Arizona Coyotes
The Arizona Coyotes are a professional ice hockey team based in Glendale, Arizona, and compete in the Pacific Division of the NHL's Western Conference. Originally founded as the Winnipeg Jets in 1972 in the WHA, the team transitioned to the NHL in 1979 when the WHA folded. The Coyotes moved to Arizona in 1996, adopting the name "Phoenix Coyotes," and later renamed "Arizona Coyotes" in 2014 to reflect their location. Over the years, the franchise has faced numerous financial challenges, including ownership changes and bankruptcy disputes, particularly due to playing in one of the league's smallest markets and in a rink that was not ideally designed for hockey. Despite these struggles, the team has qualified for the playoffs nine times, with its most successful season in 2011-2012, when they reached the conference finals. The Coyotes have a number of notable alumni, including Hall of Famers like Bobby Hull and Dale Hawerchuk, and franchise legends such as Shane Doan, whose number has been retired in recognition of his contributions. Today, the Coyotes continue to seek stability and success in the competitive landscape of professional hockey.
Arizona Coyotes
Team information
- Inaugural season: 1972 (WHA); 1979 (NHL)
- Home arena: Gila River Arena, Glendale, Arizona
- Owner: Alex Meruelo
- Team colors: Brick red, desert sand, and black
Overview
The Arizona Coyotes is an American team in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The team first played as the Winnipeg Jets in the World Hockey Association (WHA). When the WHA folded in 1979, the NHL absorbed four of its teams, including the Winnipeg Jets. Roster changes related to becoming part of the NHL resulted in on-ice struggles, and rising player salaries coupled with playing in the smallest NHL market led to financial problems. The team moved to Arizona in 1996 and became the Phoenix Coyotes. Financial struggles continued there, however, because the team’s home rink, which was the second-smallest in the National Football League (NFL), was not built to accommodate hockey. The Coyotes were sold several times and ended up at the center of a bankruptcy court dispute in 2009 when the team’s owner tried to sell the team to an investor who wanted to move it back to Canada. This ended when the NHL assumed financial responsibility for the team. After several years of uncertainty, the Coyotes were sold by the NHL in 2013 to an investment group. The following year, that group renamed the team the Arizona Coyotes because they were playing in the Gila River Arena in Glendale and no longer located in Phoenix. The team was sold two more times, once in 2014 and again in 2019. It has appeared in the playoffs nine times, advancing as far as the conference final round once in 2011–2012.
History
The Winnipeg Jets became the city’s first professional team when the WHA began operations in 1972. The team was named as such because the original team owner Ben Hatskin was a fan of the NFL’s New York Jets, and the Royal Canadian Air Force is headquartered in Winnipeg. The Jets signed Chicago Black Hawk superstar Bobby Hull to a ten-year contract for an unprecedented $2.75 million. This helped boost the image of the WHA, which was attempting to compete with the NHL.
The WHA experienced numerous financial difficulties, which caused the league to fold in 1979. Several teams were absorbed by the NHL, including the Edmonton Oilers, the New England Whalers, the Quebec Nordiques, and the Jets. The Jets had been among the most successful teams in the WHA. However, each of these teams was required to give up several of its best players, who were then redistributed to the existing NHL teams. This NHL requirement weakened all four teams but had the greatest impact on the Jets. They finished next to last and last, respectively, in their first and second seasons. The silver lining was the NHL rule awarding the earliest picks in the next year’s draft to the lowest-finishing teams.
With their 1981 pick, the Jets chose Dale Hawerchuck, a future Hall of Fame player who greatly helped the team. They made the playoffs in 11 of their first 15 seasons but seldom advanced beyond the first round, mainly because they were in a division that forced them to face off against powerhouse teams such as the Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames.
In addition, the Jets were playing in the arena with the fewest seats in the NHL and in its smallest market. This led to financial struggles that were compounded as player salaries began to soar in the 1990s. Ironically, this was sparked in part by the high contract the Jets awarded to Hull to lure him to the WHA. The financial challenges led to the team being sold in late 1995 to investors who wanted to move it to Phoenix. The group included Jerry Colangelo, the owner of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Phoenix Suns, and a number of Phoenix-based businesspeople. The name “Coyotes” was chosen in a contest where the second-place choice was “Scorpions.”
The team moved into the America West Arena, which was built for the NBA Suns. It was barely large enough to hold a regulation NHL rink and needed to be retrofitted and remodeled to accommodate the ice surface. This resulted in a number of seats with obstructed views and reduced the seating capacity for hockey by almost two thousand seats over its basketball capacity. Such a reduction led to huge financial losses for the team and its owners and resulted in it being sold again in 2001. This time, the owners were local developer Steve Ellman and hockey great Wayne Gretzky. Gretzky also became the head of hockey operations.
The Coyotes made the playoffs in two of the team’s first three seasons under Gretzky but failed to advance past the first round. This was followed by a six-year playoff drought, not counting the 2004–2005 season that was cancelled by a labor dispute. The team made the playoffs in 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 but lost both years in the first round.
The 2011–2012 season was the best in franchise history. That year, the Coyotes beat the Black Hawks in the first round four games to two to advance to the conference semi-finals. In that round, they faced the Nashville Predators and beat them four games to one. The conference final round matched the Coyotes against the Los Angeles Kings. They fell in that series, winning one game to the Kings’ four. They failed to make the playoffs again after that.
In the midst of this, the team’s financial situation was continuing to make news. During the 2003–2004 season, the team moved to the Glendale Arena, now known as Gila River Arena, which had a larger capacity. Despite the move, it was still dogged by past financial problems. In 2005, Ellman sold the team and its arena lease to Jerry Moyes, part-owner of the Major League Baseball’s (MLB) Arizona Diamondbacks. The team was still hemorrhaging money, however, and by 2008 it was reported that the NHL was helping the team pay its bills. The league began looking for a buyer for the team. Meanwhile, Moyes was negotiating his own deal. Just before the NHL announced its deal in 2009, Moyes filed for bankruptcy for the team. His intent was to sell the team to Canadian businessperson Jim Basillie, who would buy out the bankruptcy and move the team back to Canada.
After months of hearings, the bankruptcy court ruled that Moyes could not use bankruptcy to avoid the deal he had made with the NHL when it assumed the team’s bills. After several proposed deals fell through, the league indicated its intention to relocate the team to a new market. At the last minute, on July 2, 2013, Renaissance Sports and Entertainment (RSE) agreed to purchase the team. In 2014, the new owners renamed it the Arizona Coyotes because the team was no longer located in Phoenix.
The team’s ownership and financial problems were not resolved, however. Income from parking and other services related to the team was not what the city of Glendale expected. In addition, the team’s owners were named in a suit claiming that they did not fulfill the terms of a $250,000 sponsorship agreement. In October 2014, the owners agreed to sell a majority percentage of the team to Andrew Barroway, a hedge-fund manager from Philadelphia.
In 2015, the city of Glendale tried to terminate its $225-million multi-year agreement with the team on the grounds that two former city employees involved in the negotiations later took jobs with the team. However, this was later resolved. Then, in 2017, Barroway purchased the remainder of the team from the minority shareholders. Barroway eventually sold the majority of the team to Alex Meruelo in 2019 but retained partial ownership.
Notable players
Five players who were members of the team that became the Arizona Coyotes are in the NHL Hall of Fame. They include Hull, Hawerchuk, Serge Savard, Phil Housley, and Teemu Selanne. Hull’s number was retired while the team was in Winnipeg but was worn by his son, Brett Hull, when he joined the Phoenix Coyotes in 2004. The number was retired again after his retirement in 2005. The Jets also retired the number worn by Swedish-born center Thomas Steen. Both Hull’s and Steen’s numbers hang from the rafters in the Gila River Arena in the original Jets colors. The team has also retired Hawerchuk’s number in the Southwestern color scheme used by the Coyotes even though he never played in a Coyotes’ uniform. The Coyotes added retired banners for Keith Tkachuk and Teppo Numminen. Shane Doan’s number was retired in early 2019, making him the first player who was only a member of the Coyotes to have his number retired.
Shane Doan, Hawerchuk, Keith Tkachuk hold the top three spots in franchise scoring history. Doan scored 402 goals, Hawerchuk scored 379, and Tkachuk had 323. Selanne set both the team and NHL rookie record for most goals in a season with 72 in 1992–1993. He also recorded the most total points and single-season points by a rookie with 132 in that same year. Housley holds the team record for most assists in a season, with 79, and for most points in a season by a defenseman with 97, both in 1992–1993. Goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov holds the record for most wins in a season with 42. He set this record during the 2009-2010 season.
Bibliography
“Arizona Coyotes.” NHL.com, 2024, www.nhl.com/coyotes. Accessed 18 Mar. 2024.
“Arizona Coyotes.” Hockey Reference, 2024, hockey-reference.com/teams/PHX/history.html. Accessed 18 Mar. 20204
“Arizona Coyotes Team History.” Sports Team History, 2020, sportsteamhistory.com/arizona-coyotes. Accessed 30 Mar. 2020.
“Coyotes Announce Team Name Will Change to Arizona Coyotes Beginning in 2014–15.” NHL.com, 29 Jan. 2014, www.nhl.com/coyotes/news/coyotes-announce-team-name-will-change-to-arizona-coyotes-beginning-in-2014-15/c-702881. Accessed 30 Mar. 2020.
Drager, Derek C., and Kelvin Tiemstra. “Winnipeg Jets.” Canadian Encyclopedia, 31 July 2018, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/winnipeg-jets. Accessed 30 Mar. 2020.
“History of the Winnipeg Jets.” CTV News, 10 Mar. 2011, winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/the-history-of-the-winnipeg-jets-1.617120. Accessed 30 Mar. 2020.
McIntyre, Mike. "Jets Celebrate History with Class." The Winnipeg Free Press, 5 Oct. 2022, www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/2022/10/04/jets-a-first-class-organization. Accessed 18 Mar. 2024.
Stainkamp, Michael. “A Brief History: Phoenix Coyotes.” NHL.com, 10 Aug. 2010, www.nhl.com/news/a-brief-history-phoenix-coyotes/c-536186. Accessed 30 Mar. 2020.
Suleymanov, Mark. “Shane Doan Becomes First Player in Coyotes History to Have Number Retired.” Sporting News, 25 Feb. 2019, www.sportingnews.com/us/nhl/news/arizona-coyotes-shane-doan-first-player-franchise-history-number-19-retired-nhl-new/1bo6sqsegsqw81kkb6yzkmryy1. Accessed 30 Mar. 2020.