I exchanged texts with some important people following Bettman's letter to the Arizona Legislature asking if the Coyotes are actually in danger of moving... the response:
"For the first time, they really could be."
So where are we? ...really..
Make no mistake about this...Gary Bettman's commitment to the Phoenix market has been the biggest reason the NHL is still there. And I have agreed with him. People have argued with me for years about this of course. There is no argument that a team in Hamilton, Ontario or Quebec City would draw more and make more money than a team in Phoenix. If you think Gary Bettman doesn't know that much you are nuts.. That is not why Gary has fought for Arizona with such a steadfast commitment.
There is a team in Arizona to grow the game. It's that simple. The Phoenix Metro Area is a HUGE growing market, roughly 4.7 Million. It is very close to the population base of the Boston Metro Area. It's #12 in the United States. And among the 30 NHL teams it is in the top half. It is more than twice as big as the Pittsburgh Metro Area and 3 times that of Nashville. Also, it's a million more than Seattle....
Comparing Phoenix to Canada it looks roughly like this....
Toronto 6M Phoenix 4.7 Montreal 4.1 Vancouver 2.5 Calgary 1.3 Ottawa 1.3 Edmonton 1.3 Quebec 800,000 Winnipeg 800,000
So we know all those Canadian markets can easily support an NHL team...and no doubt Toronto and Montreal could support more than one NHL team (there should be another team in Toronto for sure).
However, when it comes to growing the game, which IS Bettman's mandate, you have millions of people in Phoenix to expose to this great sport versus how many possible NEW hockey fans in Canada...(Maybe that one guy at work with the lazy eye in Kitchener?)
So you can say what you want about the Coyotes being a success financially in the near term...The franchise has created way more hockey fans than another team in Canada would have. They even created a superstar in Auston Matthews. And remember the NHL left Atlanta with a metro population of 5.7M to go play for Winnipeg's 800,000...Why? because they ran out of options and Atlanta is known as a very weird sports town..and the Flames. The NHL in fact TWICE left Atlanta for Canada.
So before everyone goes booing Gary Bettman and saying he's against Canada realize that is ridiculous. Quebec will have a team when Quebec wants to have a team. They are just waiting for the dollar in Canada to make it easier...and they built that arena with Gary's blessing...
So I say all of this to now turn to the seriousness of Gary's latest letter to the Arizona Legislature, where Gary states the Coyotes “must have a new arena location to succeed… and “will not remain in Glendale.…
This is not a joke and the people of Arizona know this.
Gary is trying to get the Legislature to promote a bill that has stalled which would "create a special taxing district for a new Coyotes arena in the East Valley." If that doesn't happen the Coyotes could for the first time REALLY be in danger, because the NHL knows it has options and if the NHL isn't going to go above and beyond to make Glendale work again they may be thinking they got all they could out of this experiment...and they got a lot more than you might think in terms of hockey fans and hockey rinks and programs..
What do you think? Is it time to cut-bait in Arizona.
I will be back this afternoon with my updated Projected Standings and predictions for tonight...there are a ton of interesting changes after we took it on the chin last night! As I have said before...Perhaps I should change the title "Projected Final Standings" to "What the Final Standings SHOULD look like if there are no upsets based on the better teams + the better match ups happening"
Catchy Title, eh?
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— Michael Augello (@MikeInBuffalo) December 12, 2016