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I was looking forward to attending my first Coyote game next season, but it looks like that won't be happening. As an outsider looking in, it appears Phoenix doesn't really care much for hockey or baseball (or the Cards unless they're doing well) which is pretty sad. Oh well, at least we still have the Suns.
I don't know which city in Ontario is going to end up with the Coyotes, but whoever it is they will be making more money than they ever did in Phoenix. Those Canadians and their hockey
I was looking forward to attending my first Coyote game next season, but it looks like that won't be happening. As an outsider looking in, it appears Phoenix doesn't really care much for hockey or baseball (or the Cards unless they're doing well) which is pretty sad. Oh well, at least we still have the Suns.
I don't know which city in Ontario is going to end up with the Coyotes, but whoever it is they will be making more money than they ever did in Phoenix. Those Canadians and their hockey
I might have to agree with you about hockey in Phoenix. I don't think we're ready for it.
That was because the Cubs were in town (and that is still low for having the Cubs in town)...So no, that is not a good attendance figure. Take away the cubs and the average attendance is maybe 25,000...
That was because the Cubs were in town (and that is still low for having the Cubs in town)...So no, that is not a good attendance figure. Take away the cubs and the average attendance is maybe 25,000...
Point taken.
Maybe if they reduced the price of those $10 beers.....
Some of you may know I relocated from Boston, Ma to Phoenix, AZ in March of 2008. For those of you who think people don't think there are hockey fans here... Your dead wrong.
Canadians are coming here by the boat load. Almost everyone I meet is from the North, or North East. It seems like everyone I talk to is from Canada, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, or Massachusetts.
All of these new comers are familiar with hockey, and some of them truly love the sport. There are TONS of hockey fans here. Want proof.. Go to a game when the Red Wings are in town. 100% full house. It may be that way for other teams too. I'm not 100% sure. I know I went to a game when the Sharks were in town and it must have been 90% packed.
I think AZ natives for the most part are fair-weather fans, but truly enjoy winning teams. The Suns draw a great crowd when things are going good. Same thing with the DBACKS. The Cardinals were the joke of the league until they made last years run. Now they are the hottest team in town.
I think there are a few problems down here. I hardly ever see Coyote's games on TV. Phoenix really needs its own version of NESN. There is no reason why every Coyote game shouldn't be televised. (Maybe they are, and I'm just a damn moron and can NEVER find them on TV... But I don't think so)
Another issue is arena location. They put the jobing.com Arena in the West Valley. I live in the East Valley.. As do MANY hockey fans out here. As do MOST of the new comers to Arizona. As do 90% of all ASU students. Getting out to the Jobing.com arena during weekday rush hour traffic is tough.
They really need to start winning. Most teams in this league struggle when they aren't winning. If there was 1 good thing about the Dave Lewis era.. It was going to a game for $10 and sitting ANY WHERE you wanted. Some of those crowds were down right embarrassing.. but for good reason.
I think the Coyotes really could be VERY SUCCESSFUL if they could some how put together a few winning seasons, and maybe even a good playoff run. Also, the team needs to pull off some clever marketing. The arena is located at a place called West Gate. It's a fun area, but it's literally located in the middle of no where.
There is a hockey arena, a foot ball stadium, a ton of bars/restaurants/clubs, stores, and a movie theatre surrounded by farm fields. The team needs to work with these other places at west gate, and work together. If you go to west gate with a Coyotes ticket stub. You get to see a free movie. You don't pay cover charges at the bars. You get a 10% discount at Westgate retailers/restaurants. Give the fan GREAT incentives to not only see a game, but to drive all the way out to Westgate.
Also, I think it would help if a lot of the home games were on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and any holiday where most people have the day off.
I hope they decide to keep the team in Phoenix, and get serious about winning, and giving the fan good reason to show up for the games. It wont be easy, but in the end, i believe it would be worth it.
30,000 for a Tuesday night game with the Cubs...that is a low number and the stadium looked very empty...with more Cub fans in attendance no doubt
I don't see why people would support the hockey team in DT when even the D Backs are having issues...
Please don't drag the Diamondbacks into this mess. They are doing just fine. Here is a link to attendance figures. Overall MLB attendance is down 4.4% so far over last year. Dbacks attendance per game so far is 28,404. That is better than 2006, about even with 2007 and about 8.3% below last year's overall average when they spent most of the season in first place. Given that school is not out yet, the state of the economy, 6 games against the Colorado Rockies and their inability to send home runners in scoring position, not too shabby, hardly a "ghost town".
Have you driven by SkySong at night? It's doesn't much to figure out what is going on there when the lot is empty and you see two random cars pull up to one another and they get out and "talk" to one another.
. . .
The NHL has not stated they want the team to stay here.
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The kind of crime you describe can happen in any office building parking lot at night. And probably does. That alone, IMO, does not make Los Arcos "an area of crime and blight". Would it have been a better location for the arena? Yes, most certainly. But it takes more than that to make the team a winner so that they really draw the crowds in this fickle sports town. And, Scottsdale had the right to turn it down.
And the NHL commissioner did make such a statement, as it was reported today. The NHL has been pushing this concept of placing teams in nontradiitional markets for a long time (Phoenix, Nashville, Florida) and they haven't backed off it yet. I know this Commissioner isn't held in the highest esteem, so what you choose to believe from his statement is, I suppose, up to you.
We all saw this coming but as a hockey fan, I'm truly saddened by this. Nothing against the west side, but the move to Glendale truly killed this team because most of the valley's hockey fans live in the east valley and it was too difficult to drive all the way to the west side during week days. Football works on the west side because the games are played on Sundays so we don't mind driving because we are not working. However, it was just impractical to drive from Chandler to Glendale during rush hour just to make it to a hockey game. I really blame the Scottsdale city council. If they built the hockey stadium at Los Arcos, the team would probably still be here. Now look at Los Arcos. It's become a blight and an area of crime that brings down south Scottsdale. Imagine if there had been a first class hockey stadium. That area is much more dense in terms of population due to its proximity to downtown Phoenix and Tempe and it would have attracted more fans. Unfortunately, we will probably never again get a hockey team in my lifetime because this franchise failed.
I am very saddened and rather ticked off about this as well ... and I'm not even much of a hockey fan. However, for the past ten years, I have been proud that the Phoenix metro area has been home to all four professional sports franchises. This is something that many other U.S. cities cannot claim fame to.
Although I think Westgate Center itself was developed well, I have always been completely opposed to the Coyotes and the Cards being located in the west Valley. It was a huge mistake to place this huge complex in the middle of vacant land & cotton fields, and so far away from anything centrally located. But the sprawl lovers and many in the west Valley all said that we should "give it a little more time" to develop further, and it would have a substantial vibe within a short time. Well, that "further development" has yet to occur. It still looks the same out there as it did three or four years ago: a sprawling complex with large swaths of vacant land surrounding it!
So I agree with you, and also with YAZ that the Coyotes should have been located either in the east Valley where most of the fan base is, or in downtown Phoenix where it would have been more of a central location. But the people who complained the loudest that the west Valley was always being left out finally got their way ... and look at the result: no more NHL team in the Valley. A large chunk of Westgate will be flushed down the toilet as a result of this, and it all happened less than five years after Westgate was completed. I hope all the sprawl freaks are happy!
Our fans have been unfairly maligned as being fairweather or not good sports fans. Look, the reality is a large percentage of our population is transient meaning they are fans of other teams first. Suddenly you are asking a Cubs fan to become a Diamondbacks fan, a Packers fan to become a Cardinals fan, a Lakers fan to become a Suns fan etc. Sorry but those fans are not going to abandon their allegiance to their former team and become diehards of the local teams. This is why you don't see fans support teams unless they win. So it's not that we don't have great sports fans here but yes, it's going to take time until the transplants have kids who grow up supporting the local teams who are true fans.
Furthermore, Phoenix may be the 5th largest city but it's the 13th largest metro. In other words, it's a lot easier to support a team when you have another 2 million people. A lot of cities that are smaller than Phoenix have much larger metro population to draw from. The cities that we get compared to(Chicago, LA, New York, Boston) have a much larger population overall.
The Suns vs D-backs comparisons are foolish. 25 K people per night is pretty good if you ask me especially in a city in which people don't live in downtown. To get that many people to deal with rush hour after work to attend a baseball game means this city has a lot of great fans. On the weekends, the crowds usually approach 30K. The difference is Chase Field holds more people and thus it makes it look bad when we don't sell 40K seats.
Let's touch upon the owners. Unlike owners in other cities with deep pockets, the Phoenix owners are not these gazillionaires who can buy whatever free agents they want. We have to win on a budget. Unlike the Yankees and Dodgers, the D-backs don't have endless amounts of money. The same applied to the Coyotes. The Cardinals have money and are cheap but still, they are not the Cowboys and the Giants in terms of money. Even the Suns can't spend endlessly. Robert Sarver is the managing partner not the sole owner like Mark Cuban( Mavericks) and Jerry Buss(Lakers) and his group paid over 400 million for the Suns so the Suns too have to now win on a budget. You can thank Jerry Colangelo for bailing on the team and cashing out. I love Jerry Colangelo but he took the easy way out in regards to the Suns and sold the team to an owner (Sarver) who could barely afford the team.
I used to watch Coyotes games when they played in downtown. It was a much different environment. They used to sell out at least 15 games a year at America West arena (U.S. Airways arena now). The move to Glendale hurt this team. As BenchWarmer mentioned, the majority of the hockey fans in the valley live in the East Valley and those fans were simply not able to drive all the way to Glendale during a weekday. However, when they were in downtown, a lot of people could catch a game after work including yours truly. It was just a bad move. There was a lot of hockey buzz at the time and after the move to Glendale, the buzz ended. I remember when we had Jeremy Roenik and Keith Tkachuk on the team. It was just a very different vibe.
Nonetheless, sorry for this rant but it bothers me when people make ignorant generalizations about our sports environment when they are not active in it and truly have no clue about our sports scene. Thus far, I've read some comments suggesting that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Valley Native
I am very saddened and rather ticked off about this as well ... and I'm not even much of a hockey fan. However, for the past ten years, I have been proud that the Phoenix metro area has been home to all four professional sports franchises. This is something that many other U.S. cities cannot claim fame to.
So I agree with you, and also with YAZ that the Coyotes should have been located either in the east Valley where most of the fan base is, or in downtown Phoenix where it would have been more of a central location. But the people who complained the loudest that the west Valley was always being left out finally got their way ... and look at the result: no more NHL team in the Valley. A large chunk of Westgate will be flushed down the toilet as a result of this, and it all happened less than five years after Westgate was completed. I hope all the sprawl freaks are happy!
You can't criticize the west valley. Scottsdale flaked on the Coyotes; that NIMBY city council was more afraid of the congestion the Coyotes stadium would cause than the perceived development; I remember hearing the arguments at the time and their decision not to approve had little if anything to do with development and everything to do with the NIMBY mantra of preserving peace. And no city in the East Valley wanted to pay for a stadium. As with the Cardinals, the only city who volunteered to build stadiums to keep our teams was Glendale. Glendale should be admired for being the only city with any initiative to do what the rest of the valley was too afraid to do. The NIMBY's in the East Valley are crying now but they didn't want the stadium in their backyard. You can't blame Glendale for that.
Last edited by azriverfan.; 05-07-2009 at 09:58 AM..
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