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Crazy Luigi's Crazy Thoughts - The Phoenix Coyotes' Relocation Wars Are Finally Over!

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On July 2, 2013, the Glendale City Council nearby Phoenix, Arizona had a meeting discussing the ultimatum in either allowing the Phoenix Coyotes to be sold to the Canadian owned Renaissance Sports & Entertainment or move to either Seattle or Québec to begin a new NHL season. It took a whole lot longer than any fan would initially want to see for a final decision, but in the end, the Glendale City Council barely decided on a 4-3 vote that the Phoenix Coyotes would accept Renaissance Sports & Entertainment's offer of staying in Arizona for around 10-15 years, depending on whether the product gains enough money to warrant its $225 million price or not. When looking at price points, it's not really the best deal to see yourself in (at least, in terms of professional sports teams). However, if you knew what the Coyotes had to work with over the last 4-5 years, you'd be lucky that they even got a deal at all, let alone some sort of stability in the first place!

To understand why I said such a thing, let's take a quick look back at 2009. After the Coyotes' 2008-09 season ended, the team's old owner, Jerry Moyes, ended up filing the team for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, as well as try to sell the team to a new owner named Jim Balsillie (best known for making those BlackBerry smartphones) that would have moved the team to Canada. However, before trying to sell the team, the bankruptcy courts under control did not allow the move to occur due to him not only have improper power to move the team, but his deadline did not allow the courts to resolve all the issues involved with that case. In addition, both Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf and some company called Ice Edge Holdings lead by someone named Anthony LeBlanc were emerging as potential owners, but neither one were considered acceptable at the time due to not having bids put on the Coyotes during the case. As a result, the NHL itself decided to take care of the situation by being temporary owners of the team (by buying the team for $140 million) and retaining its debts until further notice. Oh, if only everyone knew how long that further notice would be pushed...

Once the NHL finally ended up buying the team off of its former owner, the Coyotes would actually end up becoming much better with the absence of an individual owning them and instead having limitations based off of the league's own rules. Instead of continuing being a joke of an NHL franchise, they ended up actually making it to the playoffs in each of the full seasons the Coyotes ended up playing under during the NHL's tenure as an owner. In fact, the only time when the Coyotes didn't make it was when the NHL had a lockout between its owners and players (again), only this one actually cut into a few games and not an entire season. Beyond that, it actually not only lead to them making it to the playoffs for the first time since 2002, but it also helped them become what they never were beforehand, not even when they were the Winnipeg Jets: division champions and Stanley Cup contenders! It's during this time the story really gets interesting.

Remember the two potential owners from earlier? They came back with a vengeance, being really desperate to get the NHL's attention to warrant a sale towards them, with Ice Edge signing a letter of intent to the NHL and Jerry Reinsdorf winning over the city of Glendale. However, by the end of the 2009-2010 season, neither owner really got what they wanted from the NHL and resigned from their attempts on owning the team for themselves, regardless on whether the team would move or not. What tended to make things even worse for the Coyotes was that the NHL ended up threatening to move the team back to Winnipeg if no one wanted to buy the Coyotes by December 31, 2010, much to the joy of old Jets fans everywhere not in Arizona. However, a new Chicago businessman during the 2010-11 season decided to enter the fold to stop their plans: Matthew Hulsizer.

Matthew Hulsizer had a group of multiple investors involved with his plan to help buy the Phoenix Coyotes and help them stay in the city of Glendale with a good plan: give the NHL $100 million to buy the team from them and use some of that money to help pay the city of Glendale to help pay for the team's Jobing.com Arena. Both the city and the NHL liked the plan, and they decided to agree to keep them there after all. Unfortunately, there was one thing that threw a monkey wrench towards that plan: a group called the Goldwater Institute thinking they're ripping off the town off of their money. That group named after former U.S. presidential candidate Barry Goldwater is a taxpayer advocacy group, and they felt that Hulsizer and his investors are screwing over the city's taxpayers. As a result, the institute decided to challenge their agreement in court and Hulsizer ultimately decided not to take on their challenge and quit on his bid on June 27, 2011.

Because of the fallout caused through the initial deal, the city of Glendale decided to shovel out yet another $25 million bucks to help the team stay in Arizona, which annoyed both the city and the NHL. During this time, the Atlanta Thrashers ended up moving to Winnipeg to become, you've guessed it, the Jets, which makes the Coyotes the holders of the Jets' old history, yet the Jets still exist today with a new identity of sorts. It helped stop one team from being a possible candidate, yet it didn't change the fact that cities like Hamilton, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Kansas City, and even Seattle still wanted to get a team that they would call their own in the NHL. Imagine if you were a player, coach, general manager, or whatever the fuck you want to be as a part of a team facing a looming call of being relocated day after day with no warning on when it happens. That was basically what the Coyotes had to deal with every single day during this period, and this was for at least two years now!

Luckily for both the Coyotes and the NHL, during the 2011-12 season, former San Jose Sharks CEO Greg Jamison lead a plan to keep the Coyotes in Arizona for good. He had the vision required to lead the team forward and help them stay in Glendale permanently. He even wasn't afraid of the Goldwater Institute's threats of them believing his deal would screw around with the taxpayers' money. However, there's good reason for why he wasn't afraid; he (unfortunately) didn't have the money required to help them all out. Yeah, he had the vision, but not the cash that was really required to help make his plans come to fruition. In fact, he was even given until January 31, 2013 to give out the cash that was stopping him from fully owning the team, yet he still couldn't do it!

By this point, fans of the team were feeling really drained and exhausted from all the scenarios wanting the Coyotes to either stay where they are or moving them somewhere else (and liking coming up with a new nickname for them in the process). Honestly, those feeling really felt justified since there were multiple plans involving the Coyotes staying with the state of Arizona, yet for whatever the reason, they could not find a deal that would seal it up once and for all! It doesn't help that there was yet another threat of relocating the team to what would have likely been to either Seattle or Québec if no financial partner that the city of Glendale would agree with would occur. However, one last partner came in from the most unlikeliest of places: a former bidder.

During the lockout shortened 2013 season (no game were played during late 2012), the Coyotes found a Canadian group called Renaissance Sports & Entertainment, which was lead by a banker named George Gossbee and former owner of the Ice Edge Holdings company, Anthony LeBlanc. At first, the city of Glendale was naturally reluctant to have a group from Canada buy the team since it would have likely meant they would have gone to Canada somewhere instead of staying where they are. However, many of the city's citizens saw many deals from American people fall flat before, so why not try and take a chance with a Canadian owned company leading the organization? Especially since they would likely be the only ones with the money and resources needed to make them staying in Glendale at least have a remote possibility of being successful.

This story was just a bunch of "will he or will he not's" that have affected a state and many other cities for almost a half-decade's time. It was a tale where many people suffered along the way, with heroes becoming villains and organizations being jackasses towards a city that just wanted to grow and see hockey succeed in Arizona. Yet at the same time, it was a tale that dragged on for way longer than it should have, and it likely left many people more dissatisfied at its results than pleased. Still, I'm personally just glad that it's all over and that the bullshit about whether the team will stay for the next year or not has a resolution at hand. However, I personally got a headache just remembering all the bullshit that came to where the Coyotes came to be today. If the Phoenix Coyotes require to be more inclusive and have the entire state of Arizona be the representative as opposed to just Phoenix, that's fine by me; it's a much smaller price to pay for me than wasting a fine arena for a team that would leave real soon for a growing city.

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