What if the Coyotes never moved to Glendale?

What if the Coyotes never moved to Glendale?

It’s a haunting question, and one of dozens of what if scenarios to ruminate over the Coyotes’ tenure in Arizona, especially considering the team’s ultimate relocation to Utah. 

Out of all the damning scenarios and poor decisions, the move to Glendale might just be the worst one. After all, it started the chain reaction of missteps that set the Coyotes on a collision course with failure.

At first, the Coyotes weren’t supposed to move to Glendale. Businessman Steve Ellman’s initial intent was to purchase the team from original owner Richard Burke and move them to Scottsdale as part of a development project at Los Arcos mall. 

“The anticipated sale to The Ellman Companies and the construction of a new arena in Los Arcos are vital steps toward securing the future of the Coyotes in Arizona and the revitalization of Los Arcos,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said back in 2000. 

Those vital steps never came to fruition. Constant delays and conflicts with the City of Scottsdale pushed Ellman to look elsewhere. And that elsewhere was Glendale.

The Glendale move was a failure for a multitude of reasons. The team played its first game in the West Valley in late 2003. Less than a year later, the NHL season was cancelled due to an NHL labor lockout, stalling momentum. The Coyotes proceeded to miss the playoffs the next five seasons in their new home.

Ellman’s vision for Glendale was to transform the area into a destination complete with a state-of-the-art arena, shops, restaurants and residential areas. Just after Westgate opened its first phase in 2007, an economic recession hit in 2008 and 2009 and neither the development nor the West Valley became what the developers had envisioned. 

The Coyotes’ era in Glendale was fraught with bad ownership, bankruptcy and drama with the city. In the end, the team’s final owner Alex Meruelo pulled the plug, moving the Coyotes to ASU’s Mullett Arena, and we all know how that ended.

So what if none of it ever happened? What if the Los Arcos project actually came to fruition? What if the Coyotes had found a permanent home in the East Valley early on?

The most obvious thought is the team would still be here today. It’s been well reported and documented that the majority of the Coyotes’ season-ticket-holder base and corporate sponsors were located in the East Valley. If the games had been more accessible for those groups, the increase in ticket sales and sponsorships could have led to more revenue. A team and owner with more money to spend may have been inspired to invest more money in players, thus building a better and more competitive roster.

How many playoff appearances would the Coyotes have had with a better roster? The team only made the playoffs four times after the move to Glendale.

How many more free agents could the Coyotes have attracted with a better roster and an arena more centrally located? Especially if the location of that arena attracted more fans on a nightly basis.

If the team had more success on the ice as a result of higher spending on players and the arena was more centrally located, what would the fanbase look like?

If the team made more money overall, could there have been more investment into growing the game on a grassroots level? Could there have been more rinks built around the Valley?

And most importantly, what would things look like today if the move to Glendale never happened? Would the Coyotes still be here? And if the team was here, would they be competitive? How many banners would there be in the rafters?

It’s hard to know for sure what would have happened if the Coyotes never moved to Glendale. There are SO many “what if” moments along the way, each of them worth unraveling and each of them more than likely contributed to the failure of Coyotes 1.0. 

In the end though, the decision to move the team to Glendale was the catalyst of the franchise’s disaster in the desert. That choice set every bad move into motion while its alternative offered the most likely chance for a better timeline and a much better outcome.