The Coyotes, who have called the Phoenix area their home since 1996, may not be long for the Grand Canyon State. Thursday the city of Glendale announced it was terminating its lease with the Coyotes, effectively rendering them homeless after the 2021-22 season. Despite ownership’s commitment to keeping the team in Arizona, it may be time for the Coyotes, who are required to vacate Gila River Arena by June 30th of next year, to seriously consider relocation.
Frankly, Phoenix just hasn’t worked out for the Coyotes, who have been plagued by low attendance totals and financial instability (they filed for bankruptcy in 2009) for much of their existence. If the Coyotes were to leave Arizona, Quebec would make sense as a potential landing spot given their past NHL ties (the Nordiques spent 16 seasons there before moving to Denver and rebranding as the Colorado Avalanche in 1995), modern facilities (the 18,259-seat Videotron Centre opened in 2015) and a loyal fan base that devours hockey.
But you know who else has a passionate fan base?
The world was a simpler place when fans packed the Hartford Civic Center to see Ron Francis and hear Brass Bonanza each time the Whalers scored. But alas, the Whalers, after 18 joyous seasons in the Insurance Capital, departed to Raleigh in 1997, changing their name to the Carolina Hurricanes and never looking back. The city has never quite recovered from that betrayal (or when Patriots owner Robert Kraft used Hartford as leverage before inevitably breaking ground on what is now known as Gillette Stadium). Those scars haven’t healed and they probably never will, though that hasn’t stopped Hartford from pouncing whenever a team is displaced, including last summer when governor Ned Lamont spent hours trying to convince the Blue Jays to spend their yearlong exile from Canada at Dunkin' Donuts Park.
The above tweet, courtesy of Hartford mayor Luke Bronin, was probably meant as a joke, but that didn’t stop Whalers diehards from dreaming big.
Located almost equidistant from Boston and New York, Hartford is arguably a big enough media market to support a professional team at the highest level—among current NHL cities, it reaches more households than Buffalo, Columbus and Las Vegas. But what’s holding them back is their arena, which, if you remember back to ’97, is precisely why the Whalers left. Built in 1975, the XL Center is both too old and too small (maximum seating capacity of 14,750) to realistically accommodate an NHL team.
So until Hartford ponies up the dollars necessary for a new state-of-the-art venue, it’s probably a dead end. That is, unless the Coyotes are comfortable sharing a laughably outdated stadium with the likes of UConn men’s and women’s basketball and the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack.
But even if the Coyotes just need a placeholder home for one season while they hash out a deal to stay in Arizona, you can bet Mayor Bronin and Governor Lamont will be ready to roll out the red carpet when that call comes.
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