try to remain relevant in this current dismal campaign.