NHL | The Coyotes officially move to Salt Lake City

All the dots are on the i’s, all the bars are on the t’s. NHL governors have given the green light to the sale of the Arizona Coyotes, confirming their move to Salt Lake City, Utah.

This latest step marks the end of a saga that spanned almost three decades, during which the Coyotes played their home games in three cities and changed owners six times.

The transaction is complex. In reality, it is the league which acquires the franchise, until then owned by billionaire Alex Meruelo, and makes it “inactive”, according to the press release published Thursday afternoon. The league then assigned a new team to the Smith Entertainment Group (SEG), led by Ryan and Ashley Smith. According to information published by various media in recent days, the purchase cost by the league would have been 1 billion dollars, and the entry fee for the new team, 1.3 billion. The difference of 300 million would be redistributed between the owners of the 31 other clubs on the circuit. Ryan Smith is the current owner of the Utah Jazz in the NBA and co-owner of Real Salt Lake in the MLS.

The same press release specifies that Meruelo retains the right to be reassigned a franchise if he succeeds in building a “new, state-of-the-art and appropriate arena for an NHL team” within five years.

After years of stalling, during which the NHL insisted on keeping the team in Arizona by all means, the matter evolved at high speed. About a month ago, the Athletic media wrote on Monday, commissioner Gary Bettman and his right-hand man Bill Daly went to meet Alex Meruolo in person to discuss the fate of the organization. During the previous weeks, the club’s management had expressed its intention to bid, as part of an auction next June, on public land in Scottsdale, in order to build a new arena. Models were even posted on social networks. The project, however, quickly aroused opposition from municipal authorities, starting with the mayor of Scottsdale, who castigated the Coyotes’ plan in an open letter.

According to Athletic, Bettman asked Meruelo if he could guarantee that he would be able to build an amphitheater for the Coyotes to leave Mullett Arena in Tempe, a 4,600-seat building originally designed for college hockey. Meruelo would then have responded in the negative. From there, the listing process moved at warp speed.

It must be said that Ryan Smith had shown his colors for a long time. It was known, through the NHL, that the billionaire wanted to attract a franchise to Salt Lake City. Last January, he published a press release in which he assured that he was ready to welcome a franchise from next season.

All of the organization’s players and staff would be relocated from Tempe to Salt Lake City. The club’s management met with the players over the past few days to inform them of the latest developments. On Wednesday, the Coyotes played their last local game in their history against the Edmonton Oilers. This emotional evening ended with a 5-2 victory for the crowd favorites.

Several former players expressed their sadness. Shane Doan, the face of the franchise from his arrival in Phoenix in 1996 until his retirement in 2017, spoke to local media about the unique relationship between athletes and community. “The fans, the people who have spent their entire careers here, the security guards, the ticket office employees,” he enumerated. That’s everyone. It’s a small group here, very tight knit. That’s what makes it so difficult. »

“Hockey is more than a sport,” he added.

Today a television analyst, ex-tough guy Paul Bissonnette held back a sob on air while paying tribute to the team that gave him his chance in the NHL. He expressed the wish that a team would return to this market, but was disappointed with the conditions of the sale.

“I know hockey has its place in the desert,” he said. I know he will come back. But not with this owner. »

Read 28 years, 7 owners, 1000 problems