Opinion | Failed arena vote leaves Arizona Coyotes and the NHL in a state of confusion — but what else is new?

It’ll be a facial expression worthy of scrutiny.

For the fresh-faced hockey player selected sixth overall in next month’s NHL draft, what would normally be an occasion for unfettered celebration figures to be accompanied by at least a smidgen of angst-ridden confusion. Barring trades, the sixth overall pick will be made by the Arizona Coyotes. And after Tuesday night saw the franchise’s long-anticipated plan to build a new arena in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe roundly rejected by voters in a local referendum, it’s only reasonable to wonder how much longer Arizona’s eternally-embattled NHL team will even exist — and if so, where.

As in: Congratulations on being drafted, son. Rent, don’t buy. And maybe wait awhile before you sign.

Getting drafted by the Coyotes, after all, is like finding out you’ve got a new home without knowing your new address. Or possibly your new home state. Or maybe even your new home country.

The club, as it currently exists, is essentially a pop-up NHL franchise — as temporary an entity as can exist in a league that’s been around for more than a century. Last season, with what turned out to be the false promise of a shiny new rink in Tempe dangling in the distance, the team got league approval to set up shop in a 4,600-seat college rink on the campus of Arizona State University. It’s expected they’ll play there again this coming season.

And beyond that? Well, that’s where the angsty confusion comes in.

Now that their proposal to build a $2.1-billion (U.S.) entertainment district around a privately funded new rink has been roundly defeated — this after the Coyotes’ commissioned polling that suggested the proposal would easily pass — it’s anyone’s guess what’s next. After 26 years, something like nine different owners, untold millions of losses, one bankruptcy and one trip to the playoffs in the past 11 seasons, the franchise’s possibilities in Arizona appear to be running out.

Given how obviously loath NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has been to give up on the Phoenix market — at one point acting as the de facto CEO after the league took control of the team in the wake of its bankruptcy — it’s been posited that the Coyotes could play at the arena controlled by the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. It’s fathomable. But the problem is the Coyotes would be a tenant in a building owned by someone else, which would only prolong the club’s chronic inability to generate optimal revenue.

It’s also assumed that a pro sports ownership group that leaves its franchise’s future to the whim of local voters would have a viable backup plan in its arsenal. Whether or not he’s got one drawn up, Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo has yet to share the map of his impending change of course.

In the Valley of the Sun, in other words, the future is decidedly cloudy. For as long as it remains an NHL market, the arrangement in Phoenix is a blight on the NHL. It’s not only the little-league optics, but for millions sacrificed in potential hockey-related revenue that’s split 50-50 by owners and players. A financial sinkhole like Arizona, which has been losing tens of millions for years, ultimately puts a drag on the league’s long-stagnant salary cap.

Perhaps there are greener pastures elsewhere.

Could it be Utah? Ryan Smith, an American billionaire who is part owner of the NBA’s Utah Jazz and soccer’s Real Salt Lake, claimed in a social-media post last month that plans are “in motion” to bring an NHL team to Salt Lake City.

Hamilton? The arena formerly known as Copps Coliseum, once tabbed as a landing place for the Coyotes in the days when BlackBerry honcho Jim Balsillie made multiple failed attempts to join the ranks of NHL owners, is slated to undergo an extensive renovation overseen by the company headed by former MLSE CEO Tim Leiweke. But Leiweke has insisted the renovation isn’t being undertaken with an eye on an NHL team.

Quebec City? It’s been most of a decade that the former home of the Nordiques has been watching the junior Remparts at the NHL-ready Videotron Centre. But the idea that Bettman would OK a move north seems a stretch, especially since moving the Coyotes east would ruin the current balance between conferences.

Houston? It’s the largest market currently without an NHL team. And hey, Gordie Howe won two championships there during his time in the WHA.

Kansas City? Long mentioned in these types of discussions, the city’s most famous athlete, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, sent out a social-media post on Wednesday stumping for his town: “KC Coyotes has a nice ring to it!”

Sacramento? Nobody knows why, but apparently it considers itself in the running.

With all that said, it’d be easy enough to call Tuesday’s death of the Tempe deal the beginning of the end of the NHL in Phoenix. Then again, it’s worth remembering that reports of the NHL’s imminent demise in the Arizona desert have been previously exaggerated.

It was only last month that Bettman, who has fought illogically hard to keep the team where it is despite an unending saga of turmoil, boasted that the Coyotes would be set to stay in Arizona “forever” so long as the Tempe project got built.

While Bettman said in a statement that he was “terribly disappointed” in the project’s deep-sixing, he also vowed that the league and the franchise would explore their options. So with talk of relocation swirling, on Wednesday Coyotes president and CEO Xavier A. Guttierrez insisted the team remained committed to finding a permanent home in Arizona.

“We have already started re-engaging with local officials and sites to solidify a new permanent home in the Valley,” Guttierrez said in a statement.

With the draft a little more than a month away, the ongoing search for elusive permanency more than a quarter-century into a shambolic Arizona residency isn’t likely to give the impending sixth overall pick peace of mind when he’s called to the stage in Nashville. What ought to be a moment of unbridled celebration promises to be tinged with a hefty dose of bush-league-worthy confusion. Welcome to the NHL, kid. Definitely rent, don’t buy. And maybe wait awhile before you sign.

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