The Arizona Coyotes will relocate to Salt Lake City, Utah for the 2024-25 season, PHNX Craig Morgan and Sportsnet reported on Friday. The rumor of relocation has been jumpstarted by reports starting as early as Wednesday (April 10). Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith will be purchasing the team to move them.
This will be the first relocation of an NHL team since 2011 when the Atlanta Thrashers relocated to Winnipeg to become the Jets. It is the second major league franchise to be relocated this year, following the Oakland A’s announcement of relocation to Sacramento and eventually to Las Vegas.
Reasons for Relocation
The Coyotes have been in Arizona since 1996 when they relocated from Winnipeg. Since then, the team has had issues. On the ice, they have only made the playoffs a handful of times. Their last appearance was in 2020 when they made it thanks to the expanded playoffs. The team has been through multiple rebuilds which has really hurt fan interest.
The other main issue has been ownership. The Coyotes have been through a variety of owners including the league itself. Each one has struggled to find the team a permanent home in the desert. They have been through three arenas, all of which have had their flaws. Alex Meruelo is its current owner and was the person who moved the team into Mullett Arena: a 4,600-seat arena built for ASU’s NCAA hockey team.
Related: Salt Lake City Is a Good Gamble for the NHL
The team has played in Mullett Arena for the past two seasons while Meruelo searched for a new spot to build an arena and an entertainment complex. Last year, the Coyotes attempted to purchase land from the city of Tempe which has been used as a landfill. However, due to a poor campaign, the public voted not to let Meruelo buy the land.
Arguably, the Tempe vote was the final nail in the coffin for the Coyotes. The poor campaign run by the team let the opposition create lies and deceive the people of the city. It showed that Meruelo couldn’t be trusted by the other owners and the league to secure a future home for the Coyotes.
More recently, the Coyotes committed to purchase land in north Phoenix. However, the auction bid was scheduled for June 27. If the league decided to wait for the auction date and Meruelo failed at purchasing land again, the NHL wouldn’t have time to relocate the team and would have to play another year at Mullett Arena. It’s been clear that the NHL didn’t want the team to play at the small arena and that was another reason why the choice of relocation was made.
The threat of relocation to Salt Lake City has been in the air since January. It has been on the minds of the Coyotes’ players. The infamous 14-game losing streak started around the time the rumors first started popping up.
“It was definitely in our heads,” Clayton Keller said. “You can say it’s not a distraction sometimes, but obviously families, people keep texting, keeping it in your head…”
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City has been rumored to get an NHL team since a couple of months ago when Smith and his ownership group officially asked the league to start the expansion process. The city has a population of 208,656. It does have a professional hockey team in the ECHL called the Utah Grizzlies who have called Salt Lake City home since 2005. It has one major league sports team: the NBA’s Jazz who play out of Delta Center.
The Coyotes will most likely play out of Delta Center for the 2024-25 season. The arena sits around 10,000 for hockey and has hosted NHL preseason games for the past couple of seasons. It will be a temporary solution as Smith has said that he will get an arena that is NHL-suitable. It’s unclear if that means renovating Delta or building a whole new arena. The city is rumored to be in the running for the 2030 Winter Olympics which could bring a new NHL arena with it.
Rumors swirling around the move report that the Coyotes will change their name following the move to Salt Lake City. It’s also been rumored the NHL will own the Coyotes brand and offer Meruelo a five-year window to build an NHL arena and be a front-runner for an expansion team in Phoenix. While both rumors haven’t been made official yet, it’s clear the league wants to have a team in the area.
Relocation Will Affect Many
The relocation is hurting many surrounding it. Many people will lose their jobs within the Coyotes’ organization. It also most likely means their American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Tucson Roadrunners, will be relocated as well. The Roadrunners are owned by Meruelo and most likely will be packed in a sale to Smith. Youth hockey has been thriving in Arizona recently and now without an NHL team, it could spell a decline in participation in the sport.
“I’ll tell you where it has the most impact, we have 31 staff members who don’t have a contract for next year,” head coach Andre Tourigny said. “Those guys have families, some have kids in Phoenix and are divorced, some have a wife or a partner who has a job who will now have to make a decision if the team is moving…Those kinds of things are real, that’s emotion, that’s real life. That’s what we are in.”
Just as big, Coyotes fans will now be without a team in Arizona. Meruelo has been vocal about keeping it in the area. Now, despite Meruelo’s promises, the team will relocate. It will leave a sour taste in the fan’s mouths for sure as the team inches closer to becoming playoff contenders. This season has seen the emergence of young core pieces like Logan Cooley, Dylan Guenther, and Josh Doan. It’s also seen star players like Keller and Lawson Crouse have 20-plus goal seasons. It’s unclear if these players will want to stay with the franchise following a move to Salt Lake City.
“Throughout this whole time, there hasn’t been a lot of discussion on what’s going on I guess, so we just kind of take it day-by-day,” Keller said. “We’ve heard some things here and there and none of them are really true, so we kind of learn from that and like I said learn day-by-day.”
The whole team was addressed by general manager Bill Armstrong before Friday’s game against the Edmonton Oilers. They have been informed the move to Salt Lake City is happening. The organization will be flying players and staff to the city soon to allow them to check out their new home.
While there are still a lot of moving pieces, it’s clear that the end of the Coyotes is here. It’s a story that has spanned over decades and has included multiple relocation threats. However, time and patience have finally run out for the team and the Coyotes will relocate to Salt Lake City after the conclusion of the season.
The Coyotes will play their final home game against the Oilers on Wednesday, April 17. The Roadrunners have clinched a spot in the AHL Playoffs and could be playing their final home games down south past April. It’s expected that the Coyotes will be flying to Salt Lake City to meet Smith and visit their new home shortly after their final regular season game.
