INSIDE HOCKEY

[Part 1 of a 3-part Series]

Deep in the heart of some hockey purists, perhaps under a blanket of snow in Winnipeg or Quebec City, is the belief that their sacred game of hockey cannot survive in a place where you can sunbathe on game day. But Arizona boasts three professional teams – The National Hockey League Phoenix Coyotes, Central Hockey League Prescott Sundogs and ECHL Phoenix RoadRunners –each with unique economic challenges for survival. It’s rare when schedules offer the teams in home games one after another, three days in a row. But in February 2007 the stars aligned and I traveled from Tucson to take the temperature of pro hockey in Arizona, one night at a time. Along the way I hoped to find out how Tucson could again join Arizona’s professional hockey ranks.

Top Dogs

The NHL Phoenix Coyotes are obviously Arizona’s top hockey dogs, but that doesn’t make their challenges any less difficult in the crowded Phoenix sports marketplace. The National Basketball Association, National Football League, and major league baseball are kings here, and Arizona State University sports, women’s pro basketball, indoor football, and even professional lacrosse clutter the field even more. Oh, and the minor hockey league Phoenix RoadRunners are back, too.

“There is a great love for hockey here and it is deep-rooted,” says Coyotes President Douglas Moss. “Because this is a melting pot community, there are many fans who bring their allegiances here for other teams. It’s our challenge to turn them into Coyote fans.”

The Coyotes front office is jammed with seasoned, accomplished NHLers, and I’m hard-pressed to find a hockey management group with more high-powered suits. Moss himself is the former president of the (now defunct minor) International Hockey League, a former vice-president of the NHL Mighty Ducks of Anaheim – now known as the Anaheim Ducks – and former president of the NHL Buffalo Sabres.

“I can introduce you to passionate Coyotes fans, and they rival any passionate fan I’ve known in New York, Buffalo or Anaheim,” he continues.

Fifteen thousand of those faithful fans were on hand for the Thursday, February 15th tilt against the Pacific Division rival Anaheim Ducks. Though they still carry the Phoenix nametag, the Coyotes settled in late 2003 into their custom-fit arena in Glendale, northwest of the original desert megalopolis.

Jobing.com Arena certainly is a vast improvement for hockey sightlines over the team’s former downtown Phoenix home, now named the US Airways Center. But the Glendale complex is “generic-new-Arizona” in style, without much warmth or feeling of permanence – which is the case with most newly built luxury-box arenas. Despite the sanitized, corporate canvas, the Coyotes staff creates a comfortable and friendly environment, access into the arena is easy, and concessions are high quality (though predictably pricey). And while it may seem like a small detail, the seats seem wider and more comfortable than at US Airways.

“We had to be in our own arena to survive financially,” Moss says. “Between that and the new CBA (the 2005 Collective Bargaining Agreement between NHL teams and players, which brought a salary cap), the future for the franchise is bright. And this is the best place to watch a hockey game in any arena in the NHL, by far.”

Moss reports the Coyotes have tallied the third-largest jump in paid tickets among all NHL teams in the 2006-07 season, though game attendance appears to be down about 1,000 fans per game. The reason for the apparent numbers discrepancy is actually a positive sign for the Coyotes. “We actually have given away far less complimentary tickets this year, while selling close to 12 percent more,” he said. “So while there might be less people in the building, more of them have paid, and that’s the growth that signals a strong future for us.”

The Coyotes rank 24th in attendance among the NHL’s 30 teams, averaging 14,622 fans through 29 of 41 home games this season. Capacity for hockey is 17,799, and Moss notes the average ticket price is about $42. I had to pay double that for excellent seats in the center lower half of the arena, however.

More important to fans than ticket pricing is the fact that losing has been the trend for the Coyotes. They’ve limped through much of their decade in Phoenix, rarely tipping over the .500 mark and never contending seriously for Lord Stanley’s Cup. They have notched five first-round playoff appearances, the last in 2002, but were widely expected to make a major push this season. Instead they sit close to the bottom of the standings.

The lack of success on-ice is perplexing when you see that the coaching power in Phoenix is as impressive as the management executives: There is a veritable truck load of Stanley Cup championships on the bench: associate coaches Barry Smith and Ulf Samuelsson have seven between them, and goaltending coach Grant Fuhr has five. Managing partner and head coach Wayne Gretzky – widely accepted as the greatest player in the history of the sport – brings four more Stanley Cup wins to the coaching bench.

But it seems that “The Great One” is still feeling his way in his second year as the team’s head coach, and it shows on this night through his team’s erratic play. Already on the mathematical brink of elimination from the playoffs, this pivotal home game against the Ducks could be seen as a last-chance effort for the Coyotes to create some kind of positive momentum and at least make the appearance of a surge toward a playoff spot.

But the Coyotes showed the traits of hockey teams that are heading nowhere -spirited and feisty when things went well and lackluster, lifeless and indifferent when things went wrong. Surprisingly up 4-1 over the star-studded Ducks near the end of the second period, the Coyotes relaxed, and Anaheim kept coming.
The Ducks, with a sense of self that only contending, purposeful teams exude, won in overtime 5-4 on a beautiful Teemu Selanne backhander.

“The fans were devastated when we lost that game, and people were mad,” Douglas Moss agrees. “But that’s what you want from fans. Apathy is a killer – these people have tremendous passion for this team. And we all want to win.”

Moss doesn’t sugarcoat what fans and management alike are saying. “Obviously there needs to be some changes in (player) personnel here. The performance of this team is unacceptable to everyone here.”

The talent level of the Coyotes will certainly improve, and the warm-weather hockey market in Phoenix is growing. The arrival of the Coyotes drove off the IHL Phoenix Roadrunners in the mid-1990s, but Moss sees the 2005 return of the ECHL RoadRunners as a positive for the entire Arizona hockey market. “The reality is that in hockey, there is the NHL and then there is everything else,” he says. “The RoadRunners can be a good partner in helping with hockey fan development, and I really believe that anyone who goes to a hockey game in this marketplace makes it good for the Phoenix Coyotes. If it’s good for hockey here, it’s good for us.”

The Coyotes have had preliminary talks with Tucson city officials within the past few years about the possibility of involving themselves with minor league hockey in Southern Arizona. But Moss says nothing new is on the burner just yet. “We would be interested in talking to Tucson about anything to do with hockey, whether it be a minor league affiliate, whether it be building some rinks or (being involved with) youth hockey,” he says. “The Tucson marketplace is one that is very important to us. We haven’t done as good a job as we’ve needed to do, but it’s on our radar screen for the 2007-08 season to be much more involved in Tucson.”

A popular contention is that only a top-tier “AAA” minor league team – an American Hockey League franchise – would be of worth to the Coyotes. “It would make the most sense, if there was an AHL team there (Tucson), that the people down there might want the Coyotes involved. We’re open to all opportunities.”