Trouble In The Desert: The Predicament Of The Phoenix Coyotes

By Mike

Well, as much as any hockey fan in the desert would hate to attest to, it hasn't necessarily been a secret that The Coyotes are in financial trouble and are expected to take a big financial hit once the season is over. It's entirely possible that a long trip to the playoffs can help alleviate some of that, but when it comes down to people talking about the Coyotes being moved or contracted, you have to ask yourself the imperative question...

... What went wrong?

Location, Location, Location
Of course, a winning team is going to bring fannies to the seats. But it seems like something's amiss when despite having similar attendance figures for nearly a decade, that the NHL is penalizing the Coyotes for not hitting attendance figures. While the Coyotes do indeed have similar attendance figures to the ones they had while located in Phoenix, it's no secret that many of those tickets are given away as promotional prizes, including ice-level seats. While the attendance might be there, when you have 20 people sitting for free in seats that have a value of $80 at the gate, you're essentially missing out on $1600. Start adding that up, along with a general lack of attendance, and you start to realize you aren't getting your return on investment. So why has it resorted to this?

Ice hockey in general is a sport that's found throughout the East Valley. The cities of Chandler, Gilbert, Tempe, and Scottsdale all have their own ice rink, while the only ice rink in Phoenix is located at 32nd St and Thomas, which is located in Phoenix's East Side. The same cannot be said for the West Valley, which has a handful of roller hockey rinks, but no notable programs supporting the development of ice hockey. Tie that in with the fact that the East Valley towns are the most populous in the Phoenix area and the decision to place the Coyotes in Glendale as opposed to an East Valley town seems to be absurd. Ultimately, you're taking the product away from the people who'd support it and placing it in an area where there's far less interest in what you're trying to sell to them.

Another factor holding them back is their 7PM start time during weekday games. Assuming you're an East Valley resident who wants to go to a game and you get off work at 5PM, by the time you've went home home, grabbed someone to go to the game with, sat through rush hour traffic that doesn't begin to dissipate from the downtown area until 6:30ish, complete the drive to one of the west-most points of town, and arrive at the arena, you've more likely than not missed most if not all of the first period. To put it in perspective, it takes nearly 30-45 minutes for an East Valley resident to make it to a game when traffic isn't an issue. Throw in a start time that essentially guarantees that you're missing a portion of the game and you're going to have your average fan become disinterested in seeing a game.

Detractors will say that if this were true, the Arizona Cardinals football team would have poor attendance and because their attendance is good, it must mean that no one is interested in hockey or the Coyotes. That may seem plausible until you realize the Cardinals can still have respectable attendance because they play once a week, typically on a Sunday, and only have 8 regular season games at home as opposed to the Coyotes' 41.

A Terrible Draft History

Another thing that's hurt the Coyotes is the fact that they've not made the proper draft choices for sometime and have attempted to patch the holes for far too long before going through the option of rebuilding. Below is a table that shows the Winnipeg/Phoenix first round draft picks since 1995:

Draft Year	Player Name	Overall	Current Team/Role
1995	Shane Doan	7th	Phoenix Coyotes/Top-Six Forward
1996	Dan Focht	11th	Retired after 2005-06 season after finishing career in minors.
1996	Daniel Briere	24th	Philadelphia Flyers/Top-Six Forward
1998	Patrick DesRochers	14th	Vålerenga IF Oslo of Norway's GET-ligaen/Starting Goaltender
1999	Scott Kelman	15th	Coventry Blaze of Britan's EIHL/Second or Third-Line Forward
1999	Kirill Safronov	19th	St. Petersburg SKA of Russia's KHL/Checking-Line Forward
2000	Krys Kolanos	19th	Minnesota Wild/Reserve Forward
2001	Fredrik Sjostrom	11th	New York Rangers/Checking-Line Forward
2002	Jakub Koreis	19th	Sparta Praha of the Czech Republic's Elite League/Checking-Line Forward
2002	Ben Eager	23th	Chicago Blackhawks/Fourth-Line Enforcer
2004	Blake Wheeler	5th	Boston Bruins/Second or Third-Line Forward
2005	Martin Hanzal	17th	Phoenix Coyotes/Checking-Line or Scoring Forward
2006	Peter Mueller	8th	Phoenix Coyotes/Scoring-Line Forward
2006	Chris Summers	29th	University of Michigan in NCAA/Top-Pairing Defensemen (rights still retained by Phoenix)
2007	Kyle Turris	3rd	Phoenix Coyotes/Power-Play Specialist
2007	Nick Ross	30th	Vancouver Giants of the WHL/Top-Pairing Defensemen (rights still retained by Phoenix)
2008	Mikkel Boedker	8th	Phoenix Coyotes/Second or Third-Line Forward
2008	Viktor Tikhonov	28th	Phoenix Coyotes/Checking Line Forward

So while this paints an encouraging picture that the draft choices have moved in a better direction as of recently, this goes to show that from 1996 to 2003, the Coyotes only drafted one player who could be a difference maker in an NHL game, and he, being Daniel Briere, was traded because he wasn't designed for the "old" NHL (the deal looks terrible now that the rules on obstruction have changed drastically.) In fact out of the 69 players drafted by the Coyotes from 1996 to 2003, only 5 are still in the NHL (several others are on two-way contracts and playing in the minors) and only one, Matt Jones, remains in the Coyotes system as a minor-league defenseman. During this time, the talents of Nikolai Khabibulin, Keith Tkachuk, Aaron Ward, Daymond Langkow, Temmu Selanne, and Teppo Numminen escaped the system and were a benefit to other teams around the NHL. Add all that up and it's easy to see how the team has failed to make the playoffs since 2002. People in a non-traditional market want a winning team and because of their past futility, there's not a whole lot of support to be given to a losing squad.

So What To Do Now?

Well, as the later draft selections have indicated, the guys that the Coyotes are picking now are starting to not only make the NHL, but stick around as part of their future plans. Add that to the moves that have brought players like Steven Reinprecht, Olli Jokinen, Ed Jovanovski, Zbynek Michalek, Derek Morris, Kurt Sauer, Ilya Bryzgalov, and Mikael Tellqvist to Phoenix and the squad is starting to resemble a winning team. If the Coyotes can have a playoff spot secured by April, they'll see additional revenues that they wouldn't see during regular season play. A deep playoff run could help address some of the losses they would incur during regular season play.

Hopefully, a decent playoff run could help offset the losses by the organization. But if they don't and cannot find a new group of owners willing to support a team in Glendale, the franchise should declare bankruptcy and return to the U.S. Airways Arena until they get their ducks in a row. While it would be embarrasing to not have their own arena anymore, it is imperative to keep the team in Phoenix. People, especially those in Canadian markets, may see a team in Phoenix as unnecessary. Yet given the development of the game in the East Valley area since an NHL team has arrived, the franchise is doing something that the Phoenix Roadrunners or any minor league team could fail to do, and that's expand the game to a place where it was never thought possible to host.

So if you have to take anything away from this article, it's that a centrally-located and winning hockey club would be highly successful in the Phoenix area.