The Arizona Coyotes are once again the subject of headlines as a result of their financial woes. The City of Glendale informed the team yesterday that they intend to lock players and management out of Gila River Arena if their unpaid bills and debts to the city are not squared away by 5pm on December 20th.
According to a report first published by The Athletic, the Coyotes are $1.3M in arrears, with over $250K owed to the city itself. Late Wednesday night the team issued the following statement regarding the potential lockout: “We have already launched an investigation to determine how this could have happened and the initial indications are that it appears to be the result of an unfortunate human error…Regardless, we deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused. We will make sure by tomorrow morning, the Arizona Coyotes are current on all of our bills and owe no state or local taxes whatsoever. And we will take immediate steps to ensure nothing like this can ever possibly happen again.”
The 2021-22 season will be the team’s last in its current home, as Glendale City Council members voted to opt out of the long term agreement it signed with the team in 2016. The Coyotes had been operating on a year to year basis at Gila River Arena as it continues to search for a permanent home.
Arizona is listed as the least valuable franchise in the NHL according to a recent Forbes report. The Coyotes are currently valued at $400M dollars, and have been the subject of more than their fair share of relocation rumours over the years. For whatever reason, Bettman & Co. have been reluctant to give up on the “Desert Hockey” experiment thus far, and seem committed to trying to find another location in Arizona for the team to operate out of.
With few long term assets, and currently sitting dead last in the league with a paltry 5-18-2 record, Arizona is likely to be a seller at this year’s trade deadline, signaling the start of yet another rebuild. If you remove the COVID shortened 2019-20 year where the NHL held a series of “play in games”, the Coyotes haven’t been to the playoffs since the 2011-2012 season. With no tangible signs of on ice improvement coming anytime soon, and mounting financial woes in a city that has clearly given up on the franchise, perhaps it’s time for even the ever stubborn Gary Bettman to concede that hockey is a lost cause in Arizona.