Guest post by Rev. K.

The City Council of Glendale will hold a meeting to decide the future, again, of the local hockey franchise. Why on earth does the NHL want to continue plugging away at this beleaguered and failed organization?

The Phoenix Coyotes are once again in the news, so it’s once again time for my usual rant. My position has not changed.

Phoenix is, and has always been, a terrible, terrible business decision. A Former Glendale City Council floated the Coyotes $25 million of taxpayer money to cover losses from a previous season while a buyer for the team was sought.

This franchise is nothing short of a complete failure. No disrespect to the players, coaches, and staff who work for the Coyotes. This idea of hockey in the desert has been a 19 year experiment that has never turned a profit and has sucked down more money than anyone with any sense would allow.

The part about Phoenix that I have never understood is why other owners support trying to make the team work there. Every year, Phoenix receives a pile of cash in equalization payments to attempt to keep the franchise solvent….and even that doesn’t work. Where does that cash come from? It comes from the bottom lines of far more profitable teams like Toronto, New York, Montreal, and so on.


Move Phoenix to a market where it could possibly be profitable and those equalization payments drop or maybe even go away entirely. How the owners have supported 19 years of having their bottom lines carved out by the dead weight in the desert is beyond me.

And as a Canadian it might seem that my anger is because this is a US-based team and I’m just mad that this franchise isn’t up here. Not true. I don’t care where hockey is played, all I want is for it to be successful and appreciated, and whether that’s Seattle, Las Vegas, Quebec City, or Kansas City, I don’t care, I just want what is good for the league, and as the last 19 years have shown, Phoenix is no goddamn good for the NHL.