To write that this is good news would be truly an understatement.  The attendance situation, in my mind, is a direct result of not having an ownership group (the control by the NHL has helped, but it’s not the same) willing to revitalize the brand in the Valley.  Having the Coyotes post a winning record so far hasn’t hurt either.

There are many casual fans out there wondering about the ownership issue and unwilling, at this point, to plunk down cash and invest in a team that, in their minds, “might be gone anyway.”

Darryl Jones said it best with this quote,

“(Fans need to)really believe definitively that the team is not leaving, to be able to open up their hearts again.”

Word….er so true.

People like Heather who fought back against the nay sayers that hockey can’t work here, to the point of setting up a website and an organization to keep everyone focused on the goal.

Or OdinMercer at Five for Howling who, along with Heather, went to court proceedings and reported it for everyone to read, and also had to fight back against those other groups up north that like Schadenfreude.

Or over at Hip Shot where hockey is a passion because it’s the greatest sport on the planet.

Or the other Coyotes blogs that after a summer of potential despair, they can now find even more reasons to be happy, especially as their team is winning.

Note, that I’m not ready to proclaim this as a done deal – far from it.  When they sign the paperwork and take control is only when I will really sigh a relief, because I didn’t want them to go either – I still remember the times when I wondered if I was the only fan of the Coyotes in the blogosphere.

All I’m writing now about this development is that it’s a cool thing to see some movement, and to see some interest in a team that is playing exceptional hockey.  Hopefully, if it does go through, they’ll find ways to generate interest and promote the team that is performing ahead of expectations.

Because hockey can work here.

And then, the entire last season has vanished from the blog.  Well, there are reasons for that.

First off, during last season, I referenced my sojourn through graduate school that heavily conflicted with my full time job, and my overall life.  Before then, I watched and completely consumed hockey.  I followed multiple teams, read multiple blogs, and found myself immersed into the hockey culture we love.

Then, I had to take a break.  Life was just too difficult then.

Then, my busiest summer academically occurred and the next thing I knew, the Phoenix Coyotes were in bankruptcy court.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep up and honestly, I was pretty bummed about the entire ordeal.  Usually, my day job is much slower in the summer – in the past, I could have joined the other Coyotes’ bloggers in their pursuit of the truth (and commiserating in the despair), but I just had to watch from the sidelines and wonder.

Thanks to Save the Coyotes, Five for Howling, and to Hip Shot Blog, I was able to keep up albeit from the sidelines.

Next, when I decided to come back, after my summer of hell was complete, I went to my site, only to find a 500 internal server error.  I called the support service of my hosting company and they stated that there was a .php error.  Many early readers knew that I was a video freak – I liked embedding the scenes of what I was talking about.  Some I took from YouTube, and others I took from elsewhere.  Most likely, it contributed to the internal combustion of the blog as well as to my potential burnout.  I liked showing the video and Panger’s breakdown of what happened.  That will happen much less often this time around, keeping things simple as they say.

So, the only recourse I had was to delete the blog since I had no way to get in and I had no idea how to fix the .php issues I had.  Of course, I didn’t back up anything, and I lost the entire last season.  That’s the way it goes I guess.  It’s not like there was that much there to begin with anyway.

When I started, I was the only one.  Out there in NHL land, I was kicked around pretty good by the average fan, saying that hockey doesn’t work here, Coyotes are not good, and I’m an idiot for following them.  It seems that others are too – par for the course, really.  But when I was far removed from hockey, these other writers took up the charge and held on for dear life.  Even though I wasn’t writing about hockey or the Coyotes, I was reading – feeling the despair and angry about it the whole way.

So, I’m back, just in a different role.  I’ll leave the game previews and the game recaps to the others.  Five for Howling and the community over there does a masterful job with it.  I’ll just add my perspective, here and there, just like the blog title says.