Tonight the Wild take on the Arizona Coyotes in Glendale, AZ. The Arizona Coyotes, formerly the Phoenix Coyotes, are an absolute dumpster fire. Everything that could possibly go wrong for a sports franchise is going wrong for the Coyotes. The team is terrible, they’ve been penalized for breaking draft rules, they drafted a racist bully with their highest pick in 2020, staff have reported that the owner has established a toxic workplace, the team reportedly has vast outstanding debt, and they are being evicted from their arena at the end of the season. I apologize if you passed out from how long that sentence was. But it should exemplify how much of a dumpster fire the Coyotes franchise is.
On the Ice
Twelve games into the season the Coyotes have one win…Yes, one win. For those of you that are math wizards, that means they have eleven losses. This is monumentally awful. Every few years NHL teams play pre-season games in Europe, generally winning around 65-70% of these games. Based on this statistic it seems that the Coyotes could be replaced by a team such as the Vaxjo Lakers of Sweden and it would increase the competitiveness of the league. Some fans have accused the Coyotes of actively trying to lose, and in a league that sees the most competitive balance of any major American sports league, it is hard not to agree with them.
Draft Penalties
Leading up to the 2020 NHL draft the Arizona Coyotes illegally tested prospects. The NHL made an example of the Coyotes and stripped their 2020 2nd round pick, and 2021 1st round pick. The NHL most likely would have taken their 1st in 2020, but the Coyotes had already traded that away in a package for Taylor Hall. The deal for Taylor Hall exemplified the dumpster fire of Arizona, as he refused to re-sign with them after playing only half a season with them. The picks stripped from the Coyotes pushed them further against a wall of having zero talent in the cupboard. The Coyotes have traditionally been one of the worst drafting teams in the NHL, and having their lottery tickets taken away was an arrow that the franchise could not afford.
Mitchell Miller Pick
As an example of the Coyote’s awful draft practices, when they did finally get to pick in 2020, a pick that came in the 4th round, they selected Defenseman Mitchell Miller. Mitchell Miller isn’t an awful hockey player, but he is an awful human being. As a teenager, Miller was convicted in juvenile court of severely bullying an African-American classmate with developmental disabilities. The facts of the matter are enough to make someone cringe, and have been reported on extensively.
Miller’s actions as a teen go well beyond teenage antics. The family of the victim have also expressed numerous times that Miller never has apologized to the victim. This fact cements the irredeemability of Miller’s character. Every other NHL team passed over Miller through more than three rounds of picks due to their knowledge of his character, but not the Coyotes. After a massive backlash the Coyotes relinquished the rights to Miller, pushing their top pick of 2020 into the 5th round.
Toxicity and Financial Ruins
The Miller pick might be a sign of owner Alex Meruelo’s state of mind, as in February of this year it was reported that Meruelo has created a toxic work environment within the Coyote’s organization. Meruelo supposedly is known to berate employees. Sometimes very small things, or in response to people giving him advice. But why should Meruelo take advice from someone? He is running a team that won a hockey game once and only loses millions of dollars a year.
The Coyotes filed for bankruptcy in 2009, and they have been struggling to pay vendors since well before then. It has been speculated that the Coyotes are the loss-leading (on the ice and financially) franchise in the NHL. Consistently outspending their earnings, leading to massive debts. While the Vegas Golden Knights figured out how to make a profit in the desert days into their existence, the Coyotes are 25 years into the process of exemplifying every single way not to do things.
Coyotes to be Homeless?
Alongside the Coyotes financial woes, the city of Glendale, AZ has announced that they will not be renewing the Coyotes lease on Gila River Arena at the end of the season. Despite having nothing lined up to occupy the 17,000+ seat venue, Glendale is indicating that they prefer playing host to a ghost town over the Coyotes. While cities around North America are clamoring for an NHL team, leadership in Glendale is hiding from the franchise like they are Freddy Krueger. How bad does a major sports franchise have to be run for a city to say “GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!”? Well we now know that the answer is that franchise has to be run as poorly as the Arizona Coyotes.
It is unknown what will happen to the Coyotes at the end of the season when they no longer have a home. It is possible that the Coyotes move to the Footprint Center, home of the NBA’s Suns, while they await a new arena. The Coyotes played at this venue until 2003, but the venue was built for basketball and supposedly has awful sightlines for hockey. There are also rumblings that the Suns do not want to share a venue with the Coyotes.
On the bright side for the Coyotes, there is a proposed $1.7B project in Tempe that would include a new arena for the Coyotes. This development is far from approved though. The proposed site is dripping with irony, as it is literally a landfill. Yes, the Coyotes could be moving to a true home soon, a landfill, a massive dumpster. The only question the city of Tempe will be asking themselves if they decide to adopt the Coyotes is whether the franchise will be any less of an eye sore than the trash dump that exists on that site today.
Conclusion
Thank you for taking the time to learn about the most poorly run franchise in hockey (or all sports?). If you ever gain control of a professional sports franchise, take solace in the fact that you will not be the worst franchise in sports, unless you make a serious effort to usurp that title from the Coyotes. Hopefully the NHL comes to their senses and sends the Coyotes to Quebec to bring back the Nordiques. Comment below on what the Coyotes should do next to continue their history of poor management! All views in this article reflect the author at the time of writing. Expressed views are not the views of Ten Thousand Sports.
