Somehow I don't think there would be too big of an uproar if they were to leave. Tbo would probably be a better gauge of this, but hockey never seemed to catch on there, which isn't that surprising. My dad laughed when he first heard that a team was relocating to Arizona.
youth hockey is actually rather successful here ( I was in the AZ youth hockey system from ages 7-15)
as for the coyotes, their problem is media coverage and attendance
media coverage, for alot of years, the coyotes only played on the local WB station, and once they moved to FSN, they lost alot of customers. FSN is not in the standard cable package, you have to buy a $15 per month sports package, which really is worthless outside of FSN....shit, I go to school in Tucson, AZ and only 6 of our football team's games were on local tv, and those were on FSN, not basic TV.
2nd: Attendance only increases during playoffs. If you go to a standard Phoenix-Dallas game in AZ during the middle of the season, you can sit lower bowl for under $80 and within 5 rows of the ice for under $100...this is for a division rivalry!!!!
also, they have an asinine amount of parking (which is good), but it is absolutely free....honestly they should be charging for parking, that is an insane amount of revenue.
Location is another thing. Glendale isn't really metro phoenix.
I grew up and went to high school literally down the street from jobing.com arena. It is a smooth 30-45 minute drive via freeway from downtown phoenix and is really in the middle of nowhere. The richest parts of town (Scottsdale) where the Coyotes should be marketing is an easy 1-1.5 hour trip to the stadium. Also don't forget that Arizona has a huge % of its population in Tucson (2.5 hours away) and Flagstaff/Sedona (3-4 hours away)...Flag and Sedona is also a big money pit they can't market due to the stadium being too far away.
The final problem is that Arizona is a retirement community for snowbirds. the only, and I mean ONLY time a regular season game is sold out is for the Blackhawks and Red Wings...thats it. That's because their fans all retired here.
).
