One Fan's Perspective

My apologies to Sting.

The remarkable issue from last night’s game against the Ottawa Senators is not the fact the Coyotes have a four game winning streak, second one of the season, or that they finally beat the Senators (the last time coming in 2002), or that they are six games above .500 (sixth in the conference), or even the fact that this time last year they were a measly 13-14-2.  No, it’s not any of those things.

What we had was that a team that has been in financial trouble twice in their history, playing against another that has had the same misfortune.

Can you guess which one is which?

Well, if you are aware of history (see the link above – whether the song fits, I don’t care, I just liked it), the Ottawa Senators, as a hockey franchise has been around a long time.  Sure, the new version was the result of expansion (some say southern) of 1992 that brought the Tampa Bay Lightning into the NHL at the same time.  However, the Ottawa Senators has been around for many, many decades.

Starting with the NHL in its inception, as history will tell us, that the Senators were around long before the NHL was a figment of anyone’s imagination; the Ottawa Senators helped found the league back in 1917.  They were a pretty successful franchise having won multiple Stanley Cups between 1918 – 1927.

Then, disaster struck.  In the first expansion to the United States, coupled with an economic depression, the Ottawa Senators could not turn a profit and ended up closing the team in 1934, and would not be resurrected until 1992.

The economic conditions still did not improve, even with the newly formed Senators.  The Senators were a very competitive team, but then it turns out that they filed for bankruptcy protection in 2003.  It looks like they were having attendance issues then as well.  It didn’t matter if the team was winning or losing, people just didn’t want to come see the Senators play.  The team was a complete financial mess.

Eugene Melnyk rescued the team by purchasing them soon after the club entered bankruptcy, and the links between these two franchises, the Senators and the Coyotes, continue to grow thicker.

Jim Balsillie, the Canadian businessman who wanted to uproot the Coyotes and transport them to Canada, had thoughts about the Ottawa Senators as well.  We learned this summer that Balsillie tried the same tactics that he used with the Coyotes with the Senators.  Eugene Melnyk felt then that Balsillie was not conducting himself properly noting,

“And I told him right off the bat that I thought it was … that it’s not the way you go about things. There’s a professional way. You meet other owners, you get to know the business, but you don’t … I don’t think you knock the door down to try to get a team.

“I think the way they have gone about it has got to be the most bizarre way of trying to enter professional sports.”

quoted in The Star

So, what happened?  Four years later, the Senators went to the Stanley Cup Finals only to lose in five games to the Anaheim Ducks.  Could that happen here?  Not sure, but anything is possible.  The best part is the Coyotes have been playing excellent hockey and may be the NHL’s best kept secret.

What still persists is the perception that the market does not work down here.  Well, it initially didn’t work in Ottawa either, but that team didn’t move anywhere.  It would have been extra painful if it had.  For some reason though, the critics don’t seem remember those times, the time when the Canadiens were struggling, the Senators, the Canucks, and so on and so on.

When the Coyotes arrived here, they were in the playoffs, the building was full (even when it wasn’t built very well for hockey), and people had a buzz about the team.  Now?  Losing breeds contempt and the casual fans don’t want to be jilted again.  Couple that with a horrible economy that Arizona has, the situation gets even more bleak.

Canada lost two of their teams to the lower 48, the Quebec Nordiques and the Winnipeg Jets.  Now, with a franchise that had history, that had a renewal, it looked very bleak and it could have changed the business of hockey.  Commissioner Gary Bettman didn’t wrangle the Ottawa Senators from the market, he waited until the situation resolved itself.  With Melnyk, it had.

These articles north of the border documenting the attendance woes of the Coyotes franchise doesn’t help matters in changing the perception (of course, fans filling the building would help more).  What’s lacking down here is an owner because thanks to Balsillie and company, they wrecked what was already a challenging market.  The fans need to know that they are staying here and the only way to insure that is to have an owner to purchase the team with that commitment in mind.

The best thing that the players can do is to continue winning hockey games.

Tags: Financials, Gary Bettman, Hockey, Jim Balsillie, NHL, Ottawa Senators, Phoenix Coyotes, Sports Industry by pbcoyotes
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If I had loads of cash, or knew close friends that could spare some, I would buy a hockey team.  I wouldn’t be like that guy Daniel Snyder, who a) thinks he’s never wrong and b) manages his team like some fantasy league.  No, I would hire people who know what they are doing and let them do it.

We all know that the NHL owns the Phoenix Coyotes and is trying to sell them (hopefully to the most competent owner(s) that has/have a large sum of cash).  Since they hadn’t hit up Craig’s List yet, I’m sure those that want to buy the team can.

First up, the second most talked about group (I would say that the Jerry Reinsdorf plan was the first), has been Ice Edge holdings.  According to Sportsnet, they meet with the NHL on Monday.  The Ice Edge group has had interviews with many different media outlets.  The one group that impressed me was their interview/story found on NPR.  One of my colleagues at work heard that story on her way to work and since I’m all about the hockeys, she asked me about it.  I quickly filled her in – she had no idea that happened (of course, she doesn’t fall sports at all but that’s the take of the general person out here and I would guess everywhere with those that aren’t sports fans like us).

Anyway, my favorite quote is from Darryl Jones, the COO of Ice Edge.

“Four and a half million people? Yeah, it doesn’t take too many hockey fans of that four and a half million to make the team succeed.”

I’m still not sure how the idea of playing assorted games in Canada would go over here with the current fan base given the vitriolic nature of certain Canadian fans who troll message boards of AZCentral (and elsewhere) showing their worst side of themselves.  They say they are committed though to keeping the team out here for the long term.

Next up, a recent development regarding a Montreal citizen wanting to buy the Coyotes appeared in my RSS reader two days or so ago.  It turns out that the storied franchise of the Montreal Canadiens were up for sale in 2000.  Steve Stotland thought he had them and lost the purchase to George Gillett.

Here’s the salient point of the article, according to Stotland:

“They were losing $14 million, the arena was at 70-per-cent capacity, the team was in fifth or sixth place, not competitive, and the dollar was at $1.60. Everybody initially said: ‘Aw, here comes the cowboy.’ But look at what (Gillett) did. Isn’t this a similar situation? This team, nobody wants it. But I want it.”

Which brings up another point for me.  When people up there talk about how hockey works perfectly in their neck of the woods, that we here in the Valley just don’t get it, people don’t care about the team or the games, the storied franchise of the Montreal Canadiens had the same problems filling the arena as we supposedly do.  They were losing money (compare the economies and I wonder if it’s at the same rate?), and the team was just downright awful.

Yes, the Montreal-freaking-Canadiens.  When the Green Bay Packers blew chunks in the 1980s, they still sold out Lambeau Field every game.

Apples and Oranges?  Perhaps.

I’ve long since written that teams that lose, lose their fan base.  The casual fan in a new market with many choices won’t go to see a loser.  What’s worse, it turns out that the Coyotes have had inept leadership at the very top, losing more money on bad decisions.

Other Canadian teams in dire financial straits?  Greg Wyshynski over at Puck Daddy reminds us that the Ottawa Senators had similar difficulties.  (Scroll down a bit though, he catalogs the top 10 stories of the decade as well – it’s a good read.)

The point?  I’m confident that the Coyotes will be sold to an ownership group that is committed to making this thing work.  Attendance is improving, considering the bad economy out here, and the Coyotes will stay put.  During the darkest hours of the summer, I had my doubts, but now it looks like it just might get done.

Go Coyotes, beat the Ducks.  Keep your heads up (literally…seriously…elbows fly over there).  Win more games.

Tags: Financials, Future Concerns, Hockey, Ice Edge Holdings, NHL, Phoenix Coyotes, Sports Industry, Steve Stotland by pbcoyotes
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“We really have not looked at selling the franchise.”

Jeff Shumway, Phoenix Coyotes’ CEO, quoted in the Arizona Republic

So, we can end all speculation about the Coyotes leaving the Valley. In fact, Gintonio shares the information I wrote about yesterday (and I wrote about six months ago) about what the financial hit would be if the Coyotes broke their lease with the city of Glendale, Arizona. Funny that no one else outside of the Valley realized that; I guess denial is not just a river in Egypt. The Coyotes left Winnipeg to come here and they are not leaving any time soon.

Plus, we have it straight from Mr. Shumway that they hadn’t looked into selling the franchise to anybody, and that includes Mr. Balsillie.

What disturbed me about the articles written in the The Globe and Mail was their numbers they passed around regarding the money losses of the Coyotes. The $30 Million figure was two seasons ago. Plus, the implication that the Coyotes should be sold (or will be sold perhaps) to a different person or ownership group. The impending sale of the Coyotes looks to be erroneous as well and according to the piece written by Jim Gintonio, the Coyotes’ financial picture improved 20 percent. It’s not a lot, but it’s a start in the right direction.

So, our Canadian friends can speak about how horrible this place is down here and that we are not hockey literate. But the fans will come in the building when the winning becomes the expectation rather than the exception. It’s the way it goes with every sports team – people want to be around winners.

The Coyotes surprised many last season. Next year, they will surprise many more.

Tags: Financials, Hockey, NHL, Phoenix Coyotes by pbcoyotes
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