Last time I wrote about the Columbus Blue Jackets and how they are an up and coming team with both young and veteran talent. The same can be said for the Coyotes who just drafted Mikkel Boedker, Viktor Tikhonov, and Jared Staal, with Kyle Turris last year.
The Coyotes have all that young talent plus more. They also have veteran captain, Shane Done, along with Olli Jokinen, Ed Jovanovski, and Derek Morris to all help with leadership. However when you are talking about the size of the team's fan base, they probably rank about last.
The arena seats a lot of people and is a really nice building, but they might sell only about 3/4 of the arena at most each game.
The Coyotes need to establish themselves as a decent team that is capable of making the playoffs on a regular basis if they want to build a fan base. However, even if they do that I think that they still will sellout only about 10-15 times a year. Phoenix is a terrible area for a hockey team, not just because it is in America, but because it is in Arizona. Where hockey will never become a well-known sport.
If you are from Arizona and beg to differ, than please post your comment about it on the bottom. Now here are my top six rankings of low market teams in the NHL (based on performance).
1. --------
2. Columbus
3. Nashville
4. Phoenix
5. -----------
6. ----------
Tomorrow I will publish part three of six: the Nashville Predators.
(P.S. If you live in the USA, I'm sorry to say, that it is a really bad country for hockey, compared to Canada, but that is just the way I feel).
9 comments Last one added 11 months ago — Leave a Comment
Chris Hoeler 11 months ago
Hockey is really growing in AZ. Even before the Coyotes came, there were a bunch of minor league teams here. More kids are beginning to play hockey and there are very good kids coming from Arizona. The fan base is tough here because alot of Arizonans are fair weather so the quantity may not be there but the quality of Coyotes fans compared to the rest of the NHL are just as good. The team also leads the league in new season ticket holders, which was told to me by a ticket representative from them. Yes they may have had attendance problems in the past but the building was beyond capacity the first time Turris played at home. There are alot of young kids coming in and if they work hard and put it all out every night, the people will come.
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Lukas 11 months ago
I know that hockey us groing in Arizona, but like Alan says, it will never become a big hockey market like say.... Detroit. I think that the reason for having so many season ticket holders is because those tickets are a fair amont cheaper than a lot of the other NHL teams'.
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Chris Hoeler 11 months ago
So what if they have cheaper tickets? Its not like the fans have any other choices for the NHL in the nearby. If people just by tickets cuz they are cheap then they aren't fans.
And its unfair to compare this team to teams like Detroit, New York, Buffalo, Montreal, Philadelphia and the rest of the big names because they have been around for just over 10 years. These teams have been around for a much longer time, allowing a fan base to grow. A fan base isn't going to spring up overnight, especially in a place where hockey was not a predominant sport.
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Alan Bass 11 months ago
i agree, hockey may be growing in phoenix, but not that much. it is still a far cry away from being a normal-market team
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Lukas 11 months ago
Thanks for reading Alan! And Chris, im not comparing them to detriot by how long they have been around, im saying that it will never become as big, so ya it is kinda fair.
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Ken Armer 11 months ago
So how about the Ducks? Small market or no?
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Lukas 11 months ago
I don't think that the Ducks are small market because they sell out almost every night. Yes, they are in California, but they are a good team that can sell tickets.
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Ken Armer 11 months ago
Good to know another opinion on that, the "pathetic" hockey market comment by K. Lowe still has me mad...even if i dont live there.
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Richard Nickerson 11 months ago
I grew-up in Southern California and can tell you that the Ducks did not draw either. I now live in Phoenix and the hockey awareness here is about where it was in Orange County ten years ago. The fan-base in Phoenix is almost identical to Southern California -- most people are from somewhere else (including plenty of Canucks in the winter), they are easily distracted by a wide array of activities available in winter and they only support a winner. When the Coyotes start winning -- and I am talking about post-season success -- then the fans will turn-up. The Ducks sell-out now but only after winning the Stanley Cup in 2007. Prior to that you could walk-up and buy tickets fairly easily. This town will support a winner but unlike Edmonton, Detroit or most other northern cities Phoenix has plenty of alternatives to bad hockey. People here golf, hike, watch football (pro & ASU), swim and generally do the things northerners do in the summer so any entertainment product needs to be top-notch to win over fans. A great example is the NBA Suns who had trouble drawing fans early but have easily sold-out their season tickets the last five years. Most of these are expensive tickets mind you plus suites. The Suns are showing some chinks in the armor however with a quick playoff exit this past season and voila, tickets that were untouchable are suddenly available. People in Phoenix simply have too many options and some Suns fans are now shifting their entertainment budget to the up-and-coming Diamondbacks and Coyotes.
My son plays youth hockey in Phoenix and the number of travel teams has grown at an impressive rate. In the past ten years the valley went from having 2 ice rinks to 7 with each rink hosting 12 or so travel teams plus many more 'house teams'. In the desert having that much ice represents a significant expense and shows that people here are taking up with the sport despite not having a decent pro team. California youth hockey was a joke 20 years ago but now that state plays host to some of the elite teams in North America. I would agree that hockey is not nearly as popular as it is in Canada but to write off a population of 4 million people (nearly twice as big as Toronto and close to the size of the 'Greater Toronto Area') as "small market" is ridiculous. If the Coyotes put a winning team on the ice for a couple of years you will see Phoenix emerge to be as successful as the Ducks in terms of fan support. While I would agree with Lukas that the US market is not as strong as Canada in terms of people who already support hockey (just like Canada is nowhere near the US in terms of baseball, football or basketball fan support) the upside of the US market is just too appealing for the NHL to ignore. If you write-off the US market for hockey you are setting the sport up to be just slightly ahead of soccer in terms of North American support (minus Mexico which LOVES futbol). The elitist Canadian perception (not held by ALL Canadians, just a few hockey snobs) that hockey should only be played in their country (plus maybe Boston, Chicago, Detroit and New York) is at best ignorant and at worst blatantly anti-American. The problem for the NHL is to make hockey more accessible to an American fan base that did not grow-up on a frozen pond. HD television will help a lot because it makes it easier to follow the action but winning teams in warm-weather markets will also go a long way to growing the sport in the sun-belt.
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