It's All Over For Winnipeg, Coyotes to Stay in Phoenix

The Phoenix Coyotes will remain in Phoenix for at least one more season.  Three different sources confirmed that last night.

First, the Glendale City Council agreed to cover the NHL's potential debts up to $25 million.

Then NHL Vice President, Bill Daly, confirmed that the team would remain in Phoenix.

Finally, during the second intermission from Vancouver, on Canadian television, Commissioner Gary Bettman stated that the NHL would continue to try and make a go of it in Arizona.  He also said that both bidders, Jerry Reinsdorf, and Ice Edge would continue to battle it out, and it seemed that Reinsdorf had the inside track.

This is the latest turn in a soap opera that only 24 hours ago had the Coyotes returning to Winnipeg by default.

I have mixed feelings about the news.  Naturally, I would be happy to have another team in Canada, but while Winnipeg is a much better hockey market than Phoenix, it was not the best choice to relocate a team.

If Kansas City's arena were located in Winnipeg, I'd change my position and say that Winnipeg is the best city in North America for a returned franchise.

In fact, because of the arena issue, they are not even the best choice in Canada.  More on that later.

The prospective owners of a returned Jets, Thomson and Chipman smartly remained in the background and refused to make any comments about a projected move.

Instead the hysterical Canadian media, Winnipeg press, and fans got carried away as usual before the cat was put in the bag.

In his interview, Bettman pointed out how franchises like Chicago turned it around, once they got a winning team again, and Bettman believes that can happen in Phoenix too.

That could happen, but it's hard to imagine it in Phoenix, which has yet to have a profitable year, and continues to lose buckets of money with no end in sight.

If the NHL had any brains (and all evidence from this episode indicate that they've gone out of their minds and flushed down the toilet), they would drop this forlorn case, admit they made a mistake, and move the team to a city where hockey is loved.

It doesn't have to be Canada and it doesn't have to be Winnipeg.  There are lots of other cities that if they had credible investors and an NHL size arena, would all be better than Winnipeg.

Winnipeg would be toast if Hamilton were allowed to compete.

There is no comparison between a 17,000 (to be expanded to 18,500) arena and a 15,000 seat one; 200 luxury boxes vs 62; and a market that is bigger than Manitoba and Saskatchewan combined.

But the NHL wants to extort Hamilton/Toronto/Southern Ontario with an expansion franchise for which the admission fee is said to be $400 million.  So Winnipeg is saved from that threat.

More formidable would be Quebec.

They have a competent investor and fans, but don't have an NHL size arena.  Unlike Winnipeg, they are willing to face up to the problem and mean to solve it.

There is already speculation that there will be a business plan in place that will include a new arena to be unveiled on June 18.

If that is true, Quebec with an NHL size arena, automatically becomes the place to expand to or relocate in Canada.

And if credible investors from Hartford, Milwaukee, Portland, and Seattle were to appear with NHL size arenas, they would move ahead of Winnipeg as well.

Even another "unfamiliar" American city, New Orleans for example, would move in front of Winnipeg, if only because besides an NHL arena, they had the things Phoenix hasn't had: fans, media, and corporate support, on account of market and arena size.

Thomson and Chipman have remained fairly quiet about the arena issue, unlike Quebec and Hamilton which have acknowledged the need to have arenas that are the current NHL median of 18,000 seats.

No one has said exactly if the MTS Center can be expanded and if so, by how much.  Nor has anyone discussed the possibility of building a new arena to meet NHL standards.

That more than anything has dampened NHL support for Winnipeg, despite the credibility of Thomson and Chipman.

Bettman did not rule out the possibility of the NHL returning to Winnipeg, but for this year at least, it's over and out.