Drama in the Desert

The NHL’s position on the Phoenix Coyotes is indefensible. The simple fact is, since the team left Winnipeg, they have never achieved a meaningful level of success, either on or off the ice. In fact, you could suggest the only thing the team has succeeded in was conning the city of Glendale into building them an arena. They are losing millions of dollars each year, and show no signs of being able to succeed, short of a massive infusion of taxpayer dollars. But the NHL wants to continue this pattern of failure, rather than relocate the franchise to Hamilton, where it would instantly become of the top grossing teams in the league.

Making matters even more embarrasing, the team’s head coach, Wayne Gretzky is avoiding training camp, knowing that whoever ends up owning the team when it emerges from bankruptcy court doesn’t want him to be part of the franchise anymore.

What bugs me though, is that no one is coming and speaking plainly. Whatever the NHL really thinks about Jim Balsillie (and their character argument doesn’t fly when you look at some of the people Gary Bettman has said yes to), it’s all about money. The NHL doesn’t want to lose money in Phoenix, but they don’t want to just give away a big payday they would receive from an expansion team in Hamilton. Which would be a bonus of upwards of $300 million for the league owners. So, they’d rather derail Balsillie in Phoenix, move the team to Kansas City in a year or so, then get the massive expansion fee for the inevitable Southern Ontario franchise. It seems so bloody obvious, if it’s not the NHL’s strategy, you have to ask why it’s NOT their plan.

And lets be fair here, you can’t blame the people of Phoenix/Glendale. It’s a hot weather city. Ice hockey is not part of the culture down there, and why should it be? If I was in Phoenix, the only place I’d want to see ice was in my margarita. They’ve got the Cardinals, the Suns, the Diamondbacks, Arizona and Arizona State teams to support. They don’t care enough about hockey.

Whatever happens with the Coyotes, it looks like the tipping point has been reached in putting a second team in Southern Ontario. Unless Gary Bettman continues with his apparent plans to drive hockey even further into the ground.