The National Hockey League has officially relocated the Arizona Coyotes to Salt Lake City, Utah, for the 2024-25 season.
The news caps a furious week that saw the Coyotes’ relocation plans escalate from one possible scenario for the beleaguered franchise, to a certainty – with a new owner, a new venue, and a potential branding overhaul to boot.
Ryan and Ashley Smith, the owners of the NBA‘s Utah Jazz, will assume control of the Coyotes after the NHL approved their $1.2 billion bid to acquire the team from Alex Meruelo.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Smith’s group “would be immediately able to host an NHL team in Salt Lake City using the Delta Center before building a new arena that would be designed for professional and Olympic hockey.”
The sale brings to an end a long journey through the desert — literally and figuratively — of a team that had long been searching for stability, identity, and financial solvency with mixed results over 26 seasons in Arizona.
Originally born as the Winnipeg Jets in 1979, the Coyotes franchise relocated to Phoenix for the 1996-97 season to alternating fanfare and controversy. While Canadian fans bemoaned the loss of one of its six NHL teams, the Coyotes drew a respectable 15,585 fans per game in its first season in Arizona.
That would prove to be the highest average annual attendance in team history. Although the team qualified for the playoffs in each of its first four seasons, it only tasted the postseason once in the eight seasons that followed. The team moved into a brand-new arena in Glendale, Arizona in 2003, and two years later hired Wayne Gretzky as its head coach.
But the team never qualified for the playoffs under Gretzky’s watch. In 2009, owner Jerry Moyes filed for bankruptcy and the NHL assumed operations of the team. The team would ironically achieve its greatest on-ice success over the next three seasons under head coach Dave Tippett, reaching the Western Conference finals in 2012.
Renaissance Sports and Entertainment bought the team for $225 million in Aug. 2013, keeping the team in Glendale and rebranding it soon after to the Arizona Coyotes.
As the team slipped in the standings in the years that followed, attendance flagged. In Nov. 2016, the team announced plans to build a new arena in Tempe in time for the 2019-20 season. When Arizona State University pulled out of the deal in Feb. 2017, that project died. Talks between the team’s newest ownership group led by Alex Meruelo and the city of Tempe around a new arena were renewed in 2021, but no agreement could be reached.
The Coyotes would ultimately play out their final two seasons at Mullett Arena, a 5,000-seat venue designed for the ASU team. Hopes to find a long-term home in the region ostensibly hinged on the passage of a series of May 2023 ballot initiatives; when Tempe voters rejected each proposal, relocation was set in motion. Meruelo’s development firm reportedly spent more than $700,000 to promote the Tempe arena plan.
Frank Seravalli of the Daily Faceoff reported last week that the NHL had been working behind the scenes on a possible sale to Smith and relocation to Utah. However, just this month the Coyotes announced their commitment to win a land auction in Phoenix “and develop the land into an unrivaled sports, lifestyle, and entertainment district without taxpayer funding.”
In the end, the $1.2 billion relocation plan won out.
“The NHL appreciates the interest expressed by Smith Entertainment Group to bring NHL hockey to Utah,” the league said in a statement. “During conversations over the course of the past two years, we have been impressed by Ryan and Ashley Smith’s commitment to their community and their passion and vision for Utah, not only as a hockey market, but as a preeminent sports and entertainment destination. Utah is a promising market, and we look forward to continuing our discussions.”
The last NHL team to relocate was the Atlanta Thrashers, which became the rebranded Winnipeg Jets in 2011.
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