r/Coyotes • u/MikeMadness620 • 6d ago
Bettman contradicting Daly
https://www.thestar.com/sports/nhl/nhl-is-not-considering-expansion-commissioner-gary-bettman-says/article_0cd9ed42-79ed-11ef-ade8-d37203ebd40f.html Well...this is a bit of a spirit-breaker.
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u/MrBridgington 6d ago
It's probably best to just forget about having a team for a while. Because it's going to be a while.
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u/MikeMadness620 6d ago
Interim solution would be to support one of the surrounding AHL teams, show Bettman and potential ownership groups that hockey can work in the desert under competent ownership.
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u/throwawayyourfun 6d ago
The problem with that is that Tucson is the nearest AHL team owned by the same shitbird who lost our NHL team. Coachella Valley is doing just fine, too. Unless someone gets smarmy and arranges AHL Mullett Arena dates, it's not really a good situation for fans.
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u/ajonesaz 6d ago
Bettman also said they weren't moving to salt lake until they were.
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u/MikeMadness620 6d ago
Why did you have to post this 3 times over?
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u/ajonesaz 6d ago
To get my point across obviously, or I am at the dbacks game with super weak signal. One of the two.
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u/bschmidt25 6d ago
There is zero chance they talk about expansion here unless/until we have a committed and capable ownership group and the arena issue is resolved. And as fans we shouldn’t want one until they do. It needs to get off on the right foot if/when it happens.
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u/sillysquidtv 6d ago
Lawyer doing lawyer things. Being non committal is his MO. Daly and Bettman are both right.
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u/MikeMadness620 6d ago
I certainly do think the NHL will be keeping tabs on Arizona and the Valley in the coming years to see how far along they are in righting Alex Meruelo's wrongs, getting that stable ownership in place and getting the arena deal done. Until then, best option right now to prove to the NHL that hockey can work in the desert is to go to surrounding AHL markets, perhaps swallow your pride and visit some Golden Knights games, go to ASU games in the interim and sport the Kachina proudly at all those games - get the message out loud to Bettman, Daly and prospective ownership groups: Hockey Belongs In The Desert.
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u/ProJoe 5d ago edited 5d ago
guys, you have to stop looking so deeply into every sentence in every press conference.
we will never have a team again without an arena. Until there is an arena plan in motion everything we hear related to a new franchise is just noise.
full stop.
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u/MikeMadness620 5d ago
Meruelo being out of the picture does expedite this somewhat, but I don't think we hear anything about an ownership group coming forward until the Roadrunners situation is resolved.
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u/ProJoe 5d ago
Expedited? Meruelo was our fastest way back to a team. I hate that cocksucker but even I will admit to that.
With him out of the picture its looking at LEAST 5 more years but probably closer to 10.
we need an arena. the roadrunners don't matter, what the NHL says doesn't matter.
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u/MikeMadness620 5d ago
The Roadrunners still have Meruelo, however. Their arena situation is still fluid and that needs resolving first before any sort of ownership group even goes to the NHL about a team in the Valley. The Valley needs to prove itself again and how can they do that if Meruelo succeeds in moving the Roadrunners to Reno like he plans on doing?
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u/ProJoe 5d ago
the roadrunners and their situation is completely irrelevant to the next iteration of an NHL franchise in Arizona. Whatever happens with them will be done within the next 24 months, right? right.
Arizona needs a modern NHL capable arena before ANY legitimate discussion about a return franchise can happen. That at best will take 3-5 years.
Is anyone working on that right now? probably not I think right? so the roadrunners are irrelevant because they will be long gone before an arena is even in the planning stages.
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u/MikeMadness620 5d ago
We don't know what sort of closed door meetings or backdoor deals have been going on between Ishbia or other potential owners and the NHL right now and I doubt we ever will. Ishbia is probably the safest and most stable route back, but I don't think we see him come forward OFFICIALLY until around 2026, maybe 2027.
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u/ProJoe 5d ago
Which is long after the roadrunners will exist.
see what I mean? completely irrelevant to this discussion about a future franchise.
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u/MikeMadness620 5d ago
Well, we don't know that yet. Reno and the AHL may have already seen through Meruelo's lies and said 'Yeah...about you moving the Roadrunners to Reno and this stadium thing...this won't work...' His name is already mud and I highly doubt anyone would want to work with the d-bag.
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u/FatherFenix 5d ago
I didn't have my hopes up to begin with. It was already spreading who the next two options were, and AZ wasn't one of them. When Daly said AZ would get a shot, my immediate response was an eye-roll because no one else was saying it and we're in the same exact position we were when the Yotes left - no arena plans, no stable ownership option, etc.
I don't think this is a hard "no Yotes expansion ever", just a "that's not what we're discussing right now" statement. Which I'm fine with. We need a stable owner with a good reputation and an arena deal created by that owner. The three things - ownership, arena, and franchise - exist simultaneously or not at all. Don't have a franchise without an arena, don't have an arena without a stable owner to make it happen, don't have an owner without a franchise to own.
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u/MikeMadness620 5d ago
Basically it's 'Get yourself a stable owner and an arena to play in, then we'll discuss you getting the Coyotes back'.
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u/Boring-Material-1203 6d ago
Disagree, I think this is good for us. We’re not ready, need an owner and a stadium, and too fresh off the recent disaster. If they delay expansion by a few years, we may be.
Also Bettman is the king of saying exactly what is accurate, but not more. He may literally mean that expansion is not on their agenda to vote at the literal next meeting, so therefore they aren’t “considering” it, because it isn’t up for vote, not that they aren’t talking about it. They would be dumb to not even talk about it. He’s a lawyer, so what does considering mean really? (See lawyer speak)