Phoenix Coyotes Debut Blog / Thoughts on Thursday’s Game

Hello and Welcome to the new Phoenix Coyotes blog at Hockeybuzz. If you are reading this, then this may be the most viewed Phoenix Coyotes blog on the internet. And, while I am joking, the Phoenix Coyotes probably really are the most under-appreciated and least covered team in the sport. This despite having at least two world-class players on the roster, and, potentially, the best group of young defensemen ever assembled. Perhaps that is a little hyperbolic, but if so, only a little – the defense is that good. (More on that next time).

Coverage of the Coyotes is not good. What exists is of a high quality level, but it is hard to find and there isn’t that much of it. As for the mainstream media’s coverage of the team, it’s a joke. As a west-coast team playing games that start late on the east-coast, they are already at a disadvantage in a league whose premier franchises – but that doesn’t mean their best teams – all play their games in Eastern Standard Time.

Add to this fact the perennial questions of team ownership and future location, their 2012-13 ranking of 29th in league attendance (hockeyattendance.com), a lack of marquee scorers, no championships to speak of, and that the team is not actually playing in downtown Phoenix, but a 20/30 minute drive out to Glendale, and you start to get a picture of why the Coyotes are – despite playing in one of the largest and fastest growing markets in the USA – considered a small-market NHL team and an afterthought to most hockey fans.

A quick look at the Arizona Republic website (apparently one of the most circulated newspapers in the country) seems to rank the Coyotes as somewhere near the high-school basketball team and below the college football team, in terms of importance to the local sports scene.

In spite of a general sense of apathy surrounding the team (outside of its die-hards, of course) I am going to do my best to provide readers at Hockeybuzz with a unique and interesting perspective on the team. Granted, just by existing at all, it will be unique, but I hope to bring a perspective grounded in logic, and not hampered by conventional thinking, to the most under-appreciated team in pro sports.

At the very least I will be the first sports writer in history to avoid having any puns in the article headlines. That means there won’t be any articles entitled “Doan-t Go There: Should the Coyotes Trade Their Captain?” which, even without the pun, will never happen because the Coyotes should never, ever, trade the one player people associate with their franchise. I won’t even consider the possibility.

It is, I think, quite interesting that this blog is being written the day after the Coyotes played the Leafs, a team which is the complete opposite of everything in Phoenix. In Toronto, a player who plays on the fourth line will be recognized as a celebrity on the street. Old-school goon Colton Orr is probably better known to casual hockey fans than potential 2014 Norris Trophy Winner Oliver Ekman-Larsson.

If Larsson played in Toronto he would be one of the most famous players in the NHL, just slightly less revered than Bobby Orr; the media covering the NHL never does justice to players on the west-coast: Marc- Edourd Vlasic faces the same problem as Larsson while playing for the infinitely more high profile San Jose Sharks.

Now, I am not insane – even I don’t think that this one blog will magically give the Coyotes the league wide profile they deserve, but it is a start. I hope to entertain, enlighten, and provoke some discussion about a team with a great current roster and a very nice group of prospects, as well as to look at the NHL through the rarest of media prospectives; that of the Phoenix Coyotes fan.

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I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on the controversy surrounding the shootout Thursday night. In case you missed it, Leafs winger James Van Riemsdyk’s shot went under the pad of Mike Smith, who slid back into his net. The goal ended up counting despite there being no visible camera shot of the puck being over the goal line. Now, I want to be indignant with rage and frothing at the mouth about the injustice of it all, but, biases aside, I thought they made the right call. I mean, his pad was over the goal line and so, logically, the puck was too. Just because the puck can’t be seen, doesn’t mean it can defy the physical laws of the universe.

Any other take on the situation is just about being hung up on a technicality, and I can’t abide a stickler. Shootouts are basically a coin-flip, so all in all, the Coyotes had a great, if pretty boring, game. A shame too that they lost and that the JVR goal overshadowed everything else, because that goal by Boedker in the shootout was INSANE. What a move! Here’s hoping we can destroy the Sens in an early afternoon game Saturday.

Finally before I go, I just wanted to thank Eklund for this opportunity and to also thank Adam French whose coverage of the Coyotes was perhaps the best in existence. I only hope I can – should this continue into a full time gig – provide Phoenix fans with a fraction of his hockey knowledge.

Thanks for reading.

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