When the Arizona Coyotes moved into Mullett Arena, an NCAA hockey arena meant for Arizona State’s Division 1 men’s and women’s hockey programs, National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman was under extreme scrutiny from most of the other NHL fanbases.
Despite marketing during their games, putting up signs around Tempe, and paying for commercials, the push back from a “Vote No” campaign built on lies and deceit squandered what looked like a surefire plan for the Coyotes to get their own shiny new home. Not only would Arizona have fresh ice to return to relevance on, but it would have come along with an entertainment district full of shops, and even including housing all cleaned up land.
The topic of professional hockey has entered the mainstreams in the state with, the community being included in what the Coyotes have been doing off the ice as ell as on it. From the Goodwill partnership with donations from the Coyotes revenue and creation of jobs within the community, to the work the Coyotes and Kachinas have done as a whole.
Additionally, high school hockey has been growing within the state as well with prgrams like Pinnacle High School, Notre Dame Prep High School and Desert Vista High School being some of the recent travelers from the state to compete at the national level, and garnering national recognition.While hockey begins to grow in the desert, its professional team is still on the fence about its long-term future. Let’s say the Coyotes do leave Arizona. The support for the sport, on nearly all of the aforementioned levels, dissipates. The domino affect could knock over the momentum built on the desert ice on not only the high school level, but the recently emerging Sun Devil hockey teams as well.
The future of the Coyotes is far from certain, but speculating and poking fun at the Coyotes for issues they are trying their best to amend, is only creating issues and will have a long term negative impact on the game of hockey, and it’s growth in an untraditional market.