Mammoth Rumors

The Arizona Coyotes have added another assistant to their coaching staff, hiring Mario Duhamel to a multi-year contract. He joins head coach Andre Tourigny as well as assistants Phil Housley, Cory Stillman, and goaltending coach Corey Schwab. Coyotes GM Bill Armstrong released a statement on his new coach:

We are very pleased to have Mario join the Coyotes organization and Head Coach André Tourigny’s staff. He brings extensive hockey knowledge and coaching experience to our team, and we are confident that he will be a great addition. We are also pleased to have Phil, Cory and Corey return this season. They are all quality people and very good coaches.

Duhamel, 46, follows Tourigny from the Ottawa 67’s of the OHL where he served as associate coach for the last three seasons. He has years of experience in the QMJHL as both an assistant and head coach, and even served as a video coach with the Colorado Avalanche for two seasons under Patrick Roy (Tourigny was an assistant coach on that staff).

Perhaps the bigger announcement today was that Housley, Stillman and Schwab will return in their roles under Tourigny. All three served in their respective roles under Rick Tocchet, and provide a strong staff for the rookie head coach to lean on as he transitions back to the NHL. The Coyotes underwent some drastic changes this offseason in terms of on-ice personnel and have collected a huge number of draft picks to kick start a rebuild. This coaching staff will be asked to navigate what is expected to be a difficult season, given the lack of high-end talent on the roster.

The Arizona Coyotes may not be playing in Gila River Arena in Glendale beyond this season, but their future may still lie in the Phoenix area. AZ Central’s Paulina Pineda reports that the city of Tempe invited bids to develop a 46-acre area for entertainment purposes and the confirmed that the Coyotes submitted a bid. It is unknown if any competing bids were submitted before today’s deadline.

Tempe is located on the other side of Phoenix from Glendale but only about 30 miles away from the Coyotes’ current home. The area in question resides on a stretch of the Salt River known as Tempe Town Lake. It is central to Tempe, but also not far from the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and the city of Scottsdale. Though the Coyotes could not make any material comment on the bidding process, they stated that they are “incredibly excited about this extraordinary opportunity.” A winning bid would allow the Coyotes to build a state of the art arena of their own design and further develop the area into a attractive entertainment locale. The draw of this new area could be aided by the close proximity of Arizona State University, whose hockey program has quickly developed a strong following of its own.

Of course, competing bids or not, this by no means secures the Coyotes’ future in Arizona. Even an uncontested bid may not be to the liking of the city of Tempe, either financially or in the plan’s details. The city will also likely weigh the benefits of bringing the team to town, as they did have their fair share of struggles in Glendale. Until anything becomes official, it is fair to keep up the Houston/Quebec City/Milwaukee speculation, but many in Arizona will be happy to hear about this promising new development for their Coyotes.

Thursday’s report that the Arizona Coyotes will see their lease at Gila River Arena terminated by the City of Glendale has cast a dark shadow over the organization. It’s yet another blow to a team that’s yet to have much solid ground under them since arriving in the desert in 1996. Today, Arizona Coyotes reporter Craig Morgan took a very deep dive into what the Coyotes’ options are moving forward if they are to stay in Arizona. There’s no real clear path forward for the team moving past next season, but options are abundant, varying from the outlandish to the near-probable. It’s widely believed that any situation that keeps them in Arizona involves a short-term stay in a temporary arena starting in 2022-23. That’s because of plans announced last month for a new, privately funded arena in Tempe, a more central location to their season ticket holder base. But with under 11 months until their year-to-year lease in Glendale runs out, Coyotes ownership needs to move quickly to find a temporary solution if they’re to stay in the Phoenix area.

One option, named by Morgan as the most realistic, is a temporary move to the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum. It would immediately become one of the smallest and oldest venues in the NHL, seating just 13,730 spectators. While it doesn’t seem like a great option in the least bit, there are a few reasons for optimism if Arizona is to create a temporary home here. You can make the argument that it’s been done before, and with great success – the New York Islanders’ recent second stint at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale certainly didn’t inhibit the team’s success on the ice. Throw in a much more preferable location to Glendale, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that a temporary move here is a reliable short-term solution for the rebuilding franchise.

But there’s another downtown location that could be a much more creative solution – Chase Field, home of the MLB’s Arizona Diamondbacks. Morgan emphasizes that little is known about how hockey would work in the roofed venue, but harkens back to the success of the Thunderdome for the expansion Tampa Bay Lightning. The reality remains that extensive renovations would need to be made in order to make the arena NHL-compatible, even more so than the Memorial Coliseum. It’s a long shot, but a fun idea.

Then there’s always the looming possibility of relocation, murmurings that have persisted for much of Arizona’s history in the desert. If a reliable short-term solution can’t be found, or their longer-term plans to build an arena in Tempe don’t pan out, there’s a more-than-zero chance that the Coyotes will have to find a new home entirely.

So, PHR readers, we turn to you to ask about the future of this Western Conference squad. Do the Coyotes find some stability in Arizona, or is it the end of an era in the Southwest?

[Mobile users, click here to vote!]

The city of Glendale, Arizona, home of the Arizona Coyotes, has decided to not renew the operating agreement for Gila River Arena after the 2021-22 season. This essentially is the city kicking the Coyotes out of the rink, with a statement from Glendale City Manager Kevin Phelps making it quite clear that the partnership is ending:

We are thankful to the NHL and the Arizona Coyotes for being part of the Glendale community for the past 18 years. The decision to not renew the operating agreement with the Coyotes was not made overnight or in a vacuum. We carefully weighed input from key stakeholders, our expert economist, our arena management firm and our City Council. 

In a follow-up report, Katie Strang of The Athletic has Phelps on record explaining that they have “reached that point of no return” and examines the large debts that the franchise owed as of July 29. The city had agreed to forgo an amount owed from last year due to the pandemic affecting the team’s financial situation, as long as the Coyotes agreed to “keep current with all future financial obligations,” which has apparently not occurred.

It is not at all clear what the next step is for the Coyotes. Finding another arena in the area will be difficult, and there have been obvious pushes in the past by places like Quebec City and Houston. The NHL’s long-standing position has been to try and keep the Coyotes in Arizona, but this is just another setback in that goal. Previously, the team has indicated a desire to pursue a new arena deal in Tempe, and the original deadline for proposals was today. That was recently delayed until September 2, and there are considerable hurdles for that plan as well. Phelps told Strang that the Tempe interest was not the reason for the decision to terminate the Glendale arrangement. For now, the team will play out the 2021-22 season in Gila River Arena and Glendale, but their future beyond that is extremely murky.

The Coyotes released a statement a few hours later:

We are disappointed by today’s unilateral decision by the City of Glendale to break off negotiations on a multi-year lease extension agreement. We are hopeful that they will reconsider a move that would primarily damage the small businesses and hard-working citizens of Glendale. We remain open to restarting good-faith negotiations with the City.

Most importantly, the Coyotes are one hundred percent committed to finding a long-term arena solution here in Arizona, and nothing will shake our determination to do what is right for our organization, residents of the entire Valley and, most important, our fans.