A Maricopa County supervisor is trying to bring NHL back to metro Phoenix. There’s a way to make it possible.
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The Republic
Attention all American billionaires (there are 902 of you)!
Maricopa County Chairman Thomas Galvin wants your business.
Specifically, he wants you to buy Arizona a professional hockey team. And he’s formed a new committee to make the pitch.
That might not sound appetizing based on recent history.
We had a team – the Arizona Coyotes – until April 2024 when former owner Alex Meruelo sold it to Utah for $1.2 billion.
That sale followed a series of less-than-investment-inspiring events. Ownership changes. Abandoned arenas. Past due rent to the city of Glendale.
And of course in May 2023, the voters of Tempe rejected a ballot proposal – 56% to 44% – that would have allowed the Coyotes to turn a landfill into a $2.1 billion entertainment district and hockey stadium.
I was Maricopa County Recorder at the time of that election, and I distinctly remember that night at the Maricopa Tabulation and Election Center where we tabulated the Tempe ballots. I had assumed that the Coyotes would win because the renderings of the planned stadium looked pretty slick and because the Coyotes spent $700,000 on the campaign versus the $35,000 spent by Lauren Kuby’s grassroots opposition gang.
When we released the initial results on Tuesday night, it was the first time, and only time, that I thought the ballot tabulation machines might have messed up. Not the 2020 presidential election. Not the 2022 gubernatorial election. Not the 2024 presidential election. But the Coyote’s arena election in which it seemed like David beat Goliath.
But after the ubiquitous post-election tabulation assessment, and the hand-count audit of the paper ballots, I had to accept the facts: the voters of Tempe really preferred their landfill over a Coyotes arena.
Galvin wants to make sure this embarrassment will never happen again. He wants to build support for a future Coyotes team from the bottom up. That’s why in late September he announced an advisory committee to begin the ground work of coalescing and building community support for a future iteration of the Arizona Coyotes.
Galvin has recruited star power to lead the effort: Andrea Doan, the wife of Coyotes-legend Shane Doan and mother to former Coyotes player Josh Doan, as well as former Olympic hockey player Lyndsey Fry.
The committee not only has to prove there’s enough of an Arizona market to lure a hockey-enthusiastic billionaire, but the group also has to show the NHL that Arizona deserves a second chance. Galvin said that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is enthusiastic about the effort, but that his new committee has to offer proof; “we have to earn it.”
It could be the type of effort that will take five or more years. It’s the type of effort that requires a religious-like zeal.
For Andrea Doan, she’s already there. She said Arizona is “not going to feel complete until the team is back here. And I don’t care if I have to wait until I’m like 80-years-old. We’re going to work hard on this and it’s gonna be back.”
As for Galvin, he said losing the team was “a reputational hit on Arizona,” as well as an economic loss, and with Phoenix being the fifth largest city in the United States, “to not have one of the four major sports, I just think is really weird.”
In addition to a grassroots army of hockey enthusiasts, Galvin says another key ingredient is a “suitable location for a world class arena.”
As for what a location should offer?
“You need to be near a downtown core. You need to have good access to highways. You also need to be near your fanbase … And what the Coyotes realized was their fanbase was not out in Glendale. They’re in downtown and the east valley.”
Given these needs and given taxpayer skepticism toward any significant public funding for an arena, there might be only one solution: co-habitate in an upgraded arena with the Phoenix Suns.
Happily, this seems possible.
Suns owner Mat Ishbia has shown a commitment to Arizona and a willingness to invest big money in downtown Phoenix. He also says he wants to be a part of the effort to bring the Coyotes back.
“If I can help bring hockey back, I’ll look at that. It’s a four-sport town. I’m disappointed we don’t have a hockey team.”
And it doesn’t have to be charity from Ishbia and Suns. According to Ishbia, “at some point we’re going to have to get a new arena [for the Suns].”
Perhaps a prospective NHL owner could partner with Ishbia to finance such a new arena, hockey-rink included.
All-in-all, it’s a tall task. But Maricopa County is the fourth largest county, Phoenix is fifth largest city, and Arizona is 14th largest state.
We can do big things.
Stephen Richer is a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and former Maricopa County recorder.
